Oleg PASTERNAK
The Kremlin-friendly Russian TV propagandist and biographer of President Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Solovyov, a week ago called on the Russian authorities to help US President Donald Trump take over Greenland. The scandalous TV presenter, citing the US operation against dictator Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela as an example, also suggested that the Putin administration launch a so-called “special military operation” (“SVO”) in the former Soviet republics, namely - in Armenia and Central Asia.
From Greenland to the Caucasus: is Russian propaganda preparing new zones of conflict?
In the media space, Solovyov is often perceived as one of the key channels for broadcasting the official position of the Putin regime in order to test and prepare public opinion. In the media, the propagandist is often called the “Mouthpiece of the Kremlin“. Citing the statements about Greenland, the American edition of the British newspaper The Daily Express even defines him as “Putin's ally“.
For the propagandist, Greenland is a territory of confrontation with the EU and a zone of Russian-American influence. “It is extremely profitable for us if this turns into a war with Europe. And we will be ready to help Trump free Greenland from this foreign influence. Why not?“, the TV presenter said on January 11, 2026.
In another of his programs, Solovyov reminded of the “need to expand” the zone of Russian military invasion in the post-Soviet countries: “Let's spit on international law, on the international order”. If it was necessary for our national security to launch a SVO in Ukraine, why, based on the same considerations, can't we launch a SVO in other points of our zone of influence“, Solovyov asks his viewers.
Solovyov speaks, the Kremlin acts?
Since the start of the full-scale military aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, Solovyov has regularly threatened Europe and called on Moscow to take radical action. The Kremlin agitator is distinguished by extreme calls for aggression. For example, in June 2025, he demanded that the Kremlin use nuclear weapons against Poland, and two months later he proposed destroying Norway: “Are they all ready to die? There are not many, it will happen quickly - no one will even realize that the Norwegians have disappeared“.
In October, the propagandist went even further, calling for the start of a full-scale war with the EU. The first targets of the “retaliatory strike“ were to be Brussels, Berlin and Paris, as well as enterprises producing military equipment for Ukraine.
In January, Solovyov's rhetoric, according to which Armenia and Central Asia “remain zones of influence” of Moscow and the Kremlin could start “SVO” there, was condemned by the authorities in Yerevan and commented on by politicians in a number of Central Asian countries – Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Although on January 15, 2026, the so-called The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation distances itself from the statements of the TV presenter calling for military aggression against Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, defining them as a “private opinion“, historical experience shows that such rhetoric is part of Moscow's foreign policy tradition.
The Kremlin's Imperial Rhetoric: From Peter I to Putin
Since the 18th century, from the era of its first emperor Peter I (1672-1725), Russia has consistently viewed the expansion of its influence in neighboring regions as its state policy, perceiving them in the logic of spheres of interest and strategic control. The loss of influence in such areas is often interpreted as a security threat requiring a firm response. The South Caucasus, including the territory of the present-day Republic of Armenia, has remained particularly sensitive to Moscow for centuries.
The Russian Empire, and later the Soviet Union (USSR), played a key role in shaping the administrative borders, demographic processes, and political architecture of modern Armenia. In this process, Russia consciously pursued a policy that led to the destruction and expulsion of Turkic civilization from lands that were their historical homeland. Today, it is this territory that is the basis of Armenian statehood.
From the historical facts point of view, Moscow's policy in the Caucasus is analyzed in the most detailed and consistent way in the book of a Ukrainian author who published his research under the pseudonym Kuzari: “The Vanished Civilization - the Unnoticed Catastrophe“. It shows step by step how Moscow's purposeful and calculated actions transformed the South Caucasus region with the aim of pushing the Turkic population out of lands that were its historical homeland.
“Peter the Great was the architect of a grandiose project to change the ethnodemographic map of the South Caucasus through the mass and systematic resettlement of Armenians from neighboring regions of Persia and Turkey. The subsequent Russian tsars and Soviet leaders, especially Joseph Stalin, diligently implemented this Petrovich idea, expanding it and adapting it to changing realities“, writes one of the sections of the book.
According to the author, the conclusions and theses in his historical research are based on an extensive evidence base of about 2000 sources. In order to maintain objectivity, Azerbaijani and Turkish sources were not used in principle.
Why military threats are not just “private opinion“
A special place among the materials used is occupied by the memoirs of prominent figures of the Armenian national movement from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A significant amount of information is drawn from the works of Armenian eyewitnesses to the events under consideration, from the works of Armenian writers and from the research of established Armenian historians.
Another important corpus of sources are Russian chronicles, works of European missionaries and travelers, documents and memoirs of French, Russian and Soviet officials, statesmen and politicians.
In preparing the book, interviews were conducted with nearly fifty of the last representatives of the Yerevan-Zangezur Turkic civilization. All interviews were videotaped in 2024-2025 in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. Some of the interviewees are no longer alive at the time of publication.
The book and the evidence presented in it once again confirm that the words of Putin's propagandist Vladimir Solovyov cannot be reduced to a “personal opinion“. They fit into real state practice and testify to the aggressive imperial nature of Russia's political course throughout the centuries.
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The author is a Ukrainian political scientist,member of the Association of Professional Political Consultants of Ukraine