Putin says Russia’s mission is to create a ‘new world’

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia’s mission was to create a “new world” and blamed Western hegemony for Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine.

Putin has described Russia’s large-scale military intervention in Ukraine – launched in February 2022 – as part of a long-running confrontation with the West.

“We essentially have the task of building a new world,” Putin said, adding that the West was aiming for global “hegemony.”

“The West always needs an enemy,” he said.

As Moscow increasingly isolates itself from the West and faces unprecedented sanctions over its campaign in Ukraine, Putin has accused the West of trying to create a “new Iron Curtain” with Russia.

“Europe is cutting itself off from us and creating a new Iron Curtain,” said Putin, who served in the Soviet KGB.

“It is not us who close the door. It is Europe which closes the door,” he added.

Most Western countries have closed their airspace to Russian airlines, making travel out of the country much more difficult.

Putin said the conflict in Ukraine was “not a territorial conflict” and that Moscow had “no interest from the point of view of conquering certain territories.”

The Russian military occupies large swaths of southern and eastern Ukraine, and Putin has officially annexed four Ukrainian regions: Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Lugansk.

Putin has consistently declared Ukrainian territory to be historically Russian and has questioned Ukraine’s statehood.

Putin also oversaw the annexation of the Crimean peninsula to Ukraine in 2014.

The longtime leader, who turns 71 this week, blamed Western countries for the conflict, now in its 20th month.

“The war, started by the Kiev regime with the active support of the West, has already lasted ten years,” he said.

“The special military operation was launched to stop it,” he said, using Moscow’s term for the offensive.

The Russian army failed to take kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, in the first days of its offensive.