Putin Told Bush Ukraine Was “Part of Russia” Decades Before Full-Scale Invasion, 2001 Transcript Shows
united24media.com
Putin claimed Ukraine was historically part of Russia during a meeting with Bush in 2001, discussing NATO and territorial exchanges from the Soviet era.

As far back as 2001, Russian leader Vladimir Putin told former US President George W. Bush that Ukraine supposedly belonged to Russia and had been transferred by Soviet party officials, according to transcript of the Putin–Bush conversation released by the US National Security Archive.

At their first meeting in June 2001 in Slovenia, Putin delivered what was described as a “brief history lecture” to Bush, offering his own interpretation of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    8·
    10 hours ago

    “What really happened? Soviet good will changed the world, voluntarily. And Russians gave up thousands of square kilometers of territory, voluntarily. Unheard of. Ukraine, part of Russia, for centuries given away. Kazakhstan, given away. The Caucasus too. Hard to imagine, and done by party bosses,” Putin said.

    “Unheard of” seems like a stretch. There sorta was this period of decolonization.