Did Russia Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu Say USSR Will Return?

Russia’s stated reasons to invade Ukraine have expanded and shifted over the five months of the conflict, from misleading claims Ukraine needs to be “demilitarized” and “denazified,” to suggestions it was a preventative strike, and, more recently, to admissions that it was effectively looking to topple Ukraine’s pro-Western government and change the “World Order”.

The imperialist rhetoric underlying much of that discourse, along with President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials lamenting the dissolution of the Soviet Union in past statements, have led many to speculate that its ultimate goal is to resurrect the USSR (or some form of it).

Thus a statement from the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, spread via a clipped video of his speech, in which he mentioned that the Soviet Union will be back, was quickly taken at face value as confirmation of the Kremlin’s true ambitions.

The Claim

A short clip shared by Twitter user @Krichevskaya and others on Wednesday purported that Shoigu promised the return of the Soviet Union. The tweet, now deleted, was picked up by other prominent users, including former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul.

“The latest statements from Lavrov and Shoigu make very clear that Putin’s war aims in Ukraine extend well beyond Donbas. Giving Putin another chunk of Ukraine will not produce lasting peace. Only stopping Putin on the battlefield will,” McFaul tweeted later.

Other prominent accounts also shared the video, with some including Shoigu’s direct quote:

“Russian defense minister Shoigu: ‘This is all temporary. There will be the Soviet Union again, no one will go anywhere, and we will live in peace’,” Ostap Yarysh, a Voice of America journalist based in Ukraine, wrote.