Stepashin spoke about the strategic mistake regarding Ukraine in the 1990s

Former Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin said on June 8 that Russia's view in the 1990s that Ukraine was a fraternal nation that "wasn't going anywhere" was a big strategic mistake.

"As for Ukraine, we thought it would not go anywhere. I think this is a huge strategic mistake of the early 90s: "it's not going anywhere, it's a fraternal people, it's not going anywhere, it's going to get over it." And the Yankees, Western Europe, and everyone else worked systematically there," he told Rossiya 1 journalist Pavel Zarubin.

Stepashin also noted that in those years Moscow had the strength and resources to find the right people with whom to work to build relations with Kiev.

"As a former FSB director, I'm telling you this. Unfortunately, we missed it," he added.

According to the ex-chairman, for 30 years the inhabitants of Ukraine have been "brainwashed." He also pointed out the terrible contents of school books in the Mariupol library, which he visited after the liberation of the city in 2022.

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Stepashin, commenting on the words of presidential adviser Anton Kobyakov that the USSR still exists for legal reasons, said on May 25 that Ukraine had become one of the first republics to begin seceding from the USSR.