Mr Poroshenko, the deployment of Russian troops near Ukraine has prompted many governments in Europe to warn Moscow against an invasion and war.

This week, Presidents Biden and Putin talked to each other on the phone for a long time.

What does this phone call mean in the long term?

Gerhard Gnauck

Political correspondent for Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania based in Warsaw.

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It could mean that we are all one step away from the abyss.

But it won't bring peace and predictability to the region.

In Ukraine, all political forces should now unite in their efforts, and I, as opposition leader, want to contribute to this.

I know how bad it is to be president in wartime when you are losing dozens of soldiers every day.

The worst day of my life was the day - shortly before a round of negotiations - Russian missiles hit and killed children in the city of Kramatorsk.

But all of these dire events have made Ukraine stronger and drawn to conclusions.

Before this war, which began with the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014, 16 percent of Ukrainians were in favor of integration into NATO.

In 2019 it was 65 percent.

What are Russia's goals today, short term and long term?

In the short term, President Putin's aim is to destabilize Ukraine from within and attack it from outside, weakening it to the point where we can be conquered.

His long-term goal is to destroy Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity in order to be able to realize his crazy idea of ​​a Soviet Union 2.0.

I only refer to his well-known essay in which he wrote six months ago that Ukraine and Russia are "one people" and that Ukraine therefore has no right to exist.

In the West, his short-term goals are to drive NATO and the EU out of Eastern Europe and to destroy the values, societies and democracies of the West.

Does Putin think he can succeed?

In one of our phone calls in 2014, he said that on his table there was a book by a famous German author about the crisis in Europe.

It was “The Downfall of the West” by Oswald Spengler.

He really believes in it!

(laughs) I told Putin I hadn't read it.

He advised me to read it very carefully.

And in the long term he wants to create a new system like the one after the Yalta Conference in 1945, i.e. new zones of influence in Europe.

What does that mean for Europe, for the West?

Putin will not stop at Ukraine.

He'll go as far as you let him go.

That is why I am proud that on June 30, 2014, as the newly elected President, I gave the order to our army to strike back in eastern Ukraine.

And back then we liberated two thirds of the area that the Moscow-controlled fighters had previously conquered.

How was it in 2014, when Crimea was first occupied and then fighting began in eastern Ukraine?

Did Putin also threaten to attack the capital Kiev at the time?

That was shortly before, when my predecessor Olexandr Turchynov was the interim president.

He phoned Sergej Naryschkin, the President of the Russian Parliament (and today's head of the SWR secret service, editor).

Naryshkin told my predecessor that the Russians were about to attack Ukraine, destroy the country's defensive capabilities and conquer Kiev.

That's what Turchynow told me.

In negotiations with me, Putin didn’t do anything like that.

But sometimes we also had a high discussion temperature.

Can you give an example?