Russia can’t be isolated and won’t be held back, Vladimir Putin tells West

Vladimir Putin also said he had no doubts Russia would achieve all of its objectives in Ukraine, a conflict he cast as both inevitable and essential to defend Russia in the future.

President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Tuesday that attempts to isolate Moscow would fail, citing the success of the Soviet space program as evidence that Russia could achieve spectacular leaps forward in tough conditions.

Russia says it will never again depend on the West after the United States and its allies imposed crippling sanctions on it to punish Putin for his Feb. 24 order for what he called a “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Sixty-one years to the day since the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin blasted off into the history books by becoming the first man in space, Putin traveled to the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East, 5,550 kilometres east of Moscow.

“The sanctions were total, the isolation was complete but the Soviet Union was still first in space,” Putin said, according to Russian state television.

“We don’t intend to be isolated,” Putin said. “It is impossible to severely isolate anyone in the modern world – especially such a vast country as Russia.”

Russia’s Cold War space successes such as Gagarin’s flight and the 1957 launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite from earth, have a particular pertinence for Russia: both events shocked the United States. The launch of Sputnik 1 prompted the United States to create NASA in a bid to catch up with Moscow.

Putin says the “special military operation” in Ukraine is necessary because the United States was using Ukraine to threaten Russia – including via the NATO military alliance – and that Moscow had to defend Russian-speaking people in Ukraine from persecution.

He said on Tuesday that he had no doubts Russia would achieve all of its objectives in Ukraine – a conflict he cast as both inevitable and essential to defend Russia in the long term.