From: Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief, June 17, 2022 (Last 2 paragraphs were added from the Yahoo article, Kremlin Cronies Say Putin Is Ready to Go Full Kim Jong Un)

PUTIN ADMITS TO TERRITORIAL EXPANSION

Some have doubted my claims not only about the falsified Fall of the Soviet Union, but Putin’s plan to reconstitute that union by reclaiming “lost lands.” This week Yahoo.com covered Putin admitting to a plan to regain lost territory.

Russian President Vladimir Putin paid tribute to Tsar Peter the Great on the 350th anniversary of his birth on Thursday, claiming that modern Russia is once again on a historic quest “to return and fortify” its lost lands. Erasing any doubt about the true motivation of his invasion of neighboring Ukraine, Putin told an audience of technology students in Moscow that the lot of re-conquering Russia’s former territories fell to their generation. They blithely smiled throughout the speech, without a hint of a reaction to the imperial ambitions of their leader which have abruptly re-shaped their future.

The speed with which the talking heads swung behind Putin’s latest narrative shattered the thin veneer of supposed independence on Russian state television, laying bare the fact that the Kremlin’s propagandists on top rated shows are not there to share their own opinions. The same pundits who meekly asserted for months that the “special military operation” was never about occupying any of the Ukrainian territories have changed their tune in the blink of an eye.

After playing clips of Putin’s latest comments, Vladimir Solovyov, the host of state TV program The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, jumped in head first: “Putin is talking about fortification and enlargement, because returning [territories] means enlargement. What we lost before we now must return. This is a totally different formulation of our goal. Life is getting to be interesting.”

Solovyov’s frequent guest, Andrey Kartapolov, head of the Russian Duma’s Defense Committee, who previously served as the Deputy Defense Minister, eagerly agreed: “Yes, we will restore and fortify… The world has changed. The period of American colonialism has come to an end and will never return. In this new world, Russia will be the power, the moral compass, the landmark of purity, truth and correctness, to which sensible people will flock from all over the planet.”

Shakhnazarov described Russia as an empire, the rightful descendant of the Golden Horde Mongol dynasty: “I believe that Russia is a natural heir to Tatar-Mongols, who have created the first empire on the territory of Eurasia.” …