According to President Vladimir V. Putin, Western nations are exploiting the conflict in Ukraine to destabilise and “tear apart” Russia, and he said that Russia is battling for its own survival there.
Speaking at a military helicopter facility in Buryatia, a mountainous Russian region more than 2,700 miles east of Moscow, Putin said that while western nations were entangling themselves in the conflict in Ukraine to “better their geopolitical status,” the stakes were considerably higher for Russia.
Putin said at a meeting that was broadcast on Russian state television, “This is not a geopolitical problem for us.
“To us, this conflict is a struggle to preserve Russian sovereignty.”
The Kremlin has been attempting to depict the conflict in Ukraine as an existential struggle that Russia cannot afford to lose since the beginning of its full-scale invasion more than a year ago.
After spending years attempting to resolve the situation in the country’s east, Putin has said that he was left with no alternative but to deploy soldiers to Ukraine.
He was making reference to the unrest after Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, when it forcibly grabbed Crimea and helped two self-declared pro-Russian republics be established in the country’s east.
According to Western nations, Putin is fighting a conflict that is both very personal and imperial in nature. With his army committing war crimes and bombing civilians, he wants to seize Ukraine and enslave its people.
Putin said that in order to put an end to the conflict and “bring peace and stability closer,” Russia must “consolidate the whole society” in Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buryatia.
Putin said that he had been concerned about Russia’s ability to endure the impact of the sanctions put in place as a result of his invasion decision. He said that looking back, the previous year “was only good for us”.
