Almost a rehearsal of the self-defence speech in the Hague: Latvia’s top diplomat reacts to Putin's address 

Rinkēvičs wrote about this on his Twitter.

"It's almost like rehearsing a self-defence speech at the International Hague Tribunal or Nuremberg," the foreign minister ironically commented on Putin's speech at Valdai Discussion Club.

The Latvian minister retweeted a post by the Kremlin's RIA Novosti agency: "Putin: it was not Russia, but the West that led to today's situation and events in Ukraine."

• On October 27, Putin spoke at the Moscow Valday International Discussion Club plenary session. Putin began his speech with accusations against the West, which supposedly "blames everything" on the Kremlin. Putin said the West would have to start a conversation about a "common future".

• Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to the head of the Presidential Office, noted that Putin dreamed of going down in history as a great conqueror. Ultimately, he would become "the last emperor who led to the empire's fall".