Russian President, Vladimir Putin has said in an interview that the West turned Ukraine into a ‘bargaining chip’ to achieve its geopolitical ambitions.

He said, “The main reason for today’s tragic situation in Ukraine is the deliberate anti-Russia policy pursued by the US-led collective West.”

“For decades, they have sought total control over Ukraine.

“They funded nationalist and anti-Russia organizations there; they persistently worked to convince Ukraine that Russia was its eternal enemy and the main threat to its existence.”
Vladimir Putin

According to Putin, the current situation in Ukraine has been significantly influenced by a “whole range of external and internal factors.”

“Soviet leaders’ decisions on the national and territorial issues also had their negative effect,” he said.

The Russian President stated that “the process of the creation of Ukraine started immediately after the 1917 revolution, when unstable and fragile quasi-state formations without clear borders emerged in that territory.”

He continued, “Later on, the boundaries of the constituent USSR republics were marked rather randomly, based on the ‘proletarian necessity.’

“Thus, the industrial Donbass populated predominantly by Russians was handed over to Ukraine,” he said.

“For many years, millions of civilians in Donbass have had to survive genocide, shelling and blockade on the part of the Kiev regime. The hatred for everything Russian has become Ukraine’s official ideology.”

“The use of the Russian language has been increasingly restricted, and the canonical Orthodoxy has been subjected to persecution, which now has come to the point of a direct ban.”
Vladimir Putin

Ukraine’s Incursion To End In Failure

Also on Monday, Putin stated that Kiev’s act of provocation against Russia’s borderline Kursk Region will end in failure.

He said at a meeting with students at the capital of Russia’s Siberian region of Tuva, “I am confident that this act of provocation will also fail.”

“We certainly need to do away with the thugs that have intruded into Russian territory in the Kursk Region, and address attempts to create instability in our border regions in general,” Putin stated.

He added that the Kursk attack was also meant to stop the Russian advance in Donbass.

“Everyone knows what the result was. Yes, of course, our people are going through tough times, particularly in the Kursk Region, but the enemy has failed to achieve its main goal, which was to stop our advance in Donbass

“Moreover, we are no longer talking about advancing by 200 to 300 meters. We haven’t been advancing at such a quick pace in Donbass for quite a while: the Russian Armed Forces are taking control of not just 200 to 300 meters but of whole square kilometers of land.
Vladimir Putin

The Russian President gave his assessment as to why the Kiev authorities decided to attack the Kursk Region.

“The current authorities aren’t legitimate even according to domestic laws,” he noted.

“They were supposed to hold a presidential election but they abandoned this idea, citing martial law, which runs counter to the Ukrainian constitution,” Putin added.

In his view, Ukraine needs to continue military operations to keep the current status quo.

“If military operations come to an end, the Ukrainian authorities will have to lift martial law and hold a presidential election right after martial law is lifted,” Putin explained.

“However, the current authorities clearly aren’t ready to do that because they have little chance of being re-elected. This is why they aren’t interested in ending military activities; this is why they committed the act of provocation in the Kursk Region and had earlier tried to stage a similar provocation in the Belgorod Region.”
Vladimir Putin