Putin says Russia’s interests ‘non-negotiable’ amid Ukraine crisis

SMA NEWS – MOSCOW

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday (Feb 23) that the country’s interests were non-negotiable, as Moscow massed more than 150,000 troops on the borders with Ukraine and the West punished Russia with new sanctions.

In a video address to mark the Defender of the Fatherland Day, a public holiday in the country, Putin congratulated the Russian military and praised the battle-readiness of the army after he signalled plans to send troops to Ukraine.

“Our country is always open for direct and honest dialogue, for the search for diplomatic solutions to the most complex problems,” Putin said.

But he added: “The interests of Russia, the security of our citizens, are non-negotiable for us.”

Putin spoke after parliament’s upper house, the Federation Council, on Tuesday evening gave him unanimous approval to deploy “peacekeepers” to two breakaway Ukrainian regions now recognised by Moscow as independent, and potentially into other parts of Ukraine.

On Tuesday night, Russia said that it had established diplomatic relations “at the level of embassies” with the separatist-controlled regions, which broke away from Kyiv in 2014 in a conflict that cost 14,000 lives.

Moscow also said that it would soon evacuate diplomatic personnel from Ukraine to “protect their lives”.

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday evening, Putin set out a number of stringent conditions if the West wanted to de-escalate the crisis, saying that pro-Western Ukraine should drop its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership ambitions and maintain neutrality.

United States President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced tough new sanctions against Russia for “beginning” an invasion of Ukraine, but said that there was still time to avoid war.

Japan and Australia followed suit early on Wednesday with their own stringent penalties for Moscow and individuals connected with the aggression against Ukraine, with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison targeting members of Russia’s security council for “behaving like thugs and bullies”.

Biden announced what he called the “first tranche” of sanctions, including steps to starve Russia of financing and target financial institutions and the country’s “elites”.

But he left the door open to a final effort at diplomacy to avert a full-scale Russian invasion.

“There’s no question that Russia is the aggressor, so we’re clear-eyed about the challenges we’re facing,” the president said.

Biden’s address followed a wave of sanctions announced by Britain and the European Union, after Putin recognised the self-declared Donetsk and Lugansk separatist regions this week.

Germany also announced that it was halting certification of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia.

Moscow said that the sanctions regime would backfire.

The US-led sanctions will “hurt the global financial and energy markets”, Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, said in a Facebook post, adding that ordinary Americans will “feel the full consequences of rising prices”.