MOSCOW, February 22. /TASS/. Russia will be forced to push the threat away from its borders, if the Kiev regime receives longer-range weapon systems from the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a message to the Federal Assembly on Tuesday.

“One idea should be very clear to everyone: the longer the range of the Western systems being brought to Ukraine, the farther away from our borders we will be forced to push the threat. This is natural,” Putin said. “I will not dwell in detail on the West’s attempts to turn the tide of the combat operations or its plans to increase military supplies. Everyone knows all this well enough already.”

In his address, President Putin said that the West has been provoking conflicts in the post-Soviet space and has never ceased attempts to finally “be done with” Russia.

“For all the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West never stopped trying to ‘set on fire’ post-Soviet states and, what is most important, to ultimately ‘be done with’ Russia as the biggest remaining part of our historic state space. They have been pardoning international terrorists and setting them on us, provoking regional conflicts along the perimeter of our borders, ignoring our interests and using means of economic restraint and pressure,” he said in his State of the Nation Address.

The West is open to using anyone and everyone in its fight against Moscow, President Vladimir Putin said in his State of the Nation Address to the Federal Assembly.

According to him, no one in the West seems to notice that Ukrainian troops make no secret of seeing themselves as the heirs of German Nazi divisions. “Why is that so? Because, pardon my language, they don’t give a damn. They don’t care who to bet on in their fight against us, against Russia. The main thing is that those they choose fight against us, against our country, so everyone can be used, and we have seen them do that, using terrorists and neo-Nazis. They would use the devil himself if they could – God forbid – if he agreed to do their bidding and serve as a weapon against Russia,” Putin stressed.

Putin pointed out that sleeve patches with symbols of SS divisions Das Reich, Totenkopf and Galicia, whose members were up to their elbows in blood, were popular among the Ukrainian armed forces and National Guard officers. “Ukrainian armored vehicles are being marked with Wehrmacht insignia,” the Russian leader emphasized. “Not too long ago, a brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces – I am embarrassed to say this, we all are – was given the name Edelweiss, recalling a German Wehrmacht division that took part in the deportation of Jews, the execution of prisoners of war, and punitive operations against partisans in Yugoslavia, Italy, Czechoslovakia and Greece,” Putin added.

He said the Western countries have spent more than $150 bln on aiding and supplying arms to Kiev.

“It (the West – TASS) has already spent over $150 bln on aiding and supplying arms to the Kiev regime,” he said, adding that the flow of funds meant for providing military support to Kiev is not decreasing. “Meanwhile, the flow of funds on the war is not decreasing,” Putin said.