Moscow: President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that what is at stake in Ukraine is Russia’s existence as a state.
Speaking at length to workers at an aviation factory in Buryatia, about 4,400 kilometers east of Moscow, Putin expanded on his familiar argument that the West is bent on isolating Russia.
“So for us, this is not a geopolitical task, but a task of the survival of the Russian state, which creates the conditions for the future development of the country and our children,” he said.
Putin has accused the West of using Ukraine as a tool to wage war against Russia and inflicting a “strategic defeat”. The United States and its allies say they are helping to protect Ukraine from an imperialist invasion that has destroyed Ukrainian cities, killed thousands of civilians and forced millions from their homes. has forced
Putin, in response to a question, said he was worried about the economy when the West imposed an unprecedented wave of sanctions last year, but it had proved stronger than expected.
He said that we have increased our economic independence many times, what did our enemy trust? That we will fall in 2-3 weeks or in a month.
He said the enemy expected factories to close, the financial system to collapse, unemployment to rise, protesters to take to the streets, and Russia to “sink and collapse from within”.
“It didn’t happen,” Putin said. “It proved to many of us, and even more so to the West, that the fundamental foundations of Russia’s stability are much stronger than anyone thought.”
