With the unfolding events in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, speaking in a sensational televised address from the Kremlin approximately three weeks after Moscow’s attack, says Western dominance is gradually coming to an end, warning that the West would use “those who earn their money here but live over there” as a “fifth column” to “divide our society.”
Putin said, “I do not judge those with villas in Miami or the French Riviera. Or who can’t get by without oysters or foie gras or so-called ‘gender freedoms.’ The problem is they mentally exist there, and not here, with our people, with Russia.
“The West will try to bet on the so-called fifth column, on traitors… to divide our society.. to provoke civil confrontation… to strive to achieve its aim. And there is one aim – the destruction of Russia.”
Despite his soldiers’ progress being strongly blocked on the outskirts of Kyiv, Putin claimed the conflict was only a pretext for the West to apply sanctions because ‘they just don’t want a strong and sovereign Russia,’ and assured the ‘military operation’ in Ukraine is going according to plan.
However, Vladimir Putin also told Russians that “we are fighting for our sovereignty and the future of our children,” similar to the words of Volodymyr Zelensky.