UKRAINE IN THE SCHOOL HISTORY OF PUTIN'S RUSSIA (UNTIL 2021)

The purpose of the study is to show the formation of the image of the history of Ukraine in Russian school textbooks during the presidency of V. Putin (until 2021). The research methodology is based on the methods of historiographical analysis and synthesis. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that for the first time the question of the factors forming the image of the history of Ukraine in the modern Russian school narrative has been systematically covered, and the transformation of its content in recent years (he period of the Russian-Ukrainian war in its hybrid phase) has been analyzed. It is substantiated that the decisive factor in Russian textbook creation in the "Ukrainian question" was and remains the trajectory of the Kremlin's political course and the corresponding anti-Ukrainian historical policy. The main results of the study. Consideration of "Ukrainian" topics in Russian textbooks is subordinated to the logic of the state-imperial narrative of Russian history. Accordingly, firstly, by the 15th century Ukrainians and a separate Ukrainian history for the authors of school textbooks did not exist. Secondly, on the pages of school texts, students are convinced that significant segments of Russian history took place on the territory of modern Ukraine, thus forcing them to believe that modern Russia has a historical right to them Thirdly, although Ukrainians are recognized as a separate ethnic group in school texts published until 2021, their presence on the map of the past is fragmentary and largely distorted.