Putin says Ukraine will “sooner or later lose” its western territories

The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has stated that Ukraine “will sooner or later lose” its western territories given that Moscow was “the only guarantor of its integrity”, while calling kyiv’s official position regarding Russia “nonsense”.

“I am convinced that, sooner or later, Ukraine will lose these western territories – those that belonged to Poland, Hungary, Romania -. Sooner or later, not tomorrow, but within a year, two, ten, fifteen, everything will fall into place historically. There was only one guarantor of the territorial integrity of Ukraine: Russia,” he declared during a meeting with members of the Russian Navy in the city of Saint Petersburg.

In this sense, he has attacked the decision of the Ukrainian authorities to declare Russia an “enemy”, which he considers “nonsense”, according to information collected by the Interfax news agency. Furthermore, he has emphasized that “the modern world order was formed from the victory in World War II.”

“The Charter of the United Nations is the foundation of modern International Law; certain norms were established in it. Then, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, one of the founding States of the UN, one of the creators of this International Law, of the system of international relations, ceased to exist (the USSR). And the supposed winners of the Cold War, not only the United States, but the entire West, suddenly decided that something had to be done,” he maintained.

“Why should Russia, which was no longer the Soviet Union and had lost its known potential, enjoy the same benefits as the country that won the Second World War? And so they began to govern,” Putin declared.

In this sense, he recalled the events in Yugoslavia: “the division of the Serbian people into different national units.” Thus, he regretted that then “decisions were made that did not comply at all with that UN Charter.”

“They just unleashed fury. Furthermore, they promised us that they would not expand NATO, but instead, one expansion followed another. They didn’t give a damn about our numerous protests, all their promises, and Russia’s security interests. They kept pushing, pushing, and finally they reached Ukraine,” he concluded.