U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced that the statements of Russian President Vladimir Putin prove that his plan all this time was the invasion of Ukraine.

"Now that we've heard it directly from President Putin himself, it confirms what we've been saying: that he did not send more than 150,000 troops to the Ukrainian border because of benign military exercises, or to respond to threatened aggression from Ukraine, or to stop a fabricated genocide by Ukraine, or any other manufactured reason. His plan all along has been to invade Ukraine; to control Ukraine and its people; to destroy Ukraine's democracy, which offers a stark contrast to the autocracy that he leads; to reclaim Ukraine as a part of Russia," Blinken said at a briefing on the results of talks with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Washington on Tuesday.

According to him, this is why it is the biggest threat in Europe after the Second World War.

"President Putin deeply disturbing speech yesterday and his statements today make clear to the world how he views Ukraine: not as a sovereign nation with the right to territorial integrity and independence, but rather as a creation of Russia, and therefore subordinate to Russia. It's a completely false assertion that ignores history, international law, and the tens of millions of patriotic Ukrainians who are proud citizens of a free and independent Ukraine," Blinken stressed.