During the debate on countries and sovereignty, Putin said: “Yes, there were times in the history of our country where we had to retreat, but only to mobilize and move forward, to concentrate and move forward.” After many initial failures in the war that broke out in Ukraine in late February, Putin’s forces are said to have been more successful in recent weeks with a strategy of focusing on smaller towns and villages in eastern Ukraine. However, there have also been many reports of Russian troops withdrawing from some areas. Putin said he called for the meeting of new minds on Thursday before the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum because he wanted to hear ideas about “where we are now, where we are going and what we need to do to ensure absolute and seamless During the meeting, he spoke about Peter the Great, a tsar known for the expansion of Russian territory, whose 350th birthday was celebrated by the Russians on Thursday. Although he never mentioned Ukraine by name, Putin apparently drew parallels between the conflict in the neighboring country and Peter’s actions, especially when he mentioned how Peter took back land he thought belonged to Russia. One of the reasons given by Putin for the invasion of Ukraine is that Russia is trying to reclaim the land it is entitled to. “Peter the Great waged the Great Northern War for 21 years. At first glance, he was at war with Sweden to get something out of it,” Putin said. “He was not taking anything, he was coming back. That’s how it was.” Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting with young people on Thursday that sometimes Russia retreats to “move forward”. In this photo, Putin is seen during a meeting of the leaders of the member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization in the Kremlin in Moscow on May 16. Photo by ALEXANDER NEMENOV / POOL / AFP via Getty Image Tadeusz Giczan, a Belarusian reporter, wrote that Putin included another line in his account of Peter the Great that was not included in the Kremlin translation of his comments. According to Giczan, after talking about Peter who took land behind Sweden, Putin added:[I]”Now it seems that it is our turn to take back our lands.” Wow, Putin virtually stopped pretending: “During the war with Sweden, Peter the Great did not conquer anything, he took back what always belonged to us, even though the whole of Europe recognized him as Sweden. Now it seems to be his turn. us to take back our lands [smiling]”. pic.twitter.com/vgk60hT5ea – Tadeusz Giczan 🇺🇦 (@TadeuszGiczan) June 9, 2022 Elsewhere in his remarks about Peter, Putin said: “When he founded the new capital, none of the European countries recognized this region as part of Russia; everyone recognized it as part of Sweden. However, from time immemorial, the Slavs lived there alongside the Finno-Ugric peoples and this territory was under Russian control.The same goes for the western direction, Narva and his first campaigns.Why go there? ». Putin also commented elsewhere on military-political sovereignty that could be interpreted as concerning Ukraine. “It is important that we can make sovereign domestic and foreign policy decisions and ensure security,” he said. Newsweek contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment.
