Russia can withstand West’s sanctions, Putin says as Ukraine war rages on
Global News
President Vladimir Putin said Russia would achieve its goals in Ukraine and would not submit to what he called a western attempt to achieve global dominance and dismember Russia.
President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia would achieve its goals in Ukraine and would not submit to what he called a western attempt to achieve global dominance and dismember Russia.
Putin said Russia was ready to discuss neutral status for Ukraine, three weeks into a war that has killed thousands of people and forced millions of Ukrainians to flee their homes.
He said that what Russia calls its special military operation was “going to plan.”
In a televised speech to government ministers, Putin went further than before in acknowledging the pain that western sanctions were inflicting on the economy, but insisted that Russia could withstand the blow.
There was no sign of any softening in his bitter invective against the West and Ukraine.
“In the foreseeable future, it was possible that the pro-Nazi regime in Kyiv could have got its hands on weapons of mass destruction, and its target, of course, would have been Russia,” Putin said.
Putin has consistently described the democratically elected leaders of Ukraine as neo-Nazis bent on committing genocide against Russian-speakers in the east of the country – a line that the West denounces as baseless war propaganda.
He said western countries wanted to turn Russia into a “weak dependent country; violate its territorial integrity; to dismember Russia in a way that suits them.”