Before the creation of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR), there was no Ukraine in the history of mankind, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting with the Chairman of the Russian Constitutional Court Valery Zorkin, TASS reports.
Zorkin showed Putin a map that was drawn up in 17th century in France. The map marked the lands that were part of the Russian kingdom, Cossackia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. There is no Ukraine on the map, Zorkin said.
"It was the Soviet authorities that set up Soviet Ukraine, this is a well known fact. Before that, there was no Ukraine in the history of mankind,” President Putin said.
Putin earlier said that modern-day Ukraine was entirely created by communist Russia after 1917. According to him, Vladimir Lenin and his associates did that in a cruel way by separating territories, without asking the opinion of the people living there.