Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Putin Prepares to Declare Himself a Conqueror

The Kremlin’s emerging plans for occupied Ukraine could amount to a declaration of permanent, open-ended war against other parts of Europe.

June 15, 2022 at 12:01 AM EDT

By Leonid Bershidsky

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

Kiriyenko’s new playground.
Photographer: Andrey Borodulin/AFP via Getty Images

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In the early hours of June 12, celebrated in Vladimir Putin’s country as Russia Day, a curious piece appeared on the website of the pro-Kremlin daily Izvestia. Signed ostensibly by Putin’s First Deputy Chief of Staff Sergei Kiriyenko, it promised the residents of the occupied territories of Ukraine that these regions would be absorbed into Russia.

It also contained this provocative passage:

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