Moscow, Oct. 2 -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that bloc confrontation and the West's pursuit of unilateral security advantages lie at the heart of the current global security crisis.

Speaking at the plenary session of the 23rd annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, he warned that rhetoric seeking a "strategic defeat" of Russia carries severe risks of pushing the conflict into its most brutal phase.

Putin said the West had for years nurtured aggressive nationalism and Russophobia in Ukraine, seeking to turn the country into a geopolitical instrument against Russia. Moscow's actions were a response to tangible threats to its own security, he said.

The path out of conflict lies not in defeating one side, but in m...