Putin: West Using Ukraine to Destroy Russia

RUSSIA (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday his country would never give in to the West’s attempts to use Ukraine as a tool to destroy Russia.
In a New Year’s video message broadcast on Russian state TV, Putin said Russia was fighting in Ukraine to protect its “motherland” and to secure “true independence” for its people.
In a nine-minute message — the longest New Year’s address of his two-decade rule — Putin said the West is lying to Russia and provoking Moscow to launch a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
“For years, Western elites hypocritically assured us of their peaceful intentions,” he said in a speech filmed in front of Russian service personnel at the headquarters of Russia’s southern military district.
“In fact, in every possible way they were encouraging neo-Nazis who conducted open terrorism against civilians in the Donbas,” Putin said.
Earlier on Saturday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had vowed victory in Ukraine was “inevitable” as he praised the heroism of Russian soldiers fighting on the frontlines and those who had died during the 10-month war.
“The West lied about peace,” Putin said. “It was preparing for aggression ... and now they are cynically using Ukraine and its people to weaken and split Russia.
“We have never allowed this, and will never allow anybody to do this to us,” Russian state-run news agencies quoted Putin as saying in the clip.
At least one died, several people were injured following strikes on Kyiv after ten explosions were heard in the center of Ukraine’s capital, on Saturday soon after Ukrainian officials warned of another large-scale missile attack by Moscow.
As air raid sirens sounded across the country, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said one of the blasts occurred in an area of residential buildings in the capital’s Solomyanskyi district, and that there were explosions in two other parts of the city.
On Friday, Russia shelled Ukrainian towns across a long stretch of the frontline from north to south, Ukrainian officials said, after Moscow fired dozens of missiles in its latest barrage against critical infrastructure.
Air attack sirens blared overnight into Friday in the capital Kyiv, and Reuters heard several explosions and the sound of anti-aircraft fire south of the city as Russian forces fired 16 drones, the officials said.
In a statement, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said Russian forces had tried to advance near Bakhmut and Avdiivka, the focal points of their slow-moving campaign to take all of Donetsk region in the east.
Russian forces fired on several towns and villages, including Bakhmut, Kudryumivka just to the south, nearby Soledar and also the town of Kostyantynivka, west of Bakhmut.