Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday accused the West of colonial arrogance and an attempt to crush his country with “stupid” sanctions, which are economic blitzkriegs.
Addressing the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, a demonstration event held this year with almost no Western involvement, he returns again and again to the topic of Russia’s sovereignty and power in the face of what he portrayed as Western hostility:
“We are strong people and we can handle any challenge. Like our ancestors, we will solve any problem, that’s what the whole millennium history of our country says.”
Putin drew applause from the hall when he reaffirmed his determination to continue the “special military operation” in Ukraine, which unleashed what he called an “unprecedented” flow of Western economic sanctions.
He said the main goal of the invasion was to protect “our” people in the predominantly Russian-speaking Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, an excuse that Kyiv and the West reject as an unfounded pretext for a campaign that has already led to the occupation of parts of southern Ukraine. Donbass.
In a speech that lasted more than an hour, Putin said Russian troops in Donbass were also fighting to protect Russia’s own “rights to secure development.”
“The West has generally refused to fulfill its previous obligations, and it has proved simply impossible to reach new agreements with it,” Putin said.
“In the current situation, against the background of growing risks for us and threats, Russia’s decision to conduct a special military operation was forced – difficult, of course, but forced and necessary.
‘GOD’S MERMAID’
He called the campaign an “sovereign state with the right to defend its security” and accused the West not only of inciting anti-Russian sentiment but also of “active military appropriation of Ukrainian territory.”
Putin said the United States was considered “God’s messenger on Earth” and that Western sanctions were based on the false premise that Russia had no economic sovereignty.
Washington and its allies are trying to “change the course of history,” he said.
Shortly before Putin began speaking, the Kremlin announced that a “denial of service” cyberattack had disabled the conference’s accreditation and admission systems, forcing it to postpone its planned speech by an hour.
Putin said the EU could lose more than $ 400 billion this year because of sanctions he said will be imposed on those who imposed them.
He dismissed speculation that Russia was responsible for the sharp rise in world food prices, saying that not exporting five or six tonnes of Ukrainian wheat and six or seven tonnes of corn “does not change the weather”.
He said Russia is ready to guarantee the transit of ships exporting Ukrainian grain across the Black Sea, but Ukraine has five or six other ways to export its grain through Belarus, Poland or Romania.
Ukraine is using alternative road, rail and river routes to try to circumvent the closure, especially of Odessa, its main deep-sea port, for fear of a Russian attack.
But other routes are much more cumbersome, with a capacity at best of a third of the more than 6 million tonnes of grain and oilseeds a month that have been delivered from Odessa in the past.
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