Vladimir Putin on Ukraine

“Focused on their own goals, the leading NATO countries are supporting the far-right nationalists and neo-Nazis in Ukraine.”

“For eight years, for eight endless years we have been doing everything possible to settle the situation by peaceful political means. Everything was in vain.”

“This brings me to the situation in Donbass. We can see that the forces that staged the coup in Ukraine in 2014 have seized power, are keeping it with the help of ornamental election procedures and have abandoned the path of a peaceful conflict settlement.”

“As I said in my previous address, you cannot look without compassion at what is happening there. It became impossible to tolerate it. We had to stop that atrocity, that genocide of the millions of people who live there and who pinned their hopes on Russia, on all of us. It is their aspirations, the feelings and pain of these people that were the main motivating force behind our decision to recognise the independence of the Donbass people’s republics.”