He shared his opinion with "Espreso.TV" live on air.
"Putin does not want to recreate the Soviet Union. The USSR for the bearer of such political thinking is a mistake. Because in the USSR, a sham of statehood was created for the peoples of the former Russian Empire, so that they would not run away. We talk a lot about the USSR, but we do not understand that it was also an occupation of the Ukrainian people and the Soviet government fought against people's uprisings for many years," Portnikov explained.
The journalist is convinced that Putin wants to join Russia not only Ukraine but also Belarus.
"Putin wants to prevent this mistake by simply annexing territories to the Russian Federation. According to his plan, Russia should include all regions of Ukraine and Belarus, while Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan will exist as Russian autonomies. The same applies to Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan should be divided. A large part of Kazakhstan will simply become part of Russia, and the rest will be formalized as a republic within the Russian Federation," Portnikov added.