If the USSR Still Exists, Then Russia Doesn’t and Putin is President of God Knows What, Ukrainian Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 25 – Putin advisor Anton Kobyakov’s insistence that the Soviet Union did not legally disintegrate in 1991 and therefore still exists is part of the Kremlin’s claim that Putin’s war with Ukraine is an internal affair since both the Russian Federation and Ukraine are part of one country.

            Many observers in both the Russian Federation and the West hurried to denounce this as simply untrue given that the Soviet constitutions gave each of the republics the right of exit and that Koyakov’s remark is yet another sign of the broader imperialist agenda of the current Kremlin ruler.

            Btu perhaps the cleverest response came not from them but from Ukrainian commentator Yuri Vasilchenko who noted that Kobyakov was creating serious problems for his boss because “if the Soviet Union has not disappeared, then the Russian Federation does not exist and Putin is president of God knows what” (dsnews.ua/politics/rosiji-ne-isnuye-yak-radnik-putina-kobyakov-pomnozhiv-svogo-shefa-na-nul-22052025-522354).

            It is unlikely that the Ukrainian writers words will cause the Kremlin to cease and desist making claims like Kobyakov’s, but his argument deserves to be remembered by all who hear such words because they reduce the Russian Federation and Putin to things meaningless and worthy of being ignored.