Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that European claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to restore the Soviet Union (which collapsed on December 26, 1991) were wrong and that Putin’s plans to attack a NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) member country were “complete stupidity.”
In his annual state of the nation address in 2005, Putin called the collapse of the USSR the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century because millions of Russians were impoverished and Russia itself faced the threat of collapse.
The Kremlin’s comments come as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday that Putin wanted to bring back the old USSR and that Europe must defend itself.
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“This is not true,” Kremlin spokesman Peskov told reporters when asked about Chancellor Merz’s remarks, according to Reuters. “Vladimir Putin does not want to restore the USSR because it is impossible, and he himself has repeatedly said this.”
“As for preparing for an attack on NATO, this is complete stupidity,” Peskov said.
Reuters’s reporting contributed to this article.