He says that nations that survive long term tend to have a core territory that they consider "sacred" and will defend at pretty much any cost. The reason is that sooner or later, any piece of territory becomes more expensive to defend than reasonable, and so if it's not sacred, you let it go. Ergo, if you have no sacred territory, then sooner or later you lose *all* of your territory, and you no longer have a country.
Is that what's going on now? Maybe or maybe not. On the one hand, the war is strategic for Russia. On the other hand, Russia was born in Kiev, and so it may be that, for what are right now strategic reasons, Kiev is being transformed into sacred Russian territory and will remain so for the centuries to come. It's too early to tell. (On that note: sacred land only becomes sacred at some point in history. It hasn't been sacred from time immemorial. Hence my assertion that we may be witnessing the *transformation* of Kiev into sacred Russian territory.)
"Historical claims can only ever be excuses, not legitimate reasons - where does one drop the marker and say: "To this year, but not further back"?"
Ah, this immediately made me think of Peter Turchin. Here's one article of his on the subject (from 2014):
https://aeon.co/essays/why-national-honour-trumps-rational-strategy
He says that nations that survive long term tend to have a core territory that they consider "sacred" and will defend at pretty much any cost. The reason is that sooner or later, any piece of territory becomes more expensive to defend than reasonable, and so if it's not sacred, you let it go. Ergo, if you have no sacred territory, then sooner or later you lose *all* of your territory, and you no longer have a country.
Is that what's going on now? Maybe or maybe not. On the one hand, the war is strategic for Russia. On the other hand, Russia was born in Kiev, and so it may be that, for what are right now strategic reasons, Kiev is being transformed into sacred Russian territory and will remain so for the centuries to come. It's too early to tell. (On that note: sacred land only becomes sacred at some point in history. It hasn't been sacred from time immemorial. Hence my assertion that we may be witnessing the *transformation* of Kiev into sacred Russian territory.)