Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, has reminded the US and other countries that their sanctions are equal to declaring war on Russia.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the United States and other western countries, including the United Kingdom, imposed numerous sanctions on Russia.
On Saturday, Putin told a gathering of flight attendants at an Aeroflot training center near Moscow: “These sanctions that are being imposed are akin to a declaration of war but thank God it has not come to that.
“We could have taken a different course of action.
“We could have helped the republics of Donbas at the contact line and reinforced them with the Russian army, but in this case, and I mean with the unwavering support from the west, we would have radicals on the other side coming endlessly… with support from the west.
“Our General Staff, the Ministry of Defense, went the other way; the first thing they did was to destroy the entire military infrastructure [of Ukraine], well, not all of it, but partially, mostly. Warehouses with weapons, ammunition, aviation, air defense systems.”