Poland's former prime minister, Donald Tusk, has denied that Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that Russia and Poland carve up Ukraine.
Tusk told Polish Radio TOK-FM on October 24 that Putin never made such an offer to him.
The claim was made by former foreign minister Radek Sikorsk,i who said in an interview with the U.S. internet magazine Politico on October 19 that the offer was made in a one-on-one meeting between Tusk and Putin in Moscow in 2008.
But Sikorski later backed away from the allegation, saying his memory had failed him.
Tusk said October 24 that Sikorski must have gotten the impression from alarming remarks Putin made at a NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008 in which he said Ukraine was an artificial country and that Russia has interests there.
