On Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin delivered his first remarks in several days about the weekslong war saying that Russia would triumph in its conflict with Ukraine.
Putin also said in his first comments on the standoff with the West over Ukraine in more than a month that the Kremlin is still studying the US and NATO’s response to the Russian security demands they received last week.
But he said it was clear that the West has ignored the Russian demands that NATO will not expand to Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations, refrain from deploying offensive weapons near Russia and roll back NATO deployments to Eastern Europe.
Here’s an excerpt from The Epoch Times report:
“That Blitzkrieg on which our foes were counting on did not work,” Putin claimed of the West’s crippling sanctions imposed after Putin’s Feb. 24 order to invade the country, according to state-run media outlet TASS. Putin made those comments alongside Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, an ally, at Vostochny cosmodrome in the Amur region.
Russia’s economy is on track to contract by more than 10 percent in 2022, the biggest fall in gross domestic product since the years following the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, former finance minister Alexei Kudrin said on Tuesday, reported Reuters.”
Putin blamed Ukraine for the current conflict, saying that the Ukrainian government had refused to comply with the Minsk Agreements that were brokered by the west. He said that the primary goal of the operation was to protect the people of the Donbas region in Eastern Ukraine, making the conflict’s goals ‘absolutely clear and noble’.
“We will not stop military operations in Ukraine until they succeed,” Putin said, adding that Ukraine has “deviated” from agreements that were made during previous rounds of talks, according to state-run RIA Novosti.
The goals of the conflict are “absolutely clear and noble,” Putin also said, state media reported. “There is no doubt that the goals will be achieved.”
“The main goal is to help the people of Donbas [region in eastern Ukraine], whose independence we recognized. We were forced to do so because the Kyiv authorities, pressed by the West, refused to comply with the Minsk agreements aimed at a peaceful solution of the Donbass-related problems,” Putin continued.
The goals of the conflict are “absolutely clear and noble,” Putin also said, state media reported. “There is no doubt that the goals will be achieved.”
Sources: 100percentfedup, The Epoch Times