Holding a drink and speaking mockingly, he said international condemnation of the strikes “will not prevent us from achieving our military goals”.
Since early October, Moscow has fired barrages of missiles at energy and infrastructure sites across Ukraine, leading to continued blackouts and robbing entire neighborhoods of water, electricity and, in some cases, heat as freezing winter temperatures plummet.
Ukrainian officials and some Western leaders have described Moscow’s actions as potential war crimes because of their impact on civilians. The Kremlin insists the bombings have a military purpose, but Putin in his remarks on Thursday called them an act of revenge.
The Russian president accused Kiev of provoking the strikes, highlighting in particular an attack in early October on the Crimean Bridge — a $4 billion symbol of Putin’s imperial ambitions in Ukraine, which connects Crimea to the mainland of Ukraine. Russia.
Kiev has not officially claimed responsibility for that explosion, but the event was widely celebrated in Ukraine and officials have privately acknowledged the role of Ukrainian special services.
“Who hit the Crimean Bridge?” Putin asked. “Who blew up the power lines of the Kursk nuclear power plant?”
Putin also accused the world of keeping quiet when Ukraine mistreated civilians in the predominantly Russian-speaking region of Donetsk — even though it was Russia that sparked a separatist war there from 2014.
“Who does not supply water to Donetsk?” Putin asked. “Not supplying water to a city of 1 million people is an act of genocide.”
Since Moscow’s attacks on infrastructure began, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on citizens to ration their power consumption and seek shelter during air strike warnings.
“To get through this winter, we need to help each other more than ever and take care of each other even more,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram on Thursday. “To get through the winter, we need to be more resilient and united than ever.”
