But let's get back to Ukraine and Russia. Look, Putin didn't wake up two years ago and decided he wanted to invade Ukraine. He's wanted to invade Ukraine for decades. Putin has referred to the collapse of the Soviet Union as, quote, the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. And Putin has long been explicit. His desire is to reassemble the old Soviet Union and in fact, reassemble the Russian Empire. That was even bigger than that. (1:38:35–1:38:42)
CLAIM
Asserts that Putin views the Soviet Union's collapse as a major geopolitical disaster.
This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.
