MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin on Tuesday accused NATO and the West of stoking conflict in Ukraine in the mistaken belief that they could defeat Russia, whose existence he said they were seeking to destroy.
Speaking to both chambers of parliament and to many army and civil society executives, the Russian president promised to meet “carefully and consistently” all the challenges facing the country.
In a speech similar in tone to that of his previous speeches since the start of the invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago, Vladimir Putin insisted that he had no other choice to put an end to a conflict initiated according to him by Western countries with the aim of inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia and therefore “destroying” it.
Moscow has made intense efforts to peacefully resolve the crisis that has prevailed in eastern Ukraine “since the 2014 coup”, he said.
“We did everything possible to solve this problem peacefully, peacefully negotiated a way out of this difficult conflict, but behind our backs a very different scenario was brewing,” the Russian president said. .
“The Ukrainian people themselves are hostage to the Kyiv regime and its Western masters who effectively occupy the regime politically, militarily and economically,” he said.
“They want to turn a localized conflict into a global confrontation. This is how we understand it and how we are going to respond to it, because in this case we are talking about the very existence of our country,” Vladimir Putin continued, assuring that It is impossible to defeat Russia.
Resorting as often to a veiled nuclear threat, he announced that Moscow was suspending its participation in the treaty on strategic nuclear weapons, without leaving it, and now authorized itself to carry out tests if the United States were to do the same.
The master of the Kremlin received a standing ovation when he mentioned the annexation of four Ukrainian regions after referendums without international legitimacy. He then asked the audience to observe a minute of silence in memory of the victims of the conflict.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; French version Nicolas Delame and Tangi Salaün, editing by Kate Entringer)
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