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Before dawn, shortly before the explosions began in cities across Ukraine, Russian state television suddenly broadcast a speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The two self-proclaimed “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk, in the breakaway Ukrainian region of Donbas, which he had officially recognized as independent less than two days earlier, “had turned to Russia for help.” he said. To respond to this call he was launching a “special military operation”. Its purpose: to “demilitarize” and “denationalize” Ukraine.
Within minutes, Russian missiles began hitting targets in Ukraine. “Our actions are self-defense against threats,” he told his Russian compatriots, claiming that Moscow had no plans to invade Ukraine. “We do not plan to impose ourselves on anyone,” he insisted.
Putin described the “special military operation” in limited terms as protecting people living in the Donbas who he said had been subjected to “genocide,” a charge Ukraine has vehemently denied. But on the other hand, he criticized more widely: “NATO supports the Ukrainian neo-Nazis tona our actions are self-defense against threats.”
He then spoke directly with members of the Ukrainian army. Addressing them as “dear friends”, he told them that they had “taken an oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people, and not to the anti-popular junta that is plundering Ukraine and abusing the same people.”
“Do not follow his criminal orders!” he asked. “I urge you to drop your weapons and go home.”
As he has done many times before, Putin claimed that Russia had no choice but to defend itself. With a harsh tone in his voice, he seemed to be threatening the US, Europe and NATO, which in just a few minutes would prove that his armed forces would open fire on Ukraine, something the Kremlin had constantly dismissed as Western “hysterics”.
“Anyone who tries to intervene in us and even more so to create threats to our country, to our people, should know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences that you have not experienced. never in your history.
“We are ready for any development. All necessary decisions have been taken in this regard. “
Putin, who for years had criticized the West for ignoring his complaints about NATO enlargement to Russia’s borders, was finally returning it with rage. “I hope,” he concluded his short speech, “that they will hear me.”
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