Russian President Vladimir Putin lashed out Thursday at the United States and its European allies, saying Western sanctions for Russia's annexation of Crimea were just an excuse to weaken the country.
Delivering his annual state of the nation speech to legislators, Kremlin officials and other leaders on Thursday, Putin said the sanctions are not just a reaction of the U.S. and its allies over Russia's response to the events and a coup in Ukraine.
"I am certain that if all this did not take place ... they would come up with another reason to contain Russia's growing capabilities, to influence it or, even better, use it for its own goals," the Russian leader said.
Putin said the Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine, that ousted Russia-backed President Viktor Yanukovich in February, was an armed coup supported by the West that justified Russian intervention.
"What we are seeing now in Ukraine, the tragedy in the southeast, fully confirms that our position is right," Putin said.
Fighting this year between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels has killed more than 4,300 people.
He also referred to Crimea as Russia's spiritual ground, calling the region "the same as Temple Mount in Jerusalem for those who confess Islam and Judaism."
Putin spoke after a rare and deadly rebel attack in the Chechen capital, Grozny. He said such acts of separatism are being supported by the West.
He said although Moscow has been treating its former Cold War enemies as close friends and almost allies, the support for separatism in Russia is coming from abroad, including political and financial help from spy agencies.
Human Rights Watch Director Kenneth Roth said Putin is focusing blame on foreigners to distract Russians from problems at home.
“I think part of Putin's effort to blame the West, to blame others, is an effort to deflect criticism from himself," Roth told VOA.
"Why is Russia having economic problems today? Well, it has an unaccountable government that has led to the kind of adventurism that we see in Ukraine, which in turn has caused the West to respond," he added. "So, rather than Putin blaming himself, rather than blaming the kind of government that emerges where you suppress criticism, Putin is going to blame everybody else.”
Russia's economic situation has unraveled since the United States and the European Union imposed a series of increasingly harsh economic sanctions on Moscow over its annexation of Crimea and what they see as support for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.
But, as some analysts believe, it's not so much the sanctions that are bringing Russia to its knees.
"The West makes too much about the sanctions. They are pinching, but [Putin] and colleagues are more concerned about the steep drop in oil prices. Oil is an essential element of Russia's earnings... there is more hurt here," Thomas Graham, managing director at Kissinger Associates, Inc. and former top National Security Council official in the Bush administration, told VOA.
Russian finance officials this week revised their economic forecast for 2015 from slight growth to recession. The Russian currency has dropped to its lowest value in a quarter century. Foreign capital is also fleeing the country.
However, despite the anti-Western rhetoric, Putin said Russia would seek cooperation with Europe and the United States.
He said Russia will never pursue the path of self-isolation, xenophobia, suspicion or searching for enemies. All this is a manifestation of weakness, he said, while Russia is strong and self-confident.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Russia had pitched itself into isolation through its own actions in Ukraine and could rebuild international credibility only by ending its support for pro-Russian separatists.
Speaking at a meeting of foreign ministers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE), Kerry said on Thursday that Moscow had failed to live up to its commitments under September Minsk cease-fire accords to end the conflict in Ukraine.
"It is not our design or desire that we see a Russia that is isolated through its own actions," he said at the meeting in Basel, Switzerland.
"In fact we are convinced that Moscow could rebuild trust and relationships if it simply helps to calm turbulent waters, if it takes steps now to implement the Minsk Protocol," Kerry added.