“They simply presented us with a choice in which we could not do anything other than stand up for the people living there. The same thing happened later with Donbass and Novorossiya,” the head of state said at a meeting with the new composition of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation.
Speaking about the causes of the conflict with Ukraine, Putin noted that Western countries were not going to implement the Minsk agreements on a peace settlement, “they began to drag this entire territory into NATO,” not paying attention to Russia’s position and protests.
According to the president, now the country must do everything for the smooth and natural entry of new territories and for people to feel the results as quickly as possible.
Putin also pointed out that the Russian Federation had no idea of returning Crimea if the Russian language in Ukraine were treated normally and there would be no coups d'etat. He also called the extermination of Russians in Donbass “complete lawlessness.”
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There would have been no decision to reunify Crimea with Russia in 2014 if a coup had not been staged in Ukraine or if Russian people had been treated humanely, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
ReplyDelete"Had our relations with fraternal Ukraine been normal, modern and benevolent, it would have never crossed anybody’s mind to take any actions, like those related to Crimea. But how could it be? Had everything been fine there, had the Russian people, Russian language and culture been respected, had all those state coups never happened, would anyone in Russia have made up their mind to take action in Crimea like we did? Of course not. We had to protect people from those Nazi scum," Putin said at a meeting with the Russian Civic Chamber.
Commenting on his words about "fraternal Ukraine," Putin emphasized, "I still say ‘fraternal,’ meaning our ethnic background makes us fraternal in the literal sense of the word."
"They merely put us at a crossroads, at which we could do nothing else but stand up for the people living there," he said referring to Crimea and Kiev’s policy. "Later, the same happened to Donbass and Novorossiya."