While his counterpart is meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, Vladimir Putin has published an essay on the “Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”.
Moscow - Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyi of lies in the conflict over eastern Ukraine.
Zelenskyi started in 2019 with the election promise to bring peace to the embattled region.
"The promises turned out to be a lie," wrote Putin in a major essay on the "Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" published by the Kremlin on Monday.
The article was also published in Ukrainian while Selenskyj was holding talks in Germany.
Putin advocates the thesis rejected by Selenskyj that Russians and Ukrainians are one people.
Conflict with Ukraine: Putin speaks of "hostility towards Russia" in an essay
In the article, the Kremlin chief traces the history of several centuries and draws the link to the present.
Above all, he complains that Ukraine is now turning “hostility towards Russia” into state policy and is being controlled by the West.
According to him, the “creation of an ethnically clean Ukrainian state that is aggressive towards Russia is comparable in terms of its consequences to the use of a weapon of mass destruction against us”.
Against this background, Putin believes that the eastern Ukrainians took up arms in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions "to protect their homes, their language, their lives".
"Russia has done everything to stop the fratricide." A peace plan was negotiated in Minsk, which has not yet been implemented, but there is no alternative, writes Putin.
Putin essay: "Ukraine's real sovereignty is only possible in partnership"
Rather, Ukraine prefers to portray itself as a “victim of external aggression” in order to attract the attention of the West.
At the same time, Putin's contribution assures the people in the self-proclaimed People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk support and is open to a dialogue with Ukraine.
He is convinced that "Ukraine's real sovereignty is only possible in partnership with Russia".
Millions of Russians and Ukrainians are family-related.
"Together we were and are always stronger and more successful."
(Dpa / frs)
