“It is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield,” said Russian president Vladimir Putin in his Federal Assembly address on Tuesday.
Tearing into the machinations of the West, Putin said they have become a “symbol of total unprincipled lies.”
“The promises of the Western rulers, their statements about a desire to establish peace in the Donbass turned into, as we know see, a forgery, a cruel lie. They were just playing for time, engaging in chicanery, turning a blind eye to political assassinations, the repression of the Kiev regime against those wanted, the abuse of believers,” said Putin.
The ex-German chancellor Angela Merkel on record has admitted that the 2015 Minsk Agreement between Ukraine and Russia, brokered by Germany and France, and United States, was a ruse for the Kiev regime to buy time and beef itself up.
“The concepts of honour, trust, decency are not for the West. They are used to spitting on the whole world. It turned out that they treat the peoples of their countries in the same way,” noted Putin.
The peace manoeuvres were nothing more than a “diplomatic spectacle, a bluff.”
“They are almost proud of and revel in their treacherousness… The entire time as Donbass was burning and blood was being spilled, while Russia sincerely sought… a peaceful solution, they were playing on people’s lives. They were playing, as they say in certain circles, with a stacked deck,” Putin stated.
The Russian leader accused the West of using this “despicable method of deceit” during campaigns in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. “They will never clear themselves of this disgrace,” Putin asserted, adding that as former colonial powers, Western nations had grown accustomed to believing that they could get away with anything.
Putin claimed that Ukraine was ready to launch a full scale attack on Donbass by February 2022 and that Russia’s military operation was a pre-emptive measure.
Once US and NATO rejected Russia’s military security proposals in December 2021, Putin said, “it became clear they had green lighted (Kiev’s) aggressive plans.”
“I want to repeat: they started the war. And we have used, and are using, force to end it.”
he West intends to turn a local conflict into a global confrontation, Putin stressed.
Neo-Nazis in Ukraine do not hide whose heirs they consider themselves to be, putting swastikas on the military equipment and using Nazi names, but the West ignores this ideology, Putin said.
“Neo-Nazis do not hide whose heirs they consider themselves to be. It is surprising that none of those in power in the West notice this.”
“I want to emphasize and it is actually well known to anyone that no other country in the world has as many military bases abroad as the United States. There are hundreds of them, I want to point it out, hundreds of bases across the globe. The whole planet is covered with them, one could just have a look at the map,” the Russian president said.
The West has already spent $150 billion on military assistance to Ukraine, and the flow of money is not stopping, said Putin.
