He writes about this in an article published on the Day of Russia in pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia. The material was soon removed, but is available in the Google cache.

In the article, Kiriyenko confirms that the aggressor country plans to annex the territories captured and destroyed by Russian troops, and he is leading this process.

He wrote: “Russia has had to go through dramatic changes. And I am working on the accession of new territories to our Motherland, like no other, I deeply understand: Mariupol, Melitopol, Berdyansk, Kherson, Simferopol and Sevastopol are not simply words".

Putin's possible successor also writes that he can guarantee the annexation of Ukrainian territories "today, tomorrow, in ten years." According to him, the aggressor wants to hold a referendum on annexation in the occupied Ukrainian regions, and the Kremlin is interested not only in "the lands of Donbass, Novorossia and Tavrida." Kiriyenko also writes that "Russia will never leave the occupied areas."

Kiriyenko visited Mariupol, which was partially captured by the occupiers, on May, 5th. According to journalist Vitaly Portnikov, the trip showed that he had become the Kremlin's curator of the occupied territories instead of Dmitry Kozak .

According to Russian President Vladimir Putin: “He has repeatedly, in conversations with Western leaders, emphasized his uncompromising position regarding Russian Crimea and Donbass, put forward demands to stop “hostile policies”, stop NATO expansion to the East, and bring Ukraine to the negotiating table.

But, these calls were steadily ignored. Therefore, now, the issues of the will of the Russian Kherson region and the Azov region cannot be the subject of bargaining. As well as the issue of Chinese Taiwan, which is raised by the leader of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping. As well as the issues of the islands in the Mediterranean Sea, which are raised by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”