Scott Ritter: Putin’s inauguration began final stage of Russia’s purge of malign Western influence

Scott Ritter: Putin’s inauguration began final stage of Russia’s purge of malign Western influence

“This time, it was different,” former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter told Sputnik, commenting on Vladimir Putin’s inauguration for a fifth term as Russia’s president on Tuesday.

“In his inauguration speech, Vladimir Putin made it clear that the security of Russia and the Russian people are his top priority. Why would he have to say this? Because as we speak, Russia finds itself under attack from many nations around the world – nations that seek the existential extermination of Russia, if not through violence, then through economic strangulation,” Ritter said.

Over Putin’s tenure, Russia has gradually “purged” itself of these attitudes, Ritter said, with the conflict in Ukraine serving as a catalyst accelerating Russia’s transformation, forcing elites and ordinary citizens alike to reconsider who they are and what defines them.

Going forward, Ritter expects Putin’s new term to “redefine Russia in the final stages of this transformation that it has been making continuously since 1999, a Russia that will for once and all purge the poison of Western malign influence out of its system, and create a pure Russian notion of what Russia is.”

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