Russia has not yet started its “special operation” in Ukraine “in earnest,” Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Thursday.
In a meeting with members of the State Duma in Moscow, Putin struck a defiant tone, daring the West to try to beat Russia on the battlefield.
“They want to defeat us on the battlefield. Well, what can I say? Let them try,” he said.
“We have already heard a lot that the West wants to fight with us to the last Ukrainian. This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people but it seems that everything is heading toward this.”
All sides “should know that we, by and large, have not started anything in earnest yet,” he said.
He reiterated that Russia remains ready for peace talks.
“Those refusing dialogue should know negotiations will only get more difficult for them as time passes,” he added.
For years the West has been pursuing an "exclusively aggressive policy" against Russia, said Putin.
Russia's proposals on creating an equal security system and joint work on the problem of anti-ballistic missiles were rejected and the warning about the inadmissibility of NATO's expansion was ignored, said the Russian president.
At the peak of Russia-West relations, the idea of inviting Moscow to the alliance was considered absurd, he said.
"And why is that? Because they do not need such a country as Russia, that is why. Exactly because of this they supported terrorism, separatism in Russia, internal destructive forces and the fifth column in our country -- all of them were getting and continue getting unconditional support from this same collective West," said the president.
Putin rejected accusations of starting the war in Ukraine, stressing that the West organized and supported an armed coup in 2014, which led to current events.
"If this very West wanted to provoke a conflict in order to move to a new stage of the struggle with Russia, to a new stage of containing our country, then we can say that it has succeeded to a certain extent. The war has been unleashed, and sanctions have been imposed. Under normal conditions, it would probably be difficult to do this," he said.
Putin said the sanctions were not just aimed to hit the Russian economy but to also sow discord and confusion in Russia and demoralize people, but nothing worked and will not work.
