Kremlin propaganda media and anonymous telegram channels are circulating a video of Valerii Zorkin, head of Russia's Constitutional Court, showing Putin a copy of a 17th-century French map that doesn't seem to show Ukraine. The Russian dictator said that Ukraine is a quasi-state created by the Soviet authorities. But he added: “Well, we know that these lands were simply part of Rzeczpospolita, and then they asked to be part of the Moscow kingdom”. This is manipulation.

Experts from the Viorstka (Layout) media drew attention to the fake. They found a map by cartographer Guillaume Sanson, a copy of which was shown to Putin. There is Ukraine on the map, it is signed as Vkraine ou Pays des Cosaques (Ukraine or Country of Cossacks). Among the maps of Ukraine is his famous work, created in 1674. This map can be found on the website of the digital library of the National Library of France and its Gallica partners. Moreover, Crimea on the map is not part of Russia, and the peninsula is circled as a separate state. In the 17th century, the Crimean Khanate was located there.

Russian propaganda continues to promote the key propaganda theses that Ukraine did not exist, it was created by Lenin. The Russian president himself speaks of this in order to justify a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Earlier, Detector Media wrote that the occupiers had prepared a pseudo-historical training manual for teaching Ukrainian children in the temporarily occupied territories.