An 'interesting' story popped up in one of my feeds. Apparently the Russian state-run news outlet Ria Novosti accidentally published a story on Feb. 26th claiming that Russia had defeated Ukraine. Given the translated text of the article archived
here on the Wayback machine, the article does sound as though it is Russia's intention to annex the Ukraine.
The following is a quoted line which has been translated by Google.
If that is an accurate translation, then things do not bode well for future relations between Russia and essentially everyone else.
I had a read of it out of interest. It's the "The Offensive of Russia and the New World". Some excerpts.
Russia restores its unity – the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe of our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome. Yes, at a high price, yes, through the tragic events of the actual civil war, because now brothers are still shooting at each other, separated by belonging to the Russian and Ukrainian armies – but Ukraine as there will be no more anti-Russia. Russia is restoring its historical fullness by gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together – in all its totality of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians. If we had abandoned this, if we had allowed the temporary division to take hold for centuries, we would not only have betrayed the memory of our ancestors, but we would have been cursed by our descendants for allowing the disintegration of the Russian land. ... Ukraine has returned to Russia. This does not mean that its statehood will be liquidated, but it will be restructured, re-established and returned to its natural state part of the Russian world. Within what borders, in what form the union with Russia will be fixed (through CSTO and Eurasian Union or Union State Russia and Belarus)? This will be decided after the end is put to the history of Ukraine as an anti-Russia. In any case, the period of split of the Russian people is coming to an end. ...
And here begins the second dimension of the coming new era – it concerns Russia's relations with the West. Not even Russia, but the Russian world, that is, three states, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, acting geopolitically as a single whole. These relations have entered a new stage – the West sees Russia's return to its historical borders in Europe. And he loudly resents this, although deep down he must admit to himself that it could not have been otherwise. Is there anyone in the old European capitals, in Paris and Berlin, seriously believed that Moscow will refuse Kiev? That Russians will forever be a divided people? And at the same time, when Europe is uniting, when the German and French elites are trying to seize control over European integration from the Anglo-Saxons and assemble a united Europe? Forgetting that the unification of Europe became possible only through unification Germany, which happened by Russian good (albeit not very clever) will. To swing after that also on Russian lands is the height not even of ingratitude, but of geopolitical stupidity. The West as a whole, and even more so Europe individually, did not have the strength to keep in its sphere of influence, and even more so to take Ukraine for itself. Not to understand this, one had to be just geopolitical fools. ...
Because the construction of a new world order – and this is the third dimension of current events – is accelerating, and its contours are becoming more and more clearly visible through the sprawling veil of Anglo-Saxon globalization. The multipolar world has finally become a reality – the operation in Ukraine is not able to rally anyone but the West against Russia. Because the rest of the world perfectly sees and understands that this is a conflict between Russia and the West, this is a response to the geopolitical expansion of the Atlanticists, this is Russia's return of its historical space and its place in the world. China and India, Latin America and Africa, the islamic world and Southeast Asia No one believes that the West rules the world order, much less sets the rules of the game. Russia has not just challenged the West – it has shown that the era of Western global domination can be considered completely and finally over. The new world will be built by all civilizations and centers of power, of course, together with the West (united or not) – but not on its terms and not according to its rules.
Makes for some interesting and entertaining reading. The writer must've been on the good vodka that day, but it does give n insight into the mindset of Putin's cronies and enablers. I've taken to calling him Putin the Putrid elsewhere.