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Putin: Our economic troubles is punishment for our natural desire to preserve ourselves as a nation, as a civilization, as a state

18 December 2014 11:50 (UTC +04:00)

“Naturally, the president of Ukraine wants to settle the crisis, I have no doubts of his determination to do that. But he is not the only one political force there. We can now hear statements by other officials urging to ‘fight to the bitter end…’ There are too many belligerent statements,” he told reporters.

“By imposing sanctions on Russia, Western countries punished Moscow for its willingness to preserve the country’s national identity, not for reunification with Crimea. No, it’s not a punishment for Crimea, it’s punishment for our natural desire to preserve ourselves as a nation, as a civilization, as a state,” he said.

“It’s not a matter of Crimea, we are defending our independence, our sovereignty and our right to exist, we should all understand this,” he said later in response to a question about whether the current economic troubles were “payment for Crimea”.