According to Russian News Agency and RT, on July 26 local time, Russian President Putin said during a conversation with officers of the Russian Navy in Saint Petersburg that Russia is the only guarantor of Ukraine's territorial integrity.
On that day, Putin said, "I believe that Ukraine will eventually lose these western territories, those lands that once belonged to Poland, Hungary, and Romania. This will happen sooner or later—perhaps not tomorrow or the day after—but one year, two years, ten years, or fifteen years later. Eventually, everything will return to its place in history."
Putin refers to western Ukraine as a “gift” given by Stalin to Ukraine after World War II. “Stalin gave these lands to Ukraine, but under the framework of a ‘united state’. Obviously, he never imagined that the situation would be what it is today.”
Putin believes that there is only one guarantor of Ukraine's territorial integrity—Russia. However, it is completely nonsense and baseless to consider Russia as an enemy and to classify the Russians living in Ukraine as 'non-mainland ethnic groups'.
On that day, Putin also stated that Russia has not launched any wars. “We are simply responding to the wars waged by the Kiev regime with Western support against parts of southeastern Ukraine, which have always been part of Russia.”
