Former Soviet Union Countries Are 'Our Territory,' Russian Academic Says

A Russian academic has said on state TV that nations that were part of the USSR should still be considered Russian territory.

An excerpt of the broadcast was published on Twitter by The Daily Beast's Julia Davis on Friday.

"Henry Sardaryan, Dean at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) says that the former territories of the Russian empire and of the Soviet Union are "Russia's territories" that Moscow should unilaterally control," Davis wrote in a caption.

In the clip, Sardaryan, a political-science professor, said no other nation should even question Moscow about the idea that former Soviet states should be considered Russian territory.

The Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, and its former members include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

Since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a number of ex-Soviet republics have distanced themselves from Moscow.

Putin, however, maintains close ties with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, who relies on the Russian leader to remain in power, following an election in 2020 that is widely seen as fraudulent.

Members of the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) military alliance of former Soviet states have also largely remained close allies of Russia. The six CSTO members are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.

Referring to the ex-Soviet states, Sardaryan told his fellow guests on Russian state TV: "This is our land, our territory of strategic interests."

"Everything that used to be part of the Russian empire and then part of the Soviet Union is the territory of Russia's strategic interests," the academic added.

"Let me remind you that our czars came to these lands several centuries ago," said Sardaryan. "It wasn't so that the U.S., Britain and Turkey could stick their nose in there, trying to provoke us or to force us to play by new rules, or creating new formats for dealing with them."

"Without any compromises, we shouldn't contend with anyone in these regions... There should be no other players for us to deal with. This is our territory."

Sardaryan also attacked the nations assisting Ukraine in the war, which now in its 11th month, while adding that "this year will be very hard for us."

"During this year, we should constantly keep in mind that the end goal of all the effort by our opponents is to destabilize the situation in the Russian Federation and provoke the anti-constitutional overthrow of government."

Sardaryan added: "They have no other end goal in all of this."

Newsweek reached out to Russia's foreign ministry for comment.

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