Ukraine Part Of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev said

 Ukraine is part of Russia, but due to geopolitical reasons and history, Russia has for a long time put up with the fact that the countries live "in different apartments," Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with leading Russian media, including Sputnik.

"Ukraine is generally a part of Russia, to be honest, it is a part of Russia. But due to geopolitical reasons... and history... we have long put up with the fact that we live in different apartments. We are forced to take this into account, these fictitious borders, territories that have always been part of... the Russian Empire, it was all the Russian Empire... except for certain areas that came to us as a result of the Second World War. But these territories were also originally inhabited by the Russian population and have always been part of Russia in the narrow sense of the word," Medvedev said.

He said that if Ukraine joined NATO, Russia would get a neighbor who plans to produce nuclear weapons and is part of an unfriendly bloc, adding that Kiev could then launch a full-scale operation against Russia because of Crimea, and that Moscow could not accept this.

"And you want us to put up with it? Especially in conditions when we have a dispute over Crimea: we consider it our territory, they consider it theirs.

So they join NATO and after that, under NATO's umbrella, they begin a large-scale operation against our country - we cannot accept this," Medvedev said.