Vladimir Putin has claimed that it has become his responsibility to take back and strengthen Ukraine as he appeared to finally admit that the war was about returning land to Russia.
The Russian President attended a meeting with entrepreneurs ahead of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in the capital Moscow, in which he compared himself to Peter the Great, the 18th-century Russian monarch, who launched a war on Sweden.
Putin said: "Peter the Great led the Northern War for 21 years. It would seem that he fought with Sweden, and captured land… but he didn't conquer it, he returned it.