This photo taken on Wednesday, June 19, 2019, and distributed by Kremlin Press Service shows Russian President Vladimir Putin during an interview with American movie director Oliver Stone for his Revealing Ukraine documentary in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. (Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

This photo taken on Wednesday, June 19, 2019, and distributed by Kremlin Press Service shows Russian President Vladimir Putin during an interview with American movie director Oliver Stone for his Revealing Ukraine documentary in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. (Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin says he believes Russians and Ukrainians constitute one nation and that the countries should find a way to integrate.

Putin made the comments in an interview with the American film director Oliver Stone on June 19; material from the interview was used in a Stone film about Ukraine and the full transcript was published by the Kremlin on Friday.

“I believe that Russians and Ukrainians are one people ... one nation, in fact,” Putin said. “When these lands that are now the core of Ukraine joined Russia ... nobody thought of themselves as anything but Russians.”

ADVERTISEMENT

In light of this bond, Putin said “we can use this as our competitive advantage during some form of integration.”