Putin's 2008 Comments On Crimea, Before A Sharp Change Of Tack

In an interview with Germany's ARD television in 2008, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Moscow recognizes all of Ukraine's borders, and that there is no issue of ethnic conflict in Crimea. His comments, delivered shortly after Russia's military intervention in the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia, stand in stark contrast with Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its support of armed separatists in eastern Ukraine.