Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a scathing attack on the West once again during his speech at his annual speech at the Valdai Club, whose annual event takes place in Sochi while at the same time, he brought back his nuclear threats.

Putin, who has repeatedly reminded the world of Russia’s nuclear power since launching his invasion of Ukraine, said no sane person would use nuclear weapons against Russia.

If there is such an attack, he warned, “there would be such a number of our missiles – hundreds, hundreds – in the air that not a single enemy would have a chance of survival.”

Putin accused the West of fomenting the conflict in Ukraine, which he described as part of a much larger struggle between Russia and an arrogant West, which he said had lost its sense of reality because of its “colonial thinking”.

He said Russia’s mission was to create a “new world” and blamed Western hegemony for Moscow’s attack on Ukraine.

“We did not start the so-called war in Ukraine. On the contrary, we are trying to finish him off,” Putin said, questioning what right the United States has to lecture any other country.

He also explained that “the West caused the war because the United States is a ‘sovereign’ that thinks it is the only arbiter of truth on the planet.”

“Our interlocutors in the West seem to have completely forgotten that there are such concepts as reasonable restraint, compromises, the willingness to give in to something in order to achieve an acceptable result for everyone,” the Russian president said.

“They are literally obsessed with only one thing – pushing their interests at any cost. If that’s their choice, let’s see what happens,” he said.

At the same time, the Russian president declared that “we have a duty, essentially, to build a new world”. “The West always needs an enemy,” he emphasized.

During his speech the ruble fell below 100 per US dollar.