When Vladimir Putin first said this, he immediately followed it up with the clarification, "That was a joke." [Source = BBC.]
At a televised event (dare I say, "a junket"?) a nine year old boy answered a question about the country's furthest borders (or "limits") with the answer that Russia's borders ended at the Bering Strait —please allow to me point out that this would be a prime candidate for Trump's policy of renaming everything "America", if Donald Trump ever happened to look at that part of a map. Vitus Bering was a Russian navy officer, although neither born nor raised in Russia. We may certainly imagine that Trump might decide that "The Straits of America" has a more poetic sound to it. "The Trump Strait" is a name already taken, apparently.
It is quite possible that this was a joke Putin had told before, and it is possible he rehearsed it for this occasion, but —spontaneously or not— he interrupted the boy's answer to say some words to the effect that, "No no, Russia's border doesn't end anywhere at all." Again, there may or may not be a bit more of an abstract sense of "limits" (and "limitlessness") intended by the original Russian phrase —an inference, on my part, based entirely on what I've seen in English.
This is now commonly stated propaganda in the Russian newspapers, although it is a propaganda statement with its own sense of irony and intrigue. It is a catchphrase that can be used to point out the absurdity of Russian expansion, rather than its inevitability —or perhaps a combination of the two —suggesting that it is absurd and inevitable in equal measure.
Snopes dug up a different history of the catchphrase, dating to October of 2023, long after the geography quiz junket of 2016, but also long enough ago to be forgotten today:
[Vladimir Putin:] You know, this was said for the first time in a conversation with one of the former Presidents of the United States, when he was looking at a map of the Russian Federation at my home in Ogaryovo; it certainly was a joke.
We all know this, but I would like to repeat: Russia remains the largest country in the world by area. On a more serious note, this primarily makes sense at the civilisational level. Our compatriots live [around the world] in large numbers; the Russian world is of a global nature; Russian is one of the official languages of the United Nations. In Latin America alone – I recently met with their parliamentarians – there are 300,000 Russians living there. They are everywhere: in Asia, in Africa, in Europe and certainly in North America.
So, again, speaking seriously, as a civilisation, Russia has no borders, just like other civilisations have no borders either. Take India or China; look how many representatives of China, or how many representatives of India live in other countries. Various civilisations overlap and interact with each other. And it would be great if this interaction was natural and friendly, aimed at strengthening this balance.
[Source = Snopes]
My nihilism certainly extends to (and repudiates) nationalism, but this rarely comes up in conversation: the idea of a universal civilization is in the same category as hot ice or a square circle —or, for that matter, inclusive snobbery.
The significance of a civilization can be inferred from whatever it excludes: if you can't get into the opera house wearing sandals, you're uncivilized, and it either is or represents civilization. If the sober exclude the addicts, or the vegans exclude the carnivores, etc. etc.
Civilization is editorial in nature: your magazine is only as good as the articles you refuse to publish. And your civilization —as a whole— is just as bad as whoever and whatever you make excuses for (as the magazine may be judged by its worst article, column, or even cartoon).
