Russia is practically fighting against the entirety of the collective West in the Ukraine conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a meeting with service members in the Kremlin on Friday.
The meeting coincided with Russia Day, which commemorates the country’s declaration of sovereignty on June 12, 1990 and the beginning of its post-Soviet statehood.
“Russia is standing against the so-called Collective West single-handedly,” Putin said, noting that the Ukraine conflict has become “exceedingly high-tech.”
The NATO nations are all, without exception, ramping up efforts to do all they can to orchestrate actions against Russia, he added.
Moscow did not initiate the Ukraine conflict, Putin stressed.
It was they who carried out the coup d'etat in Ukraine, which forced us to take the people of Crimea under protection. When they started the war, they started bombing Donetsk using warplanes.
The entirety of Europe had previously united against Russia, both during Napoleon’s invasion and under Hitler during World War II, he said.
Now, Western nations have set out to “inflict a strategic defeat on Russia,” but “this is not something that can be done,” Putin said.
“The enemy is expanding the use of [kamikaze] drones… trying to strike at our morale, trying to break up Russian society… and cause economic damage,” he noted, stressing that “they will not succeed.”
Russia is working to improve and strengthen its air defense systems in response, and will retaliate against Ukrainian drone attacks with strikes against its infrastructure, in order to “discourage them from attacking civilian targets,” the Russian president said.
Kiev’s forces have increased kamikaze drone strikes against Russian border regions, logistics, and oil and gas facilities in recent months, killing dozens of civilians. At least four civilians were killed and 20 others wounded by Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s Bryansk and Belgorod regions on Thursday, according to local authorities.