Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed the U.S. for destabilizing the post-Cold War order in Eastern Europe, and warned that American meddling threatens to plunge the world into chaos, in an aggressively anti-American speech delivered Friday.
The U.S. bears responsibility for both the Crimea region’s breakaway from Ukraine and the violence in the country’s eastern region over the past several months, Putin claimed.
Speaking to a conference of foreign policy experts near the location of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Putin argued that “we didn’t start this” and that the U.S. “decided to … reshape the world to suit their own needs and interests” with a series of interventions in Eastern Europe, according to the Financial Times.
Putin claimed that America’s aim was to “reshape the whole world,” the Washington Post reported, and that in pursuing that goal the U.S. had supported a coup against former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in February.
In its grasp for power, the U.S. has empowered “open neo-fascists” and “Islamic radicals,” Putin said. “They do this because they decide to use them as instruments along the way in achieving their goals, but then burn their fingers and recoil,” he added, according to the New York Times.
And accusations that he is trying to recreate the Soviet Empire are “groundless,” Putin added. Instead, he cast the U.S. as the sole aggressor.
Nearly 4,000 people have died in conflict between Russian-backed separatist and Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine since fighting began in April.
The Kremlin has maintained that there are no Russian troops in Ukraine, but NATO’s top military commander said Friday that Russia has forces in the region.
U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, the supreme allied commander of NATO in Europe, said that some Russian troops have moved away from the border, but there is still a contingent in Ukraine that “shows no indications of leaving is still a very, very capable force,” according to Reuters.
