Russia faces unprecedented Western pressure: Putin

MOSCOW/KYIV — The country is under severe and unparalleled pressure from Western nations, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on Sunday.

"Russia is facing harsh, unprecedented pressure from Western elites. Unable to deliver a strategic defeat or battlefield victory against Russia, these forces have sought to destabilize its political landscape and stoke internal unrest, yet all such attempts have ended in failure," Putin stated at the plenary session of the 23rd Congress of the United Russia party.

He stressed that Ukraine has been weaponized as a "battering ram" in the West's confrontation with Russia, with blatant disregard for the Ukrainian people.

Putin pointed out that the West deliberately turns a blind eye to Kyiv's strikes on civilian populations and infrastructure. Despite these blatant provocations, the West continues to impose new, illegitimate sanctions exclusively targeting Russia, he said.

He added that Russia is firmly resisting all attempts to stifle its development, emphasizing that the country possesses ample capability to withstand such pressure, leaving no room for doubt.

In a television interview on the same day, Putin said Russia needed to boost its air defense capacity to counter intensified Ukrainian drone attacks aimed mainly at its oil industry. He described the attacks on oil refineries as an attempt to "cause a split in Russian society and force Russia to halt, even if only briefly, the advance of our troops along the line of contact, and create conditions for launching a negotiation process on terms advantageous to our adversary".

Putin also said that Ukraine had proposed a mutual halt to long-range strikes as a step toward peace. But Moscow saw it as a means to relieve pressure on Kyiv's forces along the front line and would not be distracted by it.

The office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did not immediately respond to a request, submitted during late-night hours in Ukraine, for comment on Putin's remarks.

Zelensky wrote an open letter to Putin this month proposing a face-to-face meeting, which the Russian leader has rejected.

The Kremlin said on Monday that Russia has not changed its stance on the conditions needed for a peace deal in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Zelensky said on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had carried out overnight strikes on two oil refineries in Russia.

In a post on X, Zelensky said one of the targets was the Slavyansk oil refinery in Russia's Krasnodar region, about 300 kilometers from the front line.

Local media reported that the refinery has an annual processing capacity of about 4 million metric tons of oil.

He said another refinery in Russia's Yaroslavl region, about 700 km from the Ukrainian-Russian border, was also targeted, but did not give further details.

Zelensky said the strikes were aimed at weakening Russia's ability to sustain its campaign effort.

There were no immediate reports from Russian authorities about the strike on the Yaroslavl refinery. Its local governor reported on Sunday that some roads between Moscow and the region's capital, Yaroslavl, were temporarily closed due to "an enemy attack by Ukrainian drones."

Meanwhile, Russia's Defense Ministry said on Sunday its forces have taken the villages of Pysantsi in Dnipropetrovsk region and Novoselivka in the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, state news agency TASS reported.

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