Putin slams ‘stupidity’ of Russia seizing Crimea in old interview

Vladimir Putin slammed the ‘stupidity’ of Russia seizing Crimea from Ukraine and decried Moscow ‘s outdated ‘heavy imperial legacy’ in a resurfaced TV interview from 25 years ago. The tyrant dictator – then two months into his first premiership under President Boris Yeltsin – told TV presenter Alexander Lyubimov, son of former Soviet KGB spy in London Mikhail Lyubimov, how ‘we don’t want to take Crimea – that’s absolute stupidity.’ Contrary to his views a quarter of a century ago, Putin – who has ruthlessly rigged elections and killed opponents to remain at the Kremlin helm – not only seized Crimea in 2014 but also swathes of eastern Ukraine. In 2022, he plunged Europe into its biggest conflict since the Second World War as he sought and failed to invade the rest of Russia’s near neighbor.

In the footage showing Putin’s hypocrisy, which has reappeared on TikTok and X, Lyubimov asked the ruler on October 9, 1999: ‘We don’t like that Ukraine wants to join NATO. We want to take Crimea. Or is it just that we can’t agree on money? Gas, sugar… What is our main problem with Ukraine, Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin]?’ Putin, now 72, has since argued absurdly that Ukraine is not a real country, and that it is populated by Nazis under Western control. But back in 1999 as Russian premier he insisted: ‘First of all, we don’t want to take Crimea, that’s absolute stupidity. ‘If we start taking something from someone, then something will definitely be taken from us, or we’ll lose something ourselves.’

He was applauded by the audience before telling Russians: ‘If we start [to elaborate on whether Russia wants to take Crimea] such a redistribution across the post-Soviet space, we’ll never recover from it. ‘We have 400 disputed territories within the Russian Federation – 400! ‘I want everyone to know this.’ Disputes between Russian and Ukraine on sugar and gas production were ‘secondary issues’, he said. ‘There’s some kind of field for argument, but just to argue, nothing more,’ said the young Putin, then only 47.

He then slammed the Russian tendency towards imperialism. ‘In my opinion, the main problem is Russia’s heavy imperial legacy,’ he said, to studio applause. He hit out at Russians for their belief in expansionism – something he would later lead. ‘For some reason, everyone thinks Russia remained an empire,’ he said. ‘Now, those who are applauding, listen to me carefully. ‘Everyone thinks Russia remained an empire, and they still treat it as one – but that’s simply [not the case].’ It comes after a ‘peace plan’ revealed in July suggested Putin was ready to share sovereignty of Crimea with Ukraine.

The dictator sent his trusted interior minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev to the US with new proposals to end the war that the dictator started, sources said in both Moscow and Kyiv. Leading Ukrainian TV journalist Dmitry Gordon said he had received details of the package from ‘our intelligence sources’, while Russian Telegram channel Gosdumskaya – which claims insider sources in Moscow – separately reported a similar set of Putin demands. The demands were that Ukraine must completely withdraw from Donetsk and Luhansk regions, both of which are now partially annexed by Russia. But Russia would hand over Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station and the nearby town of Enerhodar to Ukraine.

And he would discuss the possible transfer of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions to the control of Ukraine. Crimea would become a ‘specially demilitarised administrative territory with dual subordination to Ukraine and the Russian Federation’. During his rule, the Kremlin has been accused of being behind the deaths of two of his most talented political opponents – Boris Nemtsov, gunned down in 2105, and Alexei Navalny, who died in his Arctic hellhole jail this year. In the months before Nemtsov’s death he had written detailed reports alleging corruption by Putin, and voiced fears that the Russian president would have him killed.

Then-President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko also pointed the finger to the Kremlin over the death of Nemtsov, alleging politicians were afraid of a report the former deputy prime minister was due to share publicly. Speaking of the report Nemtsov had been working on, President Poroshenko said at the time: ‘Somebody was afraid of this, Boris wasn’t afraid. Killers and executors were afraid.’ Meanwhile, opposition activists also blamed the Russian President for his death, claiming they were in ‘no doubt’ it was politically motivated. The Russian president was also accused of the ‘murder’ of his most vocal critic, who died while serving a 19-year prison sentence in an Arctic penal colony. Pictured: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Reports have previously claimed Putin ‘wants to know everything that happens to Navalny. All the details, the punishments’. It has even been claimed he demanded footage of Navalny inside the grim colony where he was held. Along with reports that Putin showed a sadistic interest in Navalny’s treatment, it has also been claimed previously that he requested video footage and live streams of the opposition leader in prison.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky joined Western leaders in putting the blame on Moscow for the death of Navalny, as he pointed to the demise of the Putin critic as another reminder of the importance of defeating Russia. ‘There should be consequences,’ the Foreign Secretary told broadcasters at the time.

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