Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Tuesday, said that Moscow wanted to solve the conflict in Ukraine peacefully but the Western countries had prepared a “different scenario” behind its back, Reuters reported.

“We were doing everything possible to solve this problem peacefully, negotiating a peaceful way out of this difficult conflict, but behind our backs, a very different scenario was being prepared,” Putin said while addressing the federal assembly. He further criticized the United States and said that only America has many military bases around the world.

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“I want to emphasize that… no country in the world has as many military bases abroad as the United States. There are hundreds of them… around the world… The whole world has seen them withdraw from fundamental armaments agreements, including the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. They unilaterally tore apart the fundamental agreements that maintain world peace. Why did they do this? Just because they could,” Reuters quoted the Russian President saying.

“The elites of the West do not hide their purpose… That is, they intend to transform a local conflict into a phase of global confrontation. This is exactly how we understand it all and we will react accordingly because in this case we are talking about the existence of our country. But they also cannot fail to realize that it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield. Therefore, they are conducting more and more aggressive information attacks against us,” he added.

In the federal assembly, which brings together both chambers of the country’s parliament, Putin was expected to focus on economic and social issues and the Ukraine conflict.

In his address, Putin said that Russia has all the financial resources that it needed to guarantee its national security and development despite Western economic sanctions, reported Reuters.

In a major speech to Russia’s two houses of parliament, Putin said Russian firms had rebuilt their supply chains and that Moscow was working with other countries to build new payment systems and financial architecture.

Talking about the conflict with Ukraine, Putin said that he has already said many times that the Ukrainians have become the hostage of the Kyiv regime and its Western overlords, who have effectively occupied this country in the political, military and economic sense. He further stated that the current Ukrainian regime essentially serves not the national interests but those of third countries.