Dmitry Medvedev says ‘Ukraine is definitely Russia,’ presents map showing Ukraine divided between neighbors

Addressing participants at a youth festival in Sochi on Monday, Russian Security Council Chairman Dmitry Medvedev presented a map that showed the majority of Ukraine’s territory divided between Russia, Poland, Romania, and Hungary. Only an area approximately the size of Ukraine’s Kyiv region was labeled “Ukraine.”

The former Russian president said that the “territory on both banks of the Dnipro is inherently part of Russia’s historical strategic borders.” He also disputed the title of former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma’s book Ukraine Is Not Russia, saying: “This concept must disappear forever. Ukraine is definitely Russia.”

Medvedev said that the best future that citizens of modern Ukraine can hope for is to “be slaves of the ailing European panopticon” and compared the U.S. to a rapist and Ukraine to its victim. “Or worse yet,” he said, “[Ukraine will] become expendable material.”

Dmitry Medvedev has used increasingly demeaning and violent rhetoric when talking about Ukraine in recent years, repeatedly saying that it should not exist.