Putin vows to defend Russia and ‘confront west’ until he dies

Vladimir Putin has vowed to keep ‘going to the end’ to defend Russia’s interests and to confront the West until ‘the day he dies’.

The 71-year-old Russian president was filmed with champagne as he awarded new Heroes of Russia with honours after they fought in Ukraine.

Putin’s new pledge came as footage emerged of him exactly ten years ago ruling out sending troops to Ukraine as a ‘complete nonsense’ notion.

Vowing to go on with his war, he declared in new footage issued overnight: ‘The Motherland gave us all, including me, the opportunity and rewarded us with the opportunity to work for our country and our people.

‘This is a reward from the Motherland for each of us. And we all, including myself, will go to the end, defending the country’s interests.’

Putin stood alongside his defence minister Sergei Shoigu and army chief General Valery Gerasimov.

Putin stressed he would work until the end to defend Russia’s interests (Picture: Kremlin)

Putin’s war in Ukraine has continued to rage for nearly 2 years (Picture: AP)

‘It is very important for me, of course, to hear this from people who are right there, on the front line,’ he added.

Putin has avoided visiting his troops under fire during the war – unlike Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky.

This address came just before Putin made a new address to his intelligence services – marking Security Agency Workers’ Day in Russia – demanding they double down on rooting out a supposed ‘Western threat’ to his country.

Ahead of the presidential elections in March 2024, Putin has continued to paint Russia as under existential threat from the West and Ukraine.

He told his security agencies: ‘Of course, we must thwart any attempts by foreign intelligence services to destabilise the social and political situation in Russia.’

He warned the West was seeking to ‘undermine civil peace and interethnic accord, to interfere in our internal affairs, and to violate the sovereign and unshakable right of the Russian people to determine their own future’.

Russia is facing ‘existential threats’ from the west and Ukraine, Putin said (Picture: AP)

He toasted champagne to the newly awarded Heroes of Russia (Picture: Kremlin)

Putin demanded ‘more active efforts’ were required in ‘combating extremism and corruption and cyberspace threats’.

Putin’s war in Ukraine has already led to more than 300,000 Russian casualties, despite promising in 2013 that a plan to invade Ukraine ‘cannot exist’.

Yet two months later he began seizing Ukrainian territory in Crimea, followed by parts of Donetsk and Luhansk region.

Then in 2022 he launched a full-scale invasion which was intended to grab Kyiv in three days but is still in progress 22 months later.

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At the time, in December 2013, he said: ‘We are not indifferent to the situation of our compatriots [in Ukraine].

‘But this does not mean at all that we are going to wave our swords and send in troops. This is complete nonsense, nothing like this exists and cannot exist.

‘And if we really say that [Ukraine] is a fraternal people and a fraternal country, then we must act like close relatives and support the Ukrainian people in a difficult situation.’

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