Putin: West Doesn’t Care Who It Uses to Fight Russia, Nuke Treaty with US Suspended

By Staff, Agencies

The West has chosen to ignore the Ukrainian authorities' embrace of neo-Nazi ideology because it does not care who it supports in the fight against Russia, President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.

Speaking during his annual address to the Federal Assembly, Russia’s main legislative body, Putin said it was “shameful” to see how Ukrainian troops deployed against Russia are widely using chevrons and paraphernalia associated with units of Nazi Germany.

Ukrainian “neo-Nazis do not make any secret of whose heirs they consider themselves,” he said. Putin went on to point out that “it is surprising that none of Western decision-makers see that. Why? Because… they don’t give a damn.”  The West does not care whom it is counting on to fight Russia, the president said.

In particular, the Russian president was referring to a decree signed by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky last week that awarded the 10th Separate Mountain Assault Brigade the name ‘Edelweiss.’ The same moniker was used by Nazi Germany's 1^st Mountain Division, which was infamous for its numerous war crimes during WWII.

Last week, the Associated Press also released a series of photos purportedly showing Ukrainian soldiers on the frontline in Donbass. One of the images depicts a service member wearing the Wahhabi Daesh [Arabic acronym for “ISIS” / “ISIL”] insignia on his arm.

Elsewhere in his address, Putin said, “Russia was open to constructive dialogue with the West and offered to work on a joint security system for many years, but the West rebuffed the dialogue and prepared Kiev to launch a major war and took advantage of the Minsk agreements to arm it.”

“The greater the range of weapons that reach Ukraine, the more we have to remove the threat from our land…The West started a war, and we are using force to stop it,” Putin added.

He went on to say: “It is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield, and we will deal appropriately with regard to turning the conflict in Ukraine into a global confrontation.”

Moreover, the Russian President noted that Moscow will not exit the New START Treaty, but is temporarily withdrawing.

Explaining the decision, Putin noted that the agreement was initially drawn up under completely different circumstances, when Russia and the US did not perceive each other as adversaries. Now, however, according to the president, not only is the US issuing ultimatums to Russia, but NATO itself has essentially made an application to become part of the treaty as well.

The bloc members are now demanding an inspection of Russia’s strategic facilities, Putin said, noting that Moscow’s requests to inspect Western nuclear facilities under the treaty are systematically denied with only formal explanations for the rejection.

Putin noted that the US has continued to insist on maintaining hegemony, while its NATO partners openly admit that they want to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.

“Russia cannot ignore this. We cannot allow ourselves to ignore this,” he said.

The New START Treaty was originally signed in 2010 by then-Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, and aimed to cut in half the number of strategic nuclear missile launchers deployed around the world. Under the treaty, both countries were supposed to allow the other side a limited number of inspections per year to verify compliance with the agreement. Unless extended, the treaty was set to expire in 2026.