(AP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin charged Wednesday that the West is trying to divide Russia through “the fifth column” and “national traitors,” apparently referring to Kremlin critics.
”(The West) now, once again, wants to repeat the attempt to squeeze us, to put pressure on us, to turn us into a weak dependent country, to violate (our) territorial integrity, to dismember, in the best way for them, Russia. It didn’t work out then, and it won’t work out now,” Putin said in a long emotional speech, opening a video conference meeting with government officials. “Of course, they will bet on the so-called ‘fifth column,’ national traitors, those who earn money here, but live there.”
The Russian leader juxtaposed “our people” to Russians who “have a villa in Miami or on the French Riviera, those who can’t go by without foi gras, oysters or so-called gender freedoms.” “That’s not the problem, the problem is that many of those people, by their very nature, are mentally there. They are not here. Not with our people. Not with Russia,” Putin said.
Putin said Wednesday that the operation in Ukraine is unfolding “successfully, in strict accordance with pre-approved plans” and decried Western sanctions against Russia, describing them as “aggression and war with economic, political, information means.”
At the same time Putin said that the West has failed to wage “an economic blitzkrieg” against Russia.
“In effect these steps are aimed at worsening the lives of millions of people,” Putin said of the sanctions that have delivered a crippling blow to Russia’s economy.
“One should clearly understand that the new set of sanctions and restrictions against us would have followed in any case, I want to emphasize this. Our military operation in Ukraine is just a pretext for the next sanctions,” Putin told a government meeting Wednesday.