Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday defended Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine, and blamed Kyiv and the West, as he looked to use grand Victory Day celebrations to mobilize patriotic support for the campaign.
Speaking at the start of the annual military parade in Red Square marking the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, Putin said Russian troops in Ukraine were defending their homeland and portrayed the conflict as a continuation of World War II.
Addressing Russian forces on the front in Ukraine, he said: “You are fighting for the Motherland, for its future, so that no one forgets the lessons of the Second World War.”
Photo: Reuters
Putin has repeatedly tried to connect the fighting in Ukraine to what Russians call the Great Patriotic War by describing authorities in Kyiv as neo-Nazis.
He made no major announcements during the speech, despite reports he could use the anniversary to announce an escalation of the conflict or a general mobilization in Russia.
Instead Putin put forward a defiant defense of what Russia calls its “special military operation,” saying Kyiv and its Western allies had been preparing “an invasion of our historical lands,” including in the Russian-speaking Donbas region and in Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014.
Photo: AFP
“An absolutely unacceptable threat to us was being created, directly on our borders,” Putin said, pointing to NATO weapons deliveries to Ukraine and the deployment of foreign advisers.
Russia had no choice, but to undertake a pre-emptive response, he said, calling it “the only right decision” for a “sovereign, strong and independent country.”
He insisted that Russia was not looking to expand the conflict, saying it was important “to do everything so that the horror of a global war does not happen again.”
Rejecting Putin’s attempt to justify Russia’s invasion as an effort to defend the homeland, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said: “NATO countries were not going to attack Russia. Ukraine did not plan to attack Crimea.”
“The Russian military is dying, not defending their country, but trying to occupy another,” Podolyak wrote on Twitter.
About 11,000 troops marched on Red Square for the 77th anniversary, along with more than 130 military vehicles, including tanks and intercontinental ballistic missile launchers.
Planned flypasts by Russian military aircraft in Moscow and other cities were canceled due to bad weather.
In related news, Russian Ambassador to Poland Sergei Andreev was yesterday splattered with a red substance by pro-Ukraine campaigners in Warsaw when he tried to lay a wreath to mark Victory Day.
Chanting “fascists” and brandishing the national flag, pro-Ukraine campaigners blocked the ambassador’s way as he walked toward the mausoleum, preventing him from laying his wreath, an Agence France-Presse photographer at the scene said.
Several people then threw a red substance on his face and clothes, and also splattered some of the men in his entourage.
After wiping his face with his hand, Andreev said “I am proud of my country and my president.”
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