President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of using the Ukraine conflict to "be done" with Russia, said traitors must be punished, and proclaimed that Moscow had successfully withstood Western sanctions.
"Western elites are not hiding their goal - to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. It means to be done with us once and for all," Mr Putin said three days before the first anniversary of the military intervention in Ukraine.
"The responsibility for fuelling the Ukrainian conflict, for its escalation, for the number of victims... lies completely with Western elites," Mr Putin said, repeating his claim that the West was supporting neo-Nazi forces in Ukraine.
His comments come on the same day that US President Joe Biden made an address in Poland, saying that "Russia's Putin today is confronted by stronger democracies" and that support for Ukraine will not waiver and NATO would not be divided.
Mr Putin said that Russia remains determined to fulfil all its tasks in Ukraine.
His army has faced a long series of humiliating defeats over the past year, even after the mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of reservists last September.
"To ensure the security of our country, to eliminate the threat that came from the neo-Nazi regime that emerged in Ukraine after the 2014 coup, it was decided to conduct a special military operation," Mr Putin said.
"Step by step, we will carefully and systematically solve the aims that face us," he added.
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Sanctions' failure
Speaking in front of the political elites and servicemen who fought in Ukraine, Mr Putin also "thanked the entire Russian people for their courage and determination".
He, however, did not detail his strategy to win on the ground in Ukraine, nor did he elaborate on Russian military losses - which the West and Ukraine say are huge.
Experts have pointed out that the Russian economy weathered Western sanctions over Moscow's military intervention better than expected.
"They have not succeeded and will not succeed," Mr Putin said.
"We ensured the stability of the economic situation and protected our citizens," Mr Putin added, slamming Western attempts to "destabilise our society."
Russian official data yesterday showed the economy contracted by 2.1% last year despite sanctions - far less than had been expected.
Mr Putin predicted inflation would soon stabilise around its target level of 4%.
Referring to the Russian billionaires whose assets, foreign accounts and yachts have been seized, Mr Putin said that "no one among ordinary people felt sorry for them".
"Everyone must understand that the sources of well-being and the future should be only here, in their native country: Russia," he said.
"Invest in Russia," he urged, "the state and society will support you".
Traitors and paedophiles
Mr Putin also indicated that Russian authorities could ramp up pressure on dissenters, saying traitors must be brought to justice.
"Those who have embarked on the path of betrayal of Russia must be held accountable under the law," Mr Putin said.
However, he added that authorities would not unleash a "witch hunt" against dissenters.
Since the beginning of the offensive, the Russian government has cracked down hard on what little remained of the opposition.
Criticism of Moscow's offensive can lead to prison sentences of up to 15 years.
Mr Putin, who frequently decries Western gender and sexual freedoms as an existential danger, also said pedophilia had become the norm in the West.
"Look at what they do to their own people: the destruction of families, of cultural and national identities and the perversion that is child abuse all the way up to pedophilia are advertised as the norm... and priests are forced to bless same-sex marriages," Mr Putin said.
The Ukraine conflict is by far the biggest bet by a Kremlin chief since at least the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union - and a gamble Western leaders such as US President Joe Biden say he must lose.
Russian forces have suffered three major battlefield reversals since the war began but still control around one fifth of Ukraine.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed, and Mr Putin now says Russia is locked in an existential battle with an arrogant West which he says wants to carve up Russia and steal its vast natural resources.
The West and Ukraine reject that narrative, and say NATO expansion eastwards is no justification for what they say is an imperial-style land grab doomed to failure.
Putin claims are 'absurd' - US
The US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan described Mr Putin's accusations that Russia had been threatened by the West as justification for invading Ukraine as "absurdity".
"Nobody is attacking Russia. There's a kind of absurdity in the notion that Russia was under some form of military threat from Ukraine or anyone else," Mr Sullivan told reporters.
Speaking hours ahead of President Joe Biden delivering his own speech in Warsaw to mark the anniversary of Mr Putin launching the war, Mr Sullivan said the Kremlin leader was the aggressor.
"This was a war of choice. Putin chose to fight it. He could have chosen not to. And he can choose even now to end it, to go home," Mr Sullivan said.
"Russia stops fighting the war in Ukraine and goes home, the war ends. Ukraine stops fighting and the United States and the coalition stops helping them fight - then Ukraine disappears from the map," he added.
China concerns
Earlier today, China said it was "deeply concerned" about the war, which it said was "intensifying and even getting out of control".
Foreign Minister Qin Gan said Beijing would "urge the countries concerned to stop adding fuel to the fire as soon as possible, to stop shifting the blame to China," following US claims that Beijing may be considering sending arms to Moscow.
China's top diplomat, Wang Yi, is due in Moscow for talks in his final stop of a European tour.
The Kremlin has said Mr Wang may meet Mr Putin during his visit, according to the official TASS news agency.
According to the latest estimates from Norway, the conflict has wounded or killed 180,000 Russian soldiers and 100,000 Ukrainian troops.
Other Western sources estimate the war has caused 150,000 casualties on each side.
Russia accused of "mercilessly killing" civilians in Kherson
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has blasted Russia for "mercilessly killing" civilians in Kherson.
"The Russian army is heavily shelling Kherson. Again mercilessly killing the civilian population," Mr Zelensky said on social media.
"A vehicle park, residential areas, a high-rise building, and a public transport stop were hit," he added.
The strikes killed at least five people and 16 others were in hospitals with injuries, the Kherson city council said.
Kherson is the capital of one of the four regions - along with Donetsk, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia - that Russia claims to have annexed but never fully controlled.
Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, said Russian troops had targeted the city "probably by Grad" multiple rocket-launchers and that 20 explosions had been heard.
Despite Russia's retreat from Kherson in November, the city is regularly targeted by Moscow's troops.
