LONDON (Reuters) - The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said on Saturday that Western sanctions on Russia amount to a declaration of war and warned that any attempt to impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine would be tantamount to entering the conflict.
Putin reiterated that his goals in Ukraine are to defend Russian-speaking communities by "demilitarizing and denazifying" the country to make it neutral.
Ukraine and Western countries have rejected this as a baseless pretext for the invasion it launched on February 24 and have imposed a wide range of sanctions aimed at isolating Moscow.
"These sanctions that are being imposed are akin to a declaration of war, but thank God it has not come to that," Putin said, addressing a group of flight attendants at an Aeroflot training center near Moscow.
According to him, any attempt by another power to impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine would be considered by Russia as a step towards military conflict. The NATO has rejected kyiv's request to establish a no-fly zone, claiming that this would mean an escalation of the war beyond Ukraine.
Putin said there are no recruits involved in the military operation, which he said is being carried out only by professional soldiers.
"There is not a single recruit and we do not plan for there to be one," Putin said. "Our army will fulfill all tasks. I do not doubt it at all. Everything is going according to plan."
Putin dismissed concerns that some form of martial law could be declared or emergency situation in Russia. According to him, such a measure is imposed only when there is a significant internal or external threat.
"We do not plan to introduce any kind of special regime on Russian territory; it is not currently necessary," he noted.
His government has repressed protests in Russia against the war.
(Reporting from Reuters; edited in Spanish by Carlos Serrano).
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