Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Ukraine will “sooner or later” lose its western territories. Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reported that Putin made the remarks during a meeting with members of the Russian Navy on Sunday night, 26 July. Putin said the process may not happen “tomorrow or the day after,” but could take one year, two years, 10 years or even 15 years. He claimed that Russia had been the only guarantor of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, but said Kyiv had chosen to declare hostility towards Moscow. “I am certain that sooner or later Ukraine will lose these western territories, lands that once belonged to Poland, Hungary and Romania,” Putin said. The comments come as Russia has previously seized and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and later launched a full-scale invasion, occupying parts of the country’s eastern regions.
