Russia could regain its status as “a global rival” for Western powers through some degree of “integration” with Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a newly released interview.

“Some like dividing Ukraine and Russia. They believe it's a very important goal,” Putin told TASS, a state-run media outlet. “Since any integration of Russia and Ukraine, along with their capacities and competitive advantages, would spell the emergence of a rival — a global rival for both Europe and the world.”

Putin made the comment while reiterating his belief that Ukrainians and Russians are “the same people,” a claim widely perceived as a means to justify Russian influence over former Soviet nations. His reference to “integration” is even more unusual, and incendiary, according to Western analysts, given that the two countries have been locked in conflict since Russia’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

“Putin is careful with his language, so this is a startling statement,” the Atlantic Council’s John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who previously was stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, told the Washington Examiner. “One should not rule out that ‘integration’ means exactly what ‘integration’ suggests, which is a close, internal relationship between the two countries and the two peoples.”

Putin, a former KGB officer, maintained that the Ukrainian national identity came about because Russia's rivals wanted to "divide and rule" the Eastern power. "As a result of people sharing the border with the Catholic world, Europe, a community of people feeling to some extent independent from the Russian state began to emerge," Putin said. "How should we feel about that? I have already said: We should respect that. But we should not forget about our shared community. ... We should understand where we are now but not forget who we are and where we come from."

Multiple Western analysts noted that Putin has been pressuring Belarus to form a new political union with Russia, a political shift that could enable him to remain president of the expanded Russian state. That effort is anchored in an ambiguous 1998 political agreement between the two countries. Ukrainian authorities never signed such a deal, and the current conflict has alienated the two peoples despite Putin’s long-running effort to deny that Russian military forces invaded Ukraine.

“The Ukrainians understand now that the Russians, particularly this group in the Kremlin, are no longer their brothers,” another former U.S. official familiar with Russian-Ukrainian issues told the Washington Examiner. “From the Ukrainian standpoint, it's ludicrous to even contemplate.”

Alisa Muzergues, a foreign policy analyst at GLOBSEC, echoed that assessment and added that the attempt to maintain influence in Ukraine is partly a way to appeal to the domestic Russian population.

“Putin is striving for recognition of Russia as a superpower, but while having limited capacities, it can only have a direct influence on its immediate neighborhood,” she told the Washington Examiner. "And Ukraine is indeed a crucial player in this game of Putin’s influence due to a number of reasons: economic, cultural, historic — but also it is important for his influence inside Russia.”

The interview brings to mind, for Herbst and other analysts, Zbigniew Brzezinski’s axiom about the relationship between Moscow and Kyiv. “Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire,” Zbigniew, a former White House national security adviser under Jimmy Carter, wrote in 1994.

Putin seems to agree with Brzezinski, Herbst observed. “And 'empire' in this case is defined as a global rival for both Europe and the world,” he said. “Maybe this is the inner Putin coming out.”