“This means that they are taking part, albeit indirectly, in the crimes of the kyiv regime,” he said.
The Russian president considered that Western countries have “a single goal: to dissolve the former Soviet Union and its main part, the Russian Federation.”
“Only then may we be accepted into the so-called family of civilized peoples, but only separately, each part separately,” he said.
Putin was speaking on the sidelines of a patriotic concert held in Moscow on Thursday on the eve of the first anniversary of the start of the Russian military offensive in kyiv.
In the interview, the president reiterated his call for a multipolar world, saying he had “no doubt” that it would eventually happen.
“Now that (the United States’) attempts to reconfigure the world after the fall of the Soviet Union have led to this situation, we are compelled to react,” he said.
In return, the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, once again promised that his country will recover Crimea, a peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.
“Nine years ago, the Russian aggression began in Crimea. By taking back Crimea we will restore peace. It is our land and our people, our history,” Zelensky said on Telegram.
The US State Department thanked in a statement “Ukraine’s efforts (…) to draw world attention to the continuing Russian occupation.”