Russian President Vladimir Putin, after his historic win in the Presidential elections, hit out at his critics, the West and even broke his habit of mentioning the deceased critic, Alexei Navalny.
Thanking Russia for giving him another term in elections, which the West claims was preordained, Vladimir Putin started by brushing off critics and the effectiveness of the 'noon against Putin' protest. "There were calls to come vote at noon. And this was supposed to be a manifestation of opposition. Well, if there were calls to come vote, then ... I praise this," he said at a news conference after polls closed.
Here are the other remarks made by Putin after his election victory.
1) On Navalny, Putin said: "As for Mr. Navalny, yes he passed away – it is always a sad event," Putin said. "And there were other cases when people in prisons passed away. Didn’t this happen in the United States? It did, and not once." Putin added that he had been in favour of a swap deal involving the opposition leader days before the jailed critic died in an Arctic prison last month
2) On whether his re-election was democratic, the Russian President said: "The whole world is laughing at what is happening (in the United States)," he said. "This is just a disaster, not a democracy. Is it democratic to use administrative resources to attack one of the candidates for the presidency of the United States, using the judiciary among other things?" he asked, in an apparent reference to Republican candidate Donald Trump.
3) Putin also reacted to French President Macron's comment not ruling out sending troops to Ukraine. He said that NATO military personnel were present already in Ukraine, saying that Russia had picked up both English and French being spoken on the battlefield. "There is nothing good in this, first of all for them, because they are dying there and in large numbers," he said.
4) On whether he considered it necessary to take Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Putin said if the attacks continued, Russia would create a buffer zone out of more Ukrainian territory to defend Russian territory. "I do not exclude that, bearing in mind the tragic events taking place today, we will be forced at some point, when we deem it appropriate, to create a certain 'sanitary zone' in the territories today under the Kyiv regime," Putin said.
5) On peace talks, the Russian President said he wished Macron would stop seeking to aggravate the war in Ukraine and to play a role in finding peace. "It seems that France could play a role. All is not lost yet. “I’ve been saying it over and over again and I’ll say it again. We are for peace talks, but not just because the enemy is running out of bullets," Putin said. "If they really, seriously, want to build peaceful, good-neighbourly relations between the two states in the long term, and not simply take a break for rearmament for 1.5-2 years."
