> No.

You are entitled to your opinions, but statement like this doesn't make intellectually curious conversation, to say the least.

> The area got depopulated by Mongols and largely stayed that way due to Crimean Tatars until Grand Duchy of Lithuania started the "Reconquista" in the modern West and Central Ukraine

When you read "depopulated" in history books it doesn't mean mongols literally executed every single man, woman and child and left barren wasteland behind them. Your own Lithuanian sources claim (semi-legendary) battle in early 14th century with Principality of Kiev led by Stanislav of Kiev[0], which is an obvious indication of some form of statehood and military in the region. Unless that guy named "Stanislav" was a just a mongol or tatarin with uncharacteristic name, of course...

> and later Grand Duchy of Moscow pushed south too with it culminating in the Russian Empire completely pushing Crimean Tatars out and taking over most of that territory,

Grand Duchy of Moscow pushing Crimean Tatars out of Kyiv? What?

> and it was gradually repopulated during that process with the Central and East Ukraine mostly with people migrating from Russia.

"The process" where Russia entered the game was actually massive (and successful) Kozak rebellion against Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in lands that you are alleging were "mostly unpopulated" at the time.

> As a result the "funny not-a-true-language" which is very close to the language of Russian peasants

So why don't Russian peasants speak Ukrainian now? Also where did Belarusian language came from? Some other Russian village nearby?

Even Russian scientists/linguists don't entertain that silly "peasant language" notion. You can read summary even on wikipedia[1], but here are some quotes: "According to Lomonosov, the differences that subsequently developed between Great Russian and Ukrainian (which he referred to as Little Russian) could be explained by the influence of the Polish and Slovak languages on Ukrainian and the influence of Uralic languages on Russian from the 13th to the 17th centuries.", "Soviet scholars set the divergence between Ukrainian and Russian only at later time periods (14th through 16th centuries). According to this view, Old East Slavic diverged into Belarusian and Ukrainian to the west (collectively, the Ruthenian language of the 15th to 18th centuries), and Old East Slavic to the north-east, after the political boundaries of the Kyivan Rus were redrawn in the 14th century. ".

Doesn't it surprise you that Lomonosov who was born in early 18th century doesn't immediately recognize Ukrainian as just a language of Russian peasants?

> 100+ years ago Ukranian cities were speaking mostly Russian while villages - Ukranian

Makes sense since Ukrainian-language schools were banned in territories controlled by Russian Empire in 1804. Also, you don't need to go as far as 100+ years ago because Kyiv was overwhelmingly Russian-speaking very recently (I am a Russian-speaking person from Kyiv). Doesn't have anything to do with "peasant language" though.

> I'm half Ukranian myself and watch some modern Ukranian TV including in Ukranian, and i fail to see it as a separate language.

I know a people from Western Ukraine who understand Polish without ever officially studying it. Does it make Polish not a "real" separate language? What about Italian? Language of Roman peasants, perhaps?

> No.

sigh

> The Mongols were generally stopped by forests, mountains and seas. In this case it was forest. Calling Novgorod in particular "unimportant backwater" is strange to say the least.

Isn't (wasn't) Novgorod situated in the marshes and Mongols supposedly stopped just couple of hundred kilometers on their way to it because they didn't want to traverse the marshlands? Anyway, Moscow was an insignificant outpost during Mongol invasion and Grand Duchy of Moscow is what eventually became Tsardom of Russia, not Novgorod.

> Rurik was in the 2nd half of 9th century. There are a lot of unknown about him.

There is nothing that is really "known" about him. I mean, the only "contemporary" written mention of the guy is Primary Chronicle. The Chronicle is a rare case of agreement between Russian and Ukrainian historians where both camps suggest it is mostly a work of literature (not history) which is mainly concerned with narrative and biblical undertones[2]. I'm sure there was a Varangian chieftain with similar name somewhere around that time and then some time later it was fashionable to claim his bloodline, but seriously "tracing" one's ancestry to the guy is laughable.

> Do you doubt the history of Vladimir the Great, a great grandson of Rurik? I mean do you doubt the whole dynasty or only starting from specific place?

As I said before I doubt some random dude in 2021 claiming his ancestry to legendary 9th century chieftain of some Varangian clan. Doesn't mean I doubt Vladimir the Great existed.

> And there is nothing surprising in the dukes/tzars bloodline of 11 centuries recorded length

Where is it recorded in that particular case though?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_on_the_Irpin_River
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_language
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_Chronicle#Assessment_a...