Russia is not threatening anyone and has no plans to attack any country “not in 2029, not in 2030, and not in 2050” but would be forced to respond if it faced aggression, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a plenary session of the annual Valdai Discussion Club meeting.
Putin claimed that Russia had been deliberately pushed into a situation in which it had no choice but to defend itself using military force.
“I am convinced that Russia was deliberately brought to a point where, in response to this blatant aggression, it was simply forced to defend itself with arms. We were deliberately pushed to this line. The West should not have allowed Russophobia, the persecution and killing of Russians in Ukraine to become state ideology, nor should it have set the strategic defeat of Russia as its objective,” Putin said.
He added that for many years, what he described as the “new Russia” had sought to become part of the Western world.
“For many years and I want to emphasize this in particular the new Russia sought to become part of the so-called Western civilization. In practice, however, they did everything to ensure that Russia would ultimately be isolated and fragmented,” Putin said.
