ISTANBUL

Ukraine's presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, on Friday rebuffed comments by former US President Barack Obama on Russia's annexation of Crimea during an interview with CNN. 

"If Mr. @BarackObama publicly states that #Russia's annexation of #Crimea in 2014... was 'legal and justified,' then we should not be surprised that today there is a full-scale Russian aggression in Europe and a large-scale war of aggression that is taking hundreds of thousands of lives," Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter.

Podolyak also argued it should come as no surprise that international law "practically does not exist" based on Obama's statements, further claiming that the current Russian government is "a blatant reflection of a specific pre-war 'Western policy'."

"Maybe it's time to start admitting critical mistakes instead of coming up with new excuses?" Podolyak concluded.

In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Obama said there was no "armed invasion" of Crimea by Russia due to the high number of Russian speakers on the peninsula and "some sympathy" for the view that Moscow was "representing their interests."

Obama also argued that he and Germany's then-Chancellor Angela Merkel had to push other European countries to impose sanctions on Russia to prevent President Vladimir Putin from "continuing through the Donbas and through the rest of Ukraine."

In 2014, Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, a move widely viewed as illegal by the international community, including Türkiye and the UN General Assembly.