Vladimir Putin
Crimea
“ Roth: Bernard Kouchner, the Foreign Minister of France, which now presides over the EU, recently expressed concern that a new conflict may break out in Ukraine, notably the Crimea and Sevastopol, a Russian naval base. Are the Crimea and Sevastopol the next target for Russia?
Putin: You said, "the next target". We did not have a target in this conflict, so I think it is simply inappropriate to speak about some "next target". This is my first point.
Roth: So you rule this out?
Putin: If you let me finish, you will be satisfied with my answer.
The Crimea is not a disputed territory. Unlike the case of Georgia and South Ossetia, there has been no ethnic conflict there.
Russia has long recognized the borders of today's Ukraine. By and large, we have completed our talks on the border. Now we have to deal with the demarcation, but this is a technical issue.
I think that asking a question about Russia's targets of this kind reeks of provocation.
There are complicated processes going on in society in the Crimea. There are problems of the Crimean Tatars, the Ukrainian population, the Russian population, the Slavic population in general, but this is Ukraine's domestic political problem.
Comparisons with Peter I
“ Peter the Great waged the Great Northern War for 21 years. On the face of it, he was at war with Sweden taking something away from it... He was not taking away anything, he was returning. This is how it was. The areas around Lake Ladoga, where St Petersburg was founded. When he founded the new capital, none of the European countries recognised this territory as part of Russia; everyone recognised it as part of Sweden. However, from time immemorial, the Slavs lived there along with the Finno-Ugric peoples, and this territory was under Russia’s control. The same is true of the western direction, Narva and his first campaigns. Why would he go there? He was returning and reinforcing, that is what he was doing.
Clearly, it fell to our lot to return and reinforce as well. And if we operate on the premise that these basic values constitute the basis of our existence, we will certainly succeed in achieving our goals.
- — Vladimir Putin, “Meeting with young entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists”, June 9, 2022
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70046
