The analysis from Putin here is superior to what you get from the Western press, which is oddly uncritical of its governments geopolitical aspirations and heavy handed tactics in both crushing descent and forcing reform at home.

The Russian president said Moscow was not fighting the people of Ukraine, stressing that Ukraine “has become a hostage of the Kiev regime and its Western masters, which have effectively occupied the country.”
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Putin further said Western nations were trying to "distract people’s attention" from their domestic problems.

“They just tried to use these principles of democracy and freedom to defend their totalitarian values and they tried to distract people’s attention from corruption scandals … from economic-social problems," he noted.

He said the responsibility of the simmering crisis in Ukraine was "on the West and Ukrainian elite."

“The responsibility is on the West and the Ukrainian elite and government, which does not serve the national interest, but [rather serves the interest] of third countries [which] use Ukraine as a military base to fight Russia."

The Russian president was particularly scathing in his criticism of Washington, saying the country wants to control the whole world, adding that relations with the US have degraded completely.

Putin blames West for Ukraine war, suspends nuclear treaty with US

In a state-of-the-nation address in Moscow on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Western countries of fanning the flames of the war in Ukraine.

^PressTV