Vladimir Putin's historical justification for Ukraine invasion disputed by Radosław Sikorski
Carlson, an American presenter and former FOX News journalist, interviewed Vladimir Putin. The Russian President sought to justify the invasion of Ukraine by providing an extensive historical overview. He claimed that the lands that make up modern Ukraine always belonged to Russia, implying that this could legitimize the use of military force.
Historians and politicians have criticized Putin's statements. "This is an interview in which Putin took center stage, narrating his version of Russia's history—a version riddled with claims of victimization by the policies of the West, Poland, or NATO," commented Tomasz Płudowski, a professor at the Academy of Economic and Humanistic Sciences in Warsaw, in a conversation with Virtual Poland.
The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs also issued a statement refuting ten false assertions made by Putin during the interview.
Sikorski: We Firmly Reject the Implications
The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Radosław Sikorski, responded to Putin's historical tirade with an ironic post. He referenced Carlson's question to Putin, in which Carlson sought to ascertain whether other Eastern European nations also had the right to revert to their geographic boundaries from 1654.
"Poland firmly rejects the implication that we prompted Tucker Carlson to suggest to Vladimir Putin the restoration of Eastern Europe's borders from the 1650s," Sikorski penned. He also shared a map of the First Republic from that period, when the present-day territories of Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, and Russia were part of the Republic.
