If West wants to beat us on battlefield, let them try: Russia's Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that if the West wanted to defeat Russia on the battlefield, it was welcome to try.

“Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. What can you say, let them try. We have heard many times that the West wants to fight us to the last Ukrainian. This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but it seems that everything is heading towards this,” Putin said in televised remarks to parliamentary leaders.

Back in April,  Vladimir Putin warned the West that attempts to isolate Moscow would fail, citing the success of the Soviet space programme 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.

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.