Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s chief negotiator in talks with Ukraine, told a meeting of an interdepartmental commission on historical education that Moscow now faces a great challenge with the West, according to Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

At Thursday’s meeting, he compared the significance of what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine and the response from Kyiv’s allies to that of the Russian revolution or the breakup of the Soviet Union.

“The very existence of Russia, the Russian civilization, is at stake now. I see few precedents to this moment in history. Dark times, the event of February 1917, the fall of the USSR in 1989.

“That is what the collective West is pushing us towards. They are pushing for the collapse of a political system, of the whole country,” he said according to a Newsweek translation.

What is happening in the world today “is the greatest challenge in history, and we need to act on this challenge,” Medinsky added, according to the RIA Novosti report, based on a Google translation.

Russia’s foreign intelligence director Sergei Naryshkin has voiced similar sentiments following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

After U.S. President Joe Biden, and leaders of other countries, implemented sanctions against Russia, Naryshkin maintained the West was trying to destroy the country.

“The masks have been dropped. The West is not just trying to surround Russia with a new Iron Curtain,” Naryshkin said earlier this month, according to an Independent report.

“We are talking about attempts to destroy our state, it’s ‘cancellation’, as it is now customary to say in a ’tolerant’ liberal-fascist environment.”

“Western politicians and commentators like to call what is happening a ’new Cold War’,” Naryshkin said.

“It seems that historical parallels are not entirely appropriate here. If only because in the second half of the 20th century, Russia fought with the West on the distant approaches, and now the war has come to the very border of our Motherland.

“So for us, it is definitely not ‘cold’ but quite ‘hot.’

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has asked for more support from NATO to fight back against Russian soldiers.

On Thursday, in a pre-recorded video address to NATO representatives, he asked for military assistance “without restrictions” to save the Ukrainian people and cities.

“You can give us one percent of all your planes. One percent of your tanks. One percent,” he said.

He thanked NATO for the support it had so far shown but insisted NATO “has yet to show what the alliance can do to save people.”

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Update 03/24/22 9:40 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to include additional information.