Putin blames Poroshenko for renewed violence

Every two years, Russian President, Vladimir Putin, delivers his take on Russian foreign policy and the overall state of the world.

This year, with such high tensions between Russia and other nations linked to the Ukrainian crisis and the annexation of Crimea, President Putin stressed out that, the country’s priorities are Russian people or supporters living on former Soviet soil and diplomatic relationships with Europe and the US.

‘In Ukraine, as you can see, our compatriots, Russian people and people of other nationalities, saw their language, culture and civil rights threatened. What kind of reaction did our partners expect from us after how events unfolded in Ukraine? We certainly had no right to leave the Crimean people and Sevastopol citizens at the hands of militant nationalists and radicals,’ said Putin regarding those who still see Russia as home but live in other countries.

As for the crisis in Ukraine, Putin expressed his belief that, from now on, Ukrainian President Poroshenko is the sole person to be blamed for the ongoing fights in his country as he refused Moscow and EU’s attempts to convince him to extend the ceasefire.

Putin recognized Europe is, currently, Russia’s most important trade and business partner: ‘Europe is our natural and most important trade and economic partner. We want to ensure that there are new opportunities for business cooperation. For this we need to modernise the legal base for our cooperation, and improve the stability and predictability of relationships, primarily in strategically important areas like energy.’

Russia’s president also commented on his country’s relationship with the US and mentioned that it can only function if the two entities collaborate as equals: ‘Our contacts with the United States of America are of huge importance for the whole world. We are ready for constructive dialogue but – I would like to underline again – on the basis of equal rights.’