The Liberty Daily 
(Zero Hedge)—”It was they who carried out the coup d’etat in Ukraine, which forced us to take the people of Crimea under protection. When they started the war, they started bombing Donetsk using warplanes” – Putin in a fresh address to Russian service members came out swinging, giving a familiar lesson in recent history.
And quite provocatively, he emphasized that Russia is now practically fighting against the entirety of the collective West in the Ukraine conflict in the Friday remarks.
“Russia is standing against the so-called Collective West single-handedly,” Putin said, state media cited, and he noted that the ‘special military operation’ he ordered to stave off NATO encroachment is revealing itself to be “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, sate media continued.
He stressed that Moscow did not initiate the Ukraine conflict, but that the Western allies and their hegemonic expansion and meddling did.
He perhaps for the first time acknowledged some pain inflicted on Russia due to Ukraine’s long-range drone waves, which for months have been inflicting serious damage primarily on oil and energy sites:
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… and cause economic damage,” he noted, stressing that “they will not succeed.”
These drones have grown more long-range in their targeting and increasingly effective, as Russia’s anti-air defense – which are set up primarily to intercept higher flying and faster inbound missiles or jets – seem powerless.
Or rather, if Ukraine sends 100 drones on Russia on any given night, at least dozens are bound to make it through, the recent pattern has shown. But Putin also seems to be strongly suggesting that Western intelligence is assisting Ukraine’s drone mayhem on the Russian populace.
Earlier this month, the Putin-hosted St. Petersburg Economic Forum came under significant drone attack from Ukraine. Videos revealed that international dignitaries entered the venue against the backdrop of thick black smoke from drone hits on oil and other facilities.
