MOSCOW, May 9. /TASS/. Russia’s enemies seek to destroy the country, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the Victory Day Parade on Moscow’s Red Square on Tuesday.
"They [those who cynically and openly prepared a new crusade against Russia] have as their goal, and there is nothing new about that, to destroy our country, cross out the results of World War Two, finally dismantle the system of global security and international law and stifle any sovereign centers of development," the head of state said.
The Ukrainian people fell hostage to the state coup and the West’s plans that are the root cause of the current disaster in Ukraine, Putin said.
"Exorbitant ambitions, arrogance and permissiveness inevitably turn into a tragedy. This is the cause of the catastrophe, which the Ukrainian people is living through," the head of state said.
"It [the Ukrainian people] became a hostage to the state coup and the criminal regime of its Western handlers that emerged on its basis, a bargaining chip in the implementation of their cruel and selfish plans," Putin said.
The demolition of memorials to fallen Soviet soldiers in some countries is a crime and the desecration of their feats, the Russian leader said.
"We see that memorials to Soviet soldiers are ruthlessly and cold-bloodedly destroyed, monuments to great commanders are pulled down and a real cult of Nazis and their accomplices is being created while there are attempts to erase the memory about true heroes and smear them," the head of state said.
As the Russian leader pointed out, "such desecration of the feat and the victims of the victor generation is also a crime, an outright revanchism of those who cynically and openly prepared a new crusade against Russia, who gathered the Neo-Nazi scum all around the world.".