"The policies of our geopolitical opponents, aimed at splitting up Russia, are at the roots of Ukrainian conflict', the Russian president stated.
Putin also added that Russia is ready to negotiations with all stakeholder in geopolitical crisis.
"We are ready to negotiate with all participants to this process [the conflict in Ukraine] on some acceptable resolutions, but it is their business. It is them and not us who refuse to negotiate," Putin stated.
The Russian leader also said that the nation is doing the right thing in Ukraine.
"I think we are acting in the right direction: we protect our national interests, interests of our citizens, our people. And we just have no choice but to protect our citizens," Putin noted.
Russia launched its special military operation on February 24, in order to defend the people of Lugansk and Donetsk, who had been suffering from Ukrainian attacks. The Western countries started rolling out sanction packages against Russia and provided Kiev with humanitarian, military and financial aid. Moscow criticized the flow of weapons into Ukraine from Western nations, claiming that it only reinforces the conflict.
At the same time, Kiev launched a series of terrorist attacks on Russian territory, including a fatal explosion on the Crimean bridge, to which Moscow responded with precision strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure targets. As a result, over the past months, air raid sirens have been regularly sounding across Ukraine, with Kiev saying that up to 50% of the country's energy grid was damaged.