Putin goads West, vows triumph in Ukraine

"That Blitzkrieg on which our foes were counting on did not work," said the Russian President

President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday vowed Russia would triumph in all of its "noble" war aims in Ukraine, using his first public comments on the conflict in a week to goad the West for failing to bring Moscow to heel with an economic Blitzkrieg.

Addressing the war in public for the first time since Russian forces retreated from northern Ukraine after they were halted at the gates of Kyiv, Mr Putin said the situation in Ukraine was a tragedy.

However Russia had no choice but fight, he said, because it had to defend the Russian speakers of eastern Ukraine and prevent its former Soviet neighbour from becoming an anti-Russian springboard for Moscow's enemies.

Sixty one years to the day since the Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, Mr Putin was shown by state television on a visit to the Vostochny Cosmodrome 3,450 miles (5550 km) east of Moscow.

Asked by Russian space agency workers if the operation in Ukraine would achieve its goals, Putin said: "Absolutely. I don't have any doubt at all."

"Its goals are absolutely clear and noble," Mr Putin said. "There is no doubt that the goals will be achieved."

"That Blitzkrieg on which our foes were counting on did not work," Mr Putin said of the West's crippling sanctions imposed after Mr Putin's Feb. 24 order for an invasion of Ukraine.