Putin casts Ukraine war as a battle for Russia’s survival

President Vladimir Putin has cast the confrontation with the West over the Ukraine war as an existential battle for the survival of Russia and the Russian people — and said he is forced to take into account Nato’s nuclear capabilities.
A year since ordering the invasion of Ukraine, Putin is increasingly presenting the war as a make-or-break moment in Russian history — and saying that he believes the very future of Russia and its people is in peril.
“They have one goal: to disband the former Soviet Union and its fundamental part — the Russian Federation,” Putin told Rossiya 1 state television in an interview recorded on Wednesday but released on Sunday.
Nato and the West dismiss such a narrative, saying their objective is to help Ukraine defend itself against an unprovoked attack.
Putin said the West wanted to divide up Russia and then control the world’s biggest producer of raw materials, a step, he said, that could well lead to the destruction of many of the peoples of Russia, including the ethnic Russian majority.
“I do not even know if such an ethnic group as the Russian people will be able to survive in the form in which it exists today,” Putin said. He said the West’s plans had been put to paper, though did not specify where.
The United States has denied that it wants to destroy Russia, while President Joe Biden has warned that a conflict between Russia and Nato could trigger World War Three, though he has also said Putin should not remain in power.
Putin said the tens of billions of dollars worth of US and European military assistance to Ukraine showed that Russia was now facing off against Nato itself — the Cold War nightmare of both Soviet and Western leaders.
Ukraine says it will not rest until every last Russian soldier is ejected from Ukraine, including from Crimea which Russia annexed in 2014.