Putin airs grievances in emotional speech about Ukraine
President Vladimir Putin appears in a televised address on Monday. (State TV)
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MOSCOW (Reuters) — President Vladimir Putin railed against Ukraine in a televised address on Monday, saying that neo-Nazis were on the rise, oligarchic clans were rife and that the ex-Soviet country was a U.S. colony with a puppet regime.
Russia’s rouble, already under pressure from a vast Russian military buildup near Ukraine, tumbled to new weeks-long lows as he spoke from behind a wooden office desk flanked by Russian tricolor flags.
He described eastern Ukraine as ancient Russian lands and modern Ukraine as a state created by the Bolsheviks after the 1917 revolution.
He said that Ukraine never had a tradition of genuine statehood and complained that post-Soviet Ukraine had wanted everything it could from Moscow without doing anything in return.
Putin said that NATO had completely ignored Russia’s security demands and accused the West of trying to kick Moscow’s main proposals for security guarantees into the long grass.
After the speech, Putin signed a decree recognizing two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent entities, upping the ante in a crisis the West fears could unleash a war.