Oct. 27 (UPI) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the world faces the “most dangerous decade” since the end of World War II, as he railed against the United States and its allies in a speech on Thursday.
Speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club in Moscow, Putin blamed the West for creating the crisis in Ukraine and said that “Western elites” were trying to dominate the world.
“The unipolar world is a thing of the past. We are at a historical frontier. Ahead is the most dangerous, unpredictable and at the same time important decade since the end of World War II,” Putin said.
Putin also cited NATO expansion as one cause of the war in Ukraine, and also referred to the conflict as a “special military operation.”
“NATO enlargement with the Ukraine, which was totally unacceptable to us, and everybody knew that, and they ignored. They totally ignored interest in the security area, and a certain try just failed,” he said.
The event’s moderator, the political scientist Fyodor Lukyanov, pressed Putin on the fact that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine does not appear to have gone according to plan, according to The New York Times.
However, Putin brushed off that criticism, saying that the longer Russia waited, “the worse it would have been for us, the more difficult and more dangerous.”
Putin’s speech comes as Moscow continued its attacks on the Ukrainian power grid systems ahead of winter overnight into Thursday with new strikes in the middle of the country.
Ukraine’s national energy agency Ukrenergo said Russia’s strikes in the central region knocked out its main power network there. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has argued that Russia’s attacks are meant to harm civilians during the often bitter winter season coming up.
“Tonight, the Russians once again shelled our country’s energy infrastructure,” Ukrenergo said in a statement on Facebook.
