Vladimir Putin has made yet another astonishing claim about his country’s historical record. This time, the despotic president has insisted that Belgium owes its existence to largely “thanks to Russia”.
This comes amid debate among European leaders over whether to use Russian assets, mostly kept in Belgium, to fund the war in Ukraine.
The security depository Euroclear in Brussels currently holds £161bn of frozen Russian assets. The gargantuan number is the vast majority of the £220bn of total frozen Russian assets in Japan and the West, according to The Economist.
Mr Putin made the comments about Belgium owing its statehood to Russia, after being questioned by a Belgian at a conference near Sochi, close to the Georgian border on the Black Sea.
The question came at the World Youth Festival, which is a gathering of young people from Russia and around the world.
According to Mr Putin, Belgium first “appeared on the world map as an independent state, largely thanks to Russia and Russia’s position” – he did not specify how this was so.
In reality, the Russian president’s historical analysis doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
When Belgium pursued its independence from the Kingdom of the Netherlands through revolution in 1830, Russia was on the side of the Dutch.
It was planning to send troops to quell the violence, out of fear that other European monarchies could be next if the revolution was successful.
However, the czar had to change tact due to the November Uprising in Poland. Once the uprising was defeated, Polish officers travelled to Belgium and bolstered the country’s limited armed forces.
Russia ultimately accepted Belgium’s statehood at the London Conference in 1830, however crediting Russia with the independence of the western European state would be a misleading representation of events.
The Polish officers that travelled to Belgium were anti-Russian and fought against the Dutch troops that the czar originally supported.
Further, Russia was a relatively minor player at the conference, which was led by Britain and France.
This is not the first time Putin has made spurious historical claims. Most notably, he believes that Ukraine is a part of Russia. Despite the close links between the two states, Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and has been an autonomous state ever since.
