These comments from President Vladimir Putin come from his talks with the Russian Ministry of Defence where he stressed that the US must understand that Russia has ‘nowhere to retreat’. He said that what the US was doing in Ukraine was ‘not thousands of kilometres away’ from Russia’s borders but that it was on its ‘doorstep.’ This comes as both a warning and a declaration of the self-evident truth – the US must realise that its aggressive actions in Europe can only spark more hostility.
Putin also recalled that the United States had devasted Iraq and Yugoslavia without the authorisation of the UN Security Council – demonstrating the disregard of the US for global stability and engagement in civilised geopolitics.