Russian president Vladimir Putin just shared his rather bewildering hypothesis for why his country is pretty isolated on the world stage right now.
Rather than blaming his brutal, two-year invasion of Ukraine, he claimed it all comes down to âhostile elitesâ.
While visiting a school on Monday, he said: âWe do not reject anything: we donât have hostile languages, we donât even have hostile countries.
âWe have hostile elites in some countries that have been fighting against Russia for centuries in order to weaken our country because they think it is too big.â
According to Russian state media TASS, Putin added: âThey think that they are threatened by a big country like Russia, and they try to slow down our development.â
The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also painted Russia â or rather Putin himself â as more of a victim during an interview over the weekend.
Speaking to the Russian state-owned VGTRK channel, Peskov said: âPresident Putin is always extremely careful in his remarks about his counterparts.
âHe never resorts to rudeness, let alone boorishness, regarding other national leaders.â
Peskov was talking about US president Joe Bidenâs 2021 claim that Putin is a âkillerâ.
He said: âOf course, it is incomprehensible for him [Putin] when other national leaders, let alone the leader of the United States, use such word in their vocabulary when talking about their counterpart.â
Peskov also claimed Biden is trying to make a personal competition between the two of them, but âPutin does not take part in it.â
The presidentâs attacks on the West in general then became increasingly bizarre on Monday as he claimed the âmass media are freeâ in Russia, unlike in the West.
He claimed: âAlmost all Western countries where our journalists try to work, are creating obstacles for them, banning Russian television channels and directly censoring our media and online resources.
âThe West, which claims to be a model of freedom, has opted to hide from inconvenient facts and the truth by launching a blatant bullying campaign against Russian journalists and indiscriminately labelling them as âKremlin propagandists.ââ
Controls over the press have only grown since Putin got into power more than two decades ago and almost all independent media outlets have been banned in Russia since Moscow invaded Ukraine.
Putin continued by saying: âIn Russia, the mass media are free. This is solidly guaranteed by our constitution.â
Putin also had a strange theory about why Ukraine invaded the Russian region of Kursk, and claimed it was because the current government is desperate to stay in power.
âIf military operations come to an end, the Ukrainian authorities will have to lift martial law and hold a presidential election right after martial law is lifted,â he said.
He apparently overlooked how Russia is currently holding 18% of Ukraineâs land, which Kyiv says was the main motivation for the incursion.
The Kremlin also coerced voters into supporting Putin in the Russian presidential election earlier this year so he could have a fifth term in power.
Related…
EMEA Tribune is not involved in this news article, it is taken from our partners and or from the News Agencies. Copyright and Credit go to the News Agencies, email news@emeatribune.com Follow our WhatsApp verified Channel