Russian President Vladimir Putin assured Wednesday that his country had no “imperial ambitions” and was not planning to attack NATO, more than two years after the start of the offensive against Ukraine.
“Do not seek what does not exist (…) do not seek our imperial ambitions. They don’t exist“, declared Mr. Putin during a meeting with press agencies, in response to a question from AFP on the presence of the flags of contemporary Russia, Imperial Russia and the USSR in front of the headquarters of Gazprom where the meeting with journalists took place.
Mr. Putin then took the opportunity to denounce the West who accuse him of wanting a military confrontation with NATO, and of therefore having to prepare for it. “We make up that Russia wants to attack NATO (…) Who invented this absurdity? Bullshit“, he got carried away.
Moscow denied for months that it was preparing a military offensive against Ukraine, before finally launching its assault on February 24, 2022, accusing the West of wanting to use their Ukrainian ally to weaken or even destroy Russia.
And if the Kremlin denies wanting to recreate its lost empire, Moscow has annexed five Ukrainian regions and a number of Russian officials, Mr. Putin included, point to the fact that these belonged to the Russian and Soviet empires.
Putin threatens to deliver weapons to third countries to hit Western interests
These comments come as the West begins to authorize strikes on Russian territory, under certain conditions, with weapons supplied to kyiv. Ukraine has been demanding this right for months.
For Mr. Putin, if long-range missiles requiring the assistance of Western military personnel were fired against targets in Russia in the future, Moscow would respond.
War in Ukraine: Putin favors a ceasefire to end the war
“If someone considers it possible to supply such weapons in the combat zone to strike our territory (…), why should we not have the right to supply our weapons of the same type in regions of the world where will be struck the sensitive installations of the countries which act in this way against Russia?“, launched Mr. Putin during a long interview with press agencies, including AFP.
Many Western states are opposed to the use of their weapons on Russian territory, particularly long-range, high-precision missiles, fearing that this could push Moscow into escalation.
Throughout the meeting, the Russian leader reiterated his arguments that Russia was willing to sit at the negotiating table, and that the best way to stop the war was for the West to “stop delivering weapons” to Ukraine.
“Providing weapons to a conflict zone is always a bad thing. Especially when it is linked to the fact that suppliers not only supply weapons, but control them. This is a very serious and very dangerous measure.“, he declared again.
Vladimir Putin’s threat: “In Europe, especially in small countries, they need to think about what they are playing with”
He also refused to quantify the losses suffered by the Russian army in nearly two and a half years of conflict, simply stating that they were “much lower” than Ukrainian losses, with “a ratio of one to five.” Since the start of the assault on Ukraine in February 2022, many Western experts have spoken of several tens of thousands of Russian soldiers killed.
The BBC and the independent Russian media Mediazona, for their part, claim to have verified the deaths of at least 50,000 Russian soldiers.
