“Ukraine will cease to exist” (Putin's special advisor)
Nikolai Patrushev, advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, believes that by next year, Ukraine “will completely cease to exist”.
He also said that negotiations on Ukraine should be a matter for Russia and the United States alone. “There is nothing to discuss with London or Brussels,” he said.
“It's possible that next year Ukraine will cease to exist altogether,” said Patrushev, one of President Putin's most trusted men and one of the few to have remained close to him since their early days as KGB agents.
He is often described as “Moscow's most dangerous hawk” and is now considered Vladimir Putin's most credible potential successor.
Mr. Patrushev reaffirmed that Kiev's demands for the return of its territories “aren't even under discussion” and stressed that “the world recognizes the entry of the regions of Kherson, Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporiyia and Crimea into Russia".
"They're an integral part of our country”, he declared in an interview with the daily ‘Komsomolskaya Pravda’, basing himself on ‘Russian laws and the result of the popular expression of citizens’, in reference to the annexation referendums of September 2022, which were widely rejected by the international community.
(MH with AmBar/Source: X/Photo: DPA/Anadolu/Kremlin Press Office)