No one will be able to force a strategic defeat on Moscow in Ukraine, the Russian president has said.

Russia is fighting against the entirety of the collective West in the Ukraine conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a meeting with service members in the Kremlin on Friday.

The meeting coincided with Russia Day, which commemorates the country’s declaration of sovereignty on June 12, 1990 and the beginning of its post-Soviet statehood.

‘Russia is standing against the so-called Collective West single-handedly,’ Putin said, noting that the Ukraine conflict has become ’exceedingly high-tech.’

The NATO nations are all, without exception, ramping up efforts to do all they can to orchestrate actions against Russia, he added.

Moscow did not initiate the Ukraine conflict, Putin stressed.

It was they who carried out the coup d’état in Ukraine, which forced us to take the people of Crimea under protection. When they started the war, they started bombing Donetsk using warplanes.

The entirety of Europe had previously united against Russia, both during Napoleon’s invasion and under Hitler during World War II.

‘Now, western nations have set out to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, but this is not something that can be done,’ Putin said.

‘The enemy is expanding the use of [kamikaze] drones, trying to strike at our morale, trying to break up Russian society. Cause economic damage,’ he noted, stressing that ‘they will not succeed.’

‘Russia is working to improve and strengthen its air defense systems in response.

Russia will retaliate against Ukrainian drone attacks with strikes against its infrastructure to discourage them from attacking civilian targets,’ the Russian president said.

Kyiv’s NATO-backed forces have increased kamikaze drone strikes against Russian border regions, logistics, and oil and gas facilities in recent months, killing dozens of civilians. Let us know what you think.

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