"We're taking individual steps, one after another. As regards finance, we did not drop the dollar. The dollar is the universal currency. But it wasn't us — we were banned and barred from [using] it. And now 95% of all the external trade of Russia is denominated in national currencies. They did it themselves with their own hands. They thought we would collapse," Putin said at his meeting with the heads of major media outlets.

“I do not intend to accuse the United States in every aspect here, but unfortunately it was a wrong thing to do to disband the four [the Quartet],” he pointed out.

"It is a dangerous provocation because any step in this direction will face a response," the Russian president said on Ukraine's initiative to build nuclear weapons.

"I will say it outright Russia will not allow this to happen no matter what," he concluded.

“Otherwise, we will face even bigger issues than those that occurred in the EU,” the Russian president stressed.

"Europeans have been dragged into Asia through NATO. Nobody is asking the Europeans whether they want to spoil their relationship with China, whether they want to use NATO entities to enter Asia and to create a situation that would cause concern for the region, for China specifically. Still, they are dragged like puppies," he stressed.

“When NATO will get tired of waging this war against us [Russia], just ask them. We were ready to continue fighting, to continue the struggle, and we will have the upper hand [in the Ukraine conflict],” he said.

“I have heard from the people that fight on the ground that today's war is the war of mathematicians. Radio-jamming devices would be effective against certain delivery vehicles and they would suppress them. The other side has, for example, calculated and reckoned what is the counterforce and reprograms the software of its striking assets in a week or three weeks,” Putin shared.

"We are building an icebreaker fleet that has no peers in the world. It's going to be a unique fleet, seven nuclear icebreakers and 34 diesel-propelled, high-class, heavy-duty icebreakers," Putin said, referring to the development of the Northern Sea Route in particular.

“No doubt we should find a solution on the long-term guarantees for Russian security in the long run. So, it should not be about a ceasefire lasting a week, a month or a year, so that the NATO members re-equip Ukraine, supplying munitions,” the Russian president stated, answering a question from Dmitry Kiselev, director general of Sputnik's parent media group Rossiya Segodnya.

Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, describes Sinwar as a “pragmatist, shifting between political engagement and armed violence according to circumstances,” according to Al Jazeera.

“Zelensky also wants to do something that would provoke the West to engage openly with their military contingents, without hiding or disguising their servicemen as mercenaries, in a war against the Russian Federation,” he said.