Ranting Putin says West aims to ‘wipe Russia off the map’

The Russian President delivered a meandering and at times baffling public speech to an audience in Moscow, accusing Western nations of trying to ‘destroy’ his country.Putin said: ‘The West has taken several steps towards escalation and they are always trying to escalate. There’s nothing new there.’They’re fuelling the war in Ukraine, organising politicians around Taiwan, destabilising the world food and energy markets.’As far as the last one is concerned, it is not deliberate, I don’t doubt that. It was due to a number of systemic errors committed by the Western authorities I’ve just mentioned.’He added: ‘Russia is not challenging the Western elite. We are not trying to become the hegemon.’Putin said that Russia only wanted to ‘defend its right to exist’ and ‘won’t let itself be destroyed [by the West] and wiped off the geopolitical map’.And he warned: ‘Dominion of the world is precisely what the West has decided to stake in this game. But this game is a dangerous, dirty and bloody one. Putin made a speech at the Valdai Discussion Club in Moscow yesterday (Image: Reuters)’It contests the sovereignty of peoples and nations, their identity and uniqueness and has no regard whatsoever for the interests of other countries.’He added that the West was becoming a minority and would not be able to dominate the world.Putin also branded Liz Truss ‘crazy’ for raising concerns about nuclear weapons. The Russian President hit out at the former prime minister for comments she made while she was foreign secretary.He said Ms Truss must have been ‘a bit out of it’. He claimed to have ‘never said anything pro-actively about possible use of nuclear weapons by Russia’.The premier added: ‘We have only hinted in response to statements made by western leaders.’When she resigned as prime minister, Putin’s spokesman said she had been a ‘disgrace’ who would be remembered now for her ­’catastrophic illiteracy’. It comes as enormous fires were seen yesterday following shelling at an oil storage facility in the town of Shakhtarsk, near Donetsk, an area of Russia-controlled Ukraine. Frightening… firefighters at an oil facility in Shakhtarsk, Donetsk (Image: Reuters/Alexander Ermochenko)As the violent conflict continues, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky branded Russian commanders ‘crazy’ in their desperate efforts to make ground on the Eastern front.As widespread bombing continued across the country – including fresh strikes in Kyiv – the defending leader spoke out over an ongoing and increasingly frantic Kremlin bid to capture the eastern city of Bakhmut.The under-fire area, which sits in the Donetsk region and is home to around 70,000 people, has been the centre of repeated, but so far unsuccessful, Russian attacks for months.Despite an impending Ukrainian advance on the key city of Kherson in the south, Mr Zelensky said the attacks on Bakhmut, further east, had also continued in force.Mr Zelensky said: ‘This is where the craziness of the Russian command is most evident. Day after day, for months, they are driving people to their deaths there, concentrating the highest level of artillery strikes.’Despite the increasingly intense attacks, Mr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces were holding their ground and called his troops ‘heroes’. Zelensky called his Ukrainian troops “heroes” (Image: Getty)Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Mr Zelensky, revealed that, on one day, Russian forces launched eight separate attacks on Bakhmut before lunchtime and had been pushed back on each occasion.The city sits on a main road leading to the Ukrainian-held cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.Elsewhere yesterday, there were renewed missile strikes overnight near the capital Kyiv and on the city of Zaporizhzhia, where Europe’s biggest nuclear plant is sited.Oleksiy Kuleba, the Kyiv regional governor, did not disclose the exact location of the attack but said that rescue workers were on site.Posting an update, he wrote: ‘The Russians terrorise the Kyiv region at night. We have several arrivals in one of the communities of the region.’Rescuers and all emergency services are on the scene. The elimination of the fire and the consequences of the impact are ongoing.’