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By Rachel Dobkin
Weekend Reporter
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Vladimir Solovyov, a Russian propagandist and ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, vowed that two capital cities in member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) "will also be ours."
It has been more than two years since Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. For months, Ukraine was struggling to fight against Moscow's offensive with a diminished arsenal as U.S. aid stalled in Congress. Last month, President Joe Biden signed a $95 billion foreign aid package, which included roughly $60 billion in military aid for Ukraine after it was approved by U.S. lawmakers.
At a joint press conference on Wednesday with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Kyiv, Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked if the Biden administration was considering relaxing its ban on Ukraine using U.S. weapons in Russian territory.
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"We have not encouraged or enabled strikes outside of Ukraine, but ultimately Ukraine has to make decisions for itself about how it's going to conduct this war, a war it's conducting in defense of its freedom, of its sovereignty, of its territorial integrity," Blinken said. "And we will continue to back Ukraine with the equipment that it needs to succeed, that it needs to win."
Solovyov recently argued on his Russian TV show that the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv is Russian territory and so is Poland's Warsaw and Finland's Helsinki.
"Also, most importantly, [Blinken] brought weapons, but he said: 'It's not allowed to hit Russian territory.' And what territory do you hit, you idiots? It's all Russia," Solovyov said in a clip translated into English that was shared on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday by Anton Gerashchenko, former advisor to Ukraine's Internal Affairs minister.
"Moreover, what about the filthy language he's using in our Russian Kyiv? We'll present him with a rent charge for singing all kinds of nonsense in our Russian city."
He then directed his attention to one of the guests on his show, Vasyl Vakarov, telling him, "Don't shake your head."
"That's something new...'In our Russian city of Kyiv,'" Vakarov, a political commentator, replied.
Solovyov added: "Whose is it? Kyiv is the mother of Russian cities. Take the old lady back to her Motherland. The Ukronazis came here...I think that in another five minutes, Warsaw and Helsinki will also be ours, Russian. And historically, it's all true."
Ukraine, the U.S. and multiple experts on the region have denied Russia's claim that the war-torn country—whose president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish—is corrupted by Nazis.
When reached for comment by Newsweek, Poland's foreign affairs ministry said via email on Saturday: "We would like to inform you that the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not comment on the extravagant views of Russian propagandists."
Finland's Foreign Affairs Ministry declined to comment.
Newsweek also reached out to Ukraine's foreign ministry via email as well as the Russian government and NATO via online form.
Poland has been a member of NATO for 25 years and Finland joined the military alliance in April 2023. If Russia were to go after either country, it would risk war with all of NATO's 32 member states as part of Article 5 of the treaty. However, Putin said in December 2023 that Moscow has "no interest" in fighting with NATO.
Update 5/18/24, 6:30 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Poland's Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Update 5/22/24, 9:16 a.m. ET: This article was updated to note that Finland's Foreign Affairs Ministry declined to comment on this story.
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