Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the military campaign launched by Moscow in Ukraine aims to end an “anti-Russian enclave” the neighboring country is creating and which threatens Russia.
“In the territory of present-day Ukraine, they began to create an anti-Russian enclave that threatens our country,” the Kremlin chief told students during a meeting with students in Kaliningrad, an enclave on the Baltic Sea coast, located between Lithuania and Poland. which belongs to Russia, despite not sharing a land border.
That is why “our soldiers are fighting there, many are dying, they are defending the inhabitants of Donbass and Russia itself, and this undoubtedly deserves the support of the whole society,” Putin stated on the occasion of the beginning of the lessons, broadcast live on Russian state television.
“This is not a childish issue, but it is very understandable. In fact, they have started a war against us that has lasted eight years. Our task, the mission of our soldiers, is to end this war, to defend the people.” , he said. to maintain.
The president rejected Western accusations that Russia would commit aggression against Ukraine.
“Everyone believes that there is aggression from Russia, but no one knows or understands that after the 2014 coup in Ukraine, the majority of the inhabitants of Donetsk and Lugansk and those of Crimea did not want to recognize the results of the coup d’état be the Russian leader.
Putin was referring to the popular uprising in Kiev that ended with the flight of then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, currently a refugee in Russia.
Again, the Russian president insisted that Ukraine never existed as a state before the rise of the Soviet Union and that the communist regime created the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, to which it surrendered vast Russian ancestral territories.
The military offensive launched by Russia on February 24 in Ukraine has already led to nearly 13 million people fleeing — more than six million displaced persons and nearly seven million to neighboring countries — according to the latest UN data, which describes this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
The Russian invasion – justified by Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security – was condemned by the generality of the international community, which has responded by sending arms to Ukraine and impose it on Russia. sanctions.
The UN presented 5,663 civilian dead and 8,055 wounded in the war as confirmed, stressing that these numbers are far below the real one.
Source: DN
