Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused NATO members of taking part in the Ukraine conflict by donating arms to the country and said the West planned to break up Russia.
"They are sending tens of billions of dollars in weapons to Ukraine. This really is participation," Putin said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 channel aired on Sunday, Feb. 25.
"This means that they are taking part, albeit indirectly, in the crimes being carried out by the Kyiv regime," Putin said.
He said Western countries had "a single aim -- to break up the former Soviet Union and its main part -- the Russian Federation".
"Only then will they maybe accept us in the so-called family of civilised peoples but only separately, every part separately."
Putin was speaking on the sidelines of a patriotic concert in Moscow on Thursday on the eve of the first anniversary of the start of Russia's full-scale offensive in Ukraine.
In the interview, Putin also reiterated his calls for a multipolar world and said he had "no doubt" that this would happen.
"What are we against? Against the fact that this new world that is taking shape is being built only in the interests of just one country, the United States."
"Now that their attempts to re-configure the world in their own likeness after the fall of the Soviet Union have led to this situation, we are obliged to react."
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