When Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the separatist republics of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, he reminded his audience that modern-day Ukraine came into being with territories once belonged to Romania.
In his hour-long speech on Monday broadcast around the world to millions, the Russian leader used historical references to justify the military occupation of the two separatist regions,
The Russian leader, sometimes angry and at times sullen, invoked Romania which lost Bessarabia, the Hertsa region and north Bukovina to Ukraine under the terms of a Nazi-Soviet pact in 1939.
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that enabled those two powers to partition territory between them.
„Let’s start with the fact that modern Ukraine was created entirely by Russia, more precisely Bolshevik, communist Russia. This process happened immediately after the 1917 revolution,” Putin said.
”Then, at the start of World War II, Stalin annexed Ukraine to the Soviet Union and transferred it territories which formerly belonged to Poland, Romania and Hungary,” Vladimir Putin said.
“In 1954, for certain reasons, Khrushchev took Crimea from Russia and gave it to Ukraine.This is how the Ukrainian Soviet republic formed,” he said,
“Russia was robbed when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991.”
”Lenin and his associates created modern Ukraine by confiscating territories from Russia. Modern Ukraine was created by communist Russia,” he said,
”Ukraine isn’t just a neighboring country for Russia, but part of our history, our friends and relatives.”
“We all heard the speech President Putin delivered yesterday. His outrageous statements about Ukraine and the Ukrainian people were delusional, reflecting a warped vision reminiscent, not of a global leader, but of Europe’s worst authoritarians,” said Kristina Kvien, the U.S. Charge d’Affaires in Ukraine.
Romania ready to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees from Ukraine in case of Russia invasion
