News - Middle East: President Vladimir Putin has said the US-led NATO was an indirect accomplice to the crimes committed by Ukraine, as the west keeps supplying the ex-soviet country with lethal armaments. 

In an interview for "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin" program on Rossiya-1 TV channel aired on Sunday, Putin said that Moscow should take into account the nuclear potential of not only the US, but all other NATO countries as well, as the alliance considers Moscow’s strategic defeat its key goal.

"In today's conditions, when all the leading NATO countries have declared their main goal as inflicting a strategic defeat on us, so that our people suffer as they say, how can we ignore their nuclear capabilities in these conditions?" Putin told the state television, according to TASS.

According to Putin, if Moscow did not interfere with the policy of Western countries, the fate of the people of Russia could change dramatically, and above all, the fate of the Russian people.

Putin also accused the West and NATO of taking part in the Ukraine conflict by donating arms to the country, and also targeted the West for its sinister plans to break up and liquidate Russia.

"They are sending tens of billions of dollars in weapons to Ukraine. This really is participation," Putin was quoted as saying.

"They supply arms worth tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine. This is the participation in a way. Why? Because it is not simply military-technical cooperation, since they do not receive money for it," Putin noted
"They have one goal: to disband the former Soviet Union and its fundamental part - the Russian Federation."

"If we opt for [Russia’s disintegration], I think that the destinies of many peoples of Russia, and first of all the Russian people, of course, may change drastically," he said, adding that: "I even doubt that such an ethnic group as the Russian people will survive as it is today, with some Muscovites, Uralian and others remaining instead."