President Vladimir Putin accused Russia's enemies on Thursday of seeking to carve it up and destroy its economy to punish it for becoming strong, but said his country would rise to any challenge.
In a fiercely patriotic state of the union speech, the Kremlin leader trumpeted his annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula, praised the Russian people for their strength, accused the West of "pure cynicism" in Ukraine and said economic sanctions must drive Russians to develop their own economy.
"We are ready to meet any challenge of the times and win," he declared to applause from an audience of 1,000 dignitaries, almost all of them loyal supporters.
But the ruble fell as he delivered a speech that showed no sign of a retreat from policies that have brought his country to confrontation with the West unseen since the Cold War.
Disappointing the hopes of many investors, he produced no grand plan to pull the economy out of a crisis aggravated by falling oil prices and Western sanctions over his policies toward Ukraine.
Instead, he shifted blame for Russia's problems on the West, accusing "enemies of yesterday" of trying to bring a new Iron Curtain down around Russia. Foes, he said, wished on Russia the same fate as suffered by Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
"There is no doubt they would have loved to see the Yugoslavia scenario of collapse and dismemberment for us – with all the tragic consequences it would have for the peoples of Russia. This has not happened. We did not allow it," he said.
So determined was the West to destroy Russia, he said, that sanctions would have been imposed even without the crisis in Ukraine.Read the rest of the story HERE.
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