You're reading: Newsweek: Ukraine’s president believes Putin wants Ukraine for his ‘Russian Empire’

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko believes his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin wants to return to Ukraine to the "Russian Empire," he told CNN in an interview on August 24.

Poroshenko, who was due to meet Putin along with the leaders of France and Germany next month, before Putin decided he did not want to, spoke on the 25th anniversary since Ukraine declared its independence from the Soviet Union.

Read more here.