Putin asks: ‘Do they want our bear to become a stuffed animal?’

Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to portray his antagonists in the West as hypocritical while defending the aggressive actions of his government in Ukraine during a speech on Thursday.

{mosads}“To chop Texas from Mexico is fair, but when we make decision about our territories it is unfair,” Putin said, according to NBC News. “Do they want our bear to become a stuffed animal?”

He appeared to hit the U.S. based on the recent Senate report that found that the CIA sometimes engaged in torture while running its interrogation program after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“Everyone should obey the Russian constitution. But the reality is usually more complex,” he said. “After 9/11 in the USA, they legalized torture.”

Putin made the comments at an hours-long end of year news conference with more than 1,000 journalists in attendance.

He also argued that external factors — not his leadership — were responsible for the economic crisis putting the nation in peril.

He said that the government and central bank’s response to the crisis has been “adequate,” Reuters reported.

But he also said that they needed to take more measures to stem the bleeding and conceded that the central bank could have done more to head off the most recent crisis.

He spoke after a week during which the ruble had fallen precipitously against the dollar. The Russian currency has fallen 45 percent against the dollar this year, according to Reuters.

The crisis is partially a cost of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Western sanctions have taken a toll on the Russian economy. The falling price of oil and global economic woes have also played a part in pushing Russia to the edge.