Russian President Vladimir Putin is said to have made the announcement during a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz nine days before the country went to war against Ukraine.

– Tell me that Ukraine is part of Russia, and that the borders can be adjusted by force, Schulz said on Sunday, during a democracy festival in Berlin.

This is what the Dutch newspaper wrote Het Latest News (HLN).

He blames NATO membership

The meeting took place on February 15, 2022, and was supposed to last about four hours.

The meeting between the two heads of state may have remained etched in the memory of many people for reasons completely different from the dark background – or specifically the unusually long distance between its participants – Putin and Schulz.

In addition to his claim that Ukraine is part of Russia, Putin reportedly said that Belarus belongs to the country as well, and that President Alexander Lukashenko knows this.

The Russian President is also said to have said during the meeting that Ukraine's impending NATO membership was one of the reasons they wanted to enter the country with military forces.

– I made it clear to him that this could not be the case for the next 30 years, the chancellor said during Sunday's session.

“Nazi regime”

Vladimir Putin has several times justified the invasion of Ukraine with the alleged need to “denazify” Ukraine.

Putin is also said to have said this in his meeting with the German head of state.

– To say something like that when you know that President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish; “You can only imagine how ridiculous and embarrassing this statement is,” Schulz said on Sunday.

During the event, Schulz stressed that the war has already claimed many lives – both on the Ukrainian and Russian sides.

– Only because Putin hopes that in a hundred years – when he is no longer alive anyway – it will be written in the history books that he captured a few kilometers of land.