普京爲兼併克里米亞辯護

Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended his country's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and accused the West of using the Ukraine crisis as a pretext to impose sanctions on Moscow.

Delivering his annual state of the union speech Thursday, Mr. Putin referred to Crimea as Russia's spiritual ground. On the subject of Western sanctions, he said "when anyone thinks Russia has become strong, independent, such instruments are applied immediately."

Russia's economic situation has unraveled since the United States and the European Union imposed a series of increasingly harsh economic sanctions on Moscow over its annexation of Crimea and what they see as support for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Those sanctions, coupled with a sharp decline in oil exports and the freefall of the Russian ruble, prompted Moscow on Tuesday to predict the Russian economy will further contract in 2015.

In his speech, Mr. Putin said the country's National Weath Fund should be used for supporting domestic banks. He said as of November 1, the fund, which aims to cover future pension shortages, stood at $81.7 billion.俄羅斯總統普京爲俄羅斯吞併烏克蘭的克里米亞半島進行辯護，並指責西方國家以烏克蘭危機爲藉口制裁莫斯科。

普京星期四發表年度國情諮文，他稱克里米亞爲俄羅斯的精神土地。在談到西方制裁的時候，普京說：“任何人認爲俄羅斯變得強壯、獨立時，都會立即採用這種手段。”

美國及歐盟爲了應對俄羅斯吞併克里米亞以及他們認爲的俄羅斯對烏克蘭東部分離主義反叛武裝的支持，對莫斯科採取一系列越來越嚴厲的經濟制裁措施，俄羅斯經濟形勢惡化。

西方制裁措施再加上俄羅斯石油出口量急劇減少以及盧布大幅貶值，導致莫斯科星期二預測俄羅斯經濟2015年將繼續萎縮。

普京在講話中指出，應當利用俄羅斯的國家財富基金支持國內銀行。他說，截至11月1日，這筆爲應對未來退休金短缺而設立的資金共有817億美元。