No Ukraine to be seen

Medvedev sees the whole of Ukraine as Russia

Dmitry Medvedev last June in the Volgograd region in the south of Russia

(Bild: APA/AFP/SPUTNIK/Yekaterina SHTUKINA)

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has once again caused outrage: the friend of Putin has claimed the whole of Ukraine as part of Russia on a map for the Russian national holiday.

An animated graphic flashes across the screen, accompanied by the sounds of the Russian anthem. A white, blue and red flag flies over a map of Russia - with the whole of Ukraine up to the border with Poland, Slovakia and Hungary marked as Russian. Medvedev posted this image on his Telegram blog. It is striking that Belarus, which is closely allied with Russia, was left out.

How far does Russia want to subjugate Ukraine?
In more than two years of war, there have been inconsistent official or propagandistic answers from Moscow as to how far Russia wants to subjugate Ukraine. One declared goal is that Russia wants to completely conquer the four Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which it has declared annexed. Further considerations were given to Kharkiv in the east and to the south with the port city of Odessa, and finally also to the capital Kiev. In April, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that at most the future of western Ukraine around Lviv was open.

This is what the graphic posted by Medvedev looked like:

From liberal hope to hardliner
Medvedev was seen as Russia's liberal hope when he was president from 2008 to 2012. Since the Russian attack on Ukraine, however, the deputy head of the National Security Council has become one of the biggest hardliners, defending the war with inflammatory posts on social networks.

"Day of Russia"
On June 12, 1990, the parliament of the Soviet Republic of Russia decided on state sovereignty and thus practically independence from the collapsing Soviet Union. The day is therefore celebrated annually as Russia Day. On this day, President Vladimir Putin presented state awards for achievements in culture and technology in Moscow. He called on the country to unite in the face of war - which he himself ordered. "In these difficult times, we are united by patriotism and responsibility for the fate of our homeland," he said, according to the TASS agency.