Fiona Hill thinks Putin spent the pandemic looking at old maps and wants to restore 'borders of the old Russian imperium'

• Fiona Hill told Politico that Vladimir Putin wants to regain dominance across places within old Russian empire borders.
• Hill said it's likely Putin spent the pandemic looking at maps and treaties Russia used to have.

Russian President Vladimir Putin thinks the "borders of the old Russian imperium are still in play for Moscow to dominate now," and won't stop at just Ukraine, Fiona Hill said.

Hill, an expert on Putin and the former Senior Director for Europe and Russia at the United States National Security Council, told Politico's Maura Reynolds she thinks Putin has spent the pandemic "down in the archives of the Kremlin" looking "through old maps and treaties and all the different borders that Russia has had over the centuries."

She said that Putin has criticized former Soviet and Russian leaders for losing Russian land and believes that because borders can change, the borders that were once in Soviet or Russian control should be under Russia's influence again.

However, Hill said that doesn't necessarily mean Putin plans to annex all of those countries as he did with Crimea.

"You can establish dominance by marginalizing regional countries, by making sure that their leaders are completely dependent on Moscow, either by Moscow practically appointing them through rigged elections or ensuring they are tethered to Russian economic and political and security networks. You can see this now across the former Soviet space," Hill said.

Hill said countries like Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan have all experienced Russian influence in recent years. Azerbaijan for example, signed a bilateral military agreement with Russia just a few days ago despite the country's leader resisting that effort for decades.

"But amid all this, Ukraine was the country that got away. And what Putin is saying now is that Ukraine doesn't belong to Ukrainians. It belongs to him and the past. He is going to wipe Ukraine off the map, literally, because it doesn't belong on his map of the 'Russian world,'" Hill said.

She added that if Putin had his way, Ukraine "is not going to exist as the modern-day Ukraine of the last 30 years."