Putin Told Bush Ukraine Was “Part of Russia” Decades Before Full-Scale Invasion, 2001 Transcript Shows
united24media.com
Putin claimed Ukraine was historically part of Russia during a meeting with Bush in 2001, discussing NATO and territorial exchanges from the Soviet era.

As far back as 2001, Russian leader Vladimir Putin told former US President George W. Bush that Ukraine supposedly belonged to Russia and had been transferred by Soviet party officials, according to transcript of the Putin–Bush conversation released by the US National Security Archive.

At their first meeting in June 2001 in Slovenia, Putin delivered what was described as a “brief history lecture” to Bush, offering his own interpretation of the collapse of the Soviet Union.