Vladimir Putin's Reflection on the War

“DEAR Russian citizens! Dear friends!

Today, I again consider it necessary to return to the tragic events taking place in Donbass and to the key issues of ensuring Russia's own security.

I will start with what I said in my speech on 21 February this year. It is a matter of what is of particular concern and unrest, of the fundamental threats that our irresponsible politicians in the West are roughly and ruthlessly putting up against our country year after year and step by step. I mean the enlargement of the NATO alliance to the east, the entry of its military infrastructure closer to Russia's borders.

It is well known that for 30 years we have been persistently and patiently trying to agree with the leading NATO countries on the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we have constantly come across either cynical deception and lying or attempts at pressure and blackmail, and at the same time, the Alliance has inevitably expanded with all our protests and concerns. The war machine is moving and, I repeat, approaching our very borders.

WHY is all this happening? Where does this brazen way of talking about the positions of one’s own peculiarity, infallibility, and all permissibility come from? Where does the contemptuous, disregard for our interests and our perfectly legitimate demands come from?

The answer is clear, everything is understandable and obvious. The Soviet Union weakened in the late 1980s and then completely disintegrated. The whole course of events at that time is a good lesson for us today as well: it convincingly showed that the paralysis of power, the will, is the first step to complete decay and oblivion. We only needed to lose our self-confidence for a while, and the balance of power in the world was upset.

As a result, the former agreements no longer actually work. Persuasion and requests do not help. Everything that does not satisfy hegemony, those in power, is declared archaic, outdated, unnecessary. And vice versa: everything that feels affordable to them is praised as the last truth, penetrated at any cost, openly, by all means. Disagreements are pressed to their knees.

What I am talking about now is not just about Russia and not just about us. This applies to the entire system of international relations and sometimes to the allies of the United States themselves. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, the redistribution of the world actually began, and the norms of international law that had emerged by then — and the most fundamental, fundamental ones were adopted as a result of World War II — greatly confirmed its results — were declared Cold War victors.

In practical life, in international relations, in the rules governing them, of course, changes in the world situation and in the balance of power itself had to be taken into account. However, it had to be done professionally, smoothly, patiently, taking into account and respecting the interests of all countries and understanding their own responsibilities. But no - euphoria of absolute superiority, a kind of modern autocracy, which was underpinned, above all, by the low general level of education and arrogance of those who prepared, accepted, and penetrated only solutions that were advantageous to them. The situation began to develop according to another script.

EXAMPLES do not need to be searched far. First, without any UN Security Council sanctions, a bloody military operation was carried out against Belgrade, using air force and missiles right in the middle of Europe. A few weeks of uninterrupted bombing of quiet cities and vital infrastructure. I have to recall these facts because some Western colleagues do not want to recall those events, and when we talk about it, they prefer to refer to what they interpret as necessary rather than to the norms of international law.

Then came Iraq, Libya and Syria. The use of illegal military force against Libya, the distortion of all UN Security Council decisions on Libya, led to the complete collapse of the state, the emergence of a huge outbreak of international terrorism, the country's plunge into a humanitarian catastrophe, the deep end of many years of civil war. The tragedy, which condemned hundreds of thousands, millions of people not only in Libya but throughout the region, gave rise to widespread migration from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe.

A similar fate was made for Syria. Western Alliance fighting in that country without the consent of the Syrian government and UN Security Council sanctions - it is nothing more than aggression, intervention.

However, a special position in this group is, of course, the invasion of Iraq, even without any legal basis. The pretext that the United States allegedly had weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was chosen as an excuse. As proof of this, the U.S. Secretary of State publicly waved, in relation to the whole world, some test tube containing white powder, assuring everyone that it was precisely the chemical weapon being developed in Iraq. It later emerged that it was all a scam, a bluff: Iraq does not have any chemical weapons. Unbelievable, wonderful, but the fact remains. Lied at the highest state level and from the UN High Tribunal. And the result was enormous casualties, destruction, an incredible rise in terrorism.

OVERALL, the impression is that virtually everywhere in the world, many parts of the world where the West is going to establish its own order, will end up with bloody, incurable wounds, the wounding wounds of international terrorism and extremism. Everything I have talked about is the most egregious but by no means the only example of disregard for international law.

This includes the promises made to our country not to extend NATO an inch to the east. I repeated - was deceived and, in vernacular, simply pulled from the nose. So, you can often hear that politics is a dirty game. Possibly, but not to this extent, not to this extent. After all, such deceptive behavior is not only contrary to the principles of international relations but, above all, to generally accepted norms of morality and ethics. Where, then, is justice and truth? Just constant lying and pretending.

By the way, American politicians, political scientists, and journalists themselves write and talk about the creation of a real ‘kingdom of lies’ within the United States in recent years. It's hard to disagree with that - that's exactly what it is. But it should not be modest: the United States is a great country, a state that shapes the system. All its satellites not only unobtrusively and humbly follow and accompany it in every way, but also imitate its use, embracing the rules it offers. Therefore, it can be said with full reason and certainty that the whole so-called Western Alliance, created by the United States in its image and likeness, is precisely that whole ‘kingdom of lies’.

As for our country: after the break-up of the Soviet Union, when the new modern Russia was unprecedentedly open and willing to cooperate honestly with the United States and other Western partners, in fact, with unilateral disarmament, we were immediately tried to defeat, crush, and destroy us once and for all. This is exactly what happened in the 1990s and early 2000s, when the so-called united West was most active in supporting separatism and mercenary forces in southern Russia. What sacrifices, what losses it all cost us then, what kind of trials we had to go through before we finally knew the backbone of international terrorism in the Caucasus. We remember it and will never forget it.

So, in fact, until very recently, there have been attempts to exploit us for our own benefit, to destroy our traditional values and to force us into our own pseudo-values that would bite us, from within our people, the views they are already aggressively pushing through in their own countries. and decay because they are contrary to human nature itself. That is not going to happen, it has never happened and no one has succeeded. And it still doesn't work out.

In spite of everything, however, in December 2021, we once again tried to agree with the United States and its allies on the principles of ensuring European security and preventing NATO enlargement. All in vain. The attitude of the United States will not change. It does not consider it necessary to agree with Russia on this key issue for us, and it does not care about our interests in pursuing its own goals.

And in this situation, of course, we have a question: what exactly to do in the future, what to expect? We know very well from history how in 1940 and early 1941 the Soviet Union made every effort to prevent the beginning of a war or even to delay it. To this end, the Soviet Union, among other things, tried not to provoke a potential attacker, did not take or postponed the most necessary, obvious measures to prepare for the inevitable attack. And the actions that were finally taken then were catastrophically late.

Therefore, the country was not ready to fully accept the invasion of Nazi Germany when, without declaring war, it invaded our country on June 22, 1941. The enemy managed to stop and then also crush, but at a huge cost. The attempt to appease the attacker on the eve of a great patriotic war proved to be a mistake that became costly to our people. Already in the first months of hostilities, we lost huge, strategically important areas and millions of people. The second time we don’t make that kind of mistake, we have no right.

Those who aspire to world domination publicly proclaim, without any justification, us, Russia, as their enemy. Indeed, they now have great financial, scientific and technical and military resources at their disposal. We know this and objectively assess the constant threats to us in the economic sphere - as well as our own ability to resist that brazen and constant blackmail. I repeat, we judge them without delusions, extremely realistically.

As for the military, today's Russia, even after the break-up of the Soviet Union and the loss of a significant part of its potential, is now one of the world's most powerful nuclear powers, and it also has a certain superiority in some of the latest weapons. Therefore, no one should have any doubt that a direct attack on our country will lead to destruction and dire consequences for any potential attacker.

At the same time, technologies, including defense technologies, are changing rapidly. Leadership in this area is moving and will move from hand to hand, but the military deployment of areas adjacent to our borders, if we allow it to do so, will continue for decades and perhaps forever and will pose an ever-increasing and unacceptable threat to Russia.

Even now, as NATO expands to the east, the situation in our country is getting worse and more dangerous year by year. In recent days, NATO leadership has even spoken directly about the need to accelerate and streamline the Alliance’s infrastructure toward Russia’s borders. In other words, they are tightening their positions. We can no longer just keep an eye on what is happening. That would be completely irresponsible on our part.

We cannot accept the further expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance's infrastructure and the start of military use in Ukraine. Of course, this is not about NATO itself: it is just an instrument of US foreign policy. The problem is that a hostile ‘anti-Russia’ is being created for our neighbors - I point out, for our historic territories - that is completely under external control and where NATO forces and a wealth of state-of-the-art weapons are being vigorously imported.

For the United States and its allies, this so-called policy of restraining Russia is producing obvious geopolitical dividends. Our country, on the other hand, is ultimately about life and death, our historical future as a people. And this is no exaggeration - that is exactly what it is. It is a real threat not only to our interests but to the very existence of our state, its sovereignty. This is exactly the red line that has been talked about many times. They have crossed it.

In this regard, also the situation in Donbass. We see that the forces that took the coup in Ukraine in 2014, seized power and in fact held it through decorative electoral procedures, have finally refused to resolve the conflict peacefully. For eight years, an infinitely long eight years, we have done everything we can to resolve the situation through peaceful, political means. All in vain.

As I said in my previous speech, one cannot look at what is happening there without sympathy. It was no longer impossible to put up with it. It was necessary to put an immediate end to that nightmare - the genocide of the millions of people who live there, who put their hopes only in Russia, only put their hopes in all of us. It was these aspirations, the feelings, the pain of the people, that were the main motive for us to decide to recognize the Donbass People’s Republics.

WHAT I consider important, moreover, in order to achieve their own goals, the leading NATO countries are supporting extremist nationalists and neo-Nazis in Ukraine, who in turn will never forgive the people of Crimea and Sevastopol for their free choice to rejoin Russia.

They are, of course, trying to bring the war to Crimea as well as to Donbass to kill, just as the criminals of the Ukrainian nationalists, Hitler's auxiliary forces, killed vulnerable people during the Great Patriotic War. They openly declare their desire for several other regions of Russia.

The whole course of events and the analysis of the incoming information show that Russia's confrontation with those forces is inevitable. It’s just a matter of time: they’re getting ready, they’re waiting for the right moment. Now they are still looking for nuclear weapons. We do not allow that to be done.

As I have said before, Russia accepted new geopolitical realities after the break-up of the Soviet Union. We are respectful and will therefore treat all the new countries that have formed in the post-Soviet area. We respect and will respect their sovereignty, as exemplified by the aid we have given to Kazakhstan, which has been plagued by tragic events whose state and integrity have been challenged. But Russia cannot feel safe, develop, exist under the current constant threat from Ukraine.

Let me remind you that between 2000 and 2005, we militarily repelled terrorists in the Caucasus, defended the integrity of our state, and preserved Russia. In 2014, we supported the residents of Crimea and Sevastopol. In 2015, we used the armed forces to build a reliable barrier to the intrusion of terrorists from Syria into Russia. We had no other way to protect ourselves.

The same is happening now. We are simply not left with any other opportunity to defend Russia, our people, than the one we have to use now. Circumstances require us to act decisively and urgently. The People's Republic of Donbass has asked Russia for help.

Therefore, in accordance with Article 51 (7) of the UN Charter, after ratifying the Federal Council of the Russian Federation and ratifying the Treaty of Amity with the Donetsk and Luhansk decision to carry out a special military operation.

Its aim is to protect people who have been subjected to humiliation and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years. To that end, we are working to demilitarize and liberate Ukraine from the Nazis and to bring to justice those who have committed countless bloody crimes against civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation.

However, our plans do not include the occupation of the territories of Ukraine. We are not going to force anyone by any means. At the same time, we still hear that there has been increasing talk in the West recently that the documents signed by the totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union, which confirmed the results of the Second World War, should no longer be observed. So what can be answered?

The results of World War II, as well as the sacrifices our people made on the altar of the victory over Nazism, are sacred. However, this is not at odds with the high values of human rights and freedoms, given the realities that have emerged so far in all the post-war decades. Nor does it abolish the right of peoples to self-determination as enshrined in Article 1 of the UN Charter.

I would like to remind you that when the Soviet Union was established, or even after the Second World War, no one ever asked the people who lived in those or these areas of present-day Ukraine how they themselves wanted to organize their lives. Our policy is based on freedom, the freedom of all to choose and decide for themselves and the future of their children. And we consider it important that this right - the right to choose - be exercised by all peoples living in the territory of present-day Ukraine, by all who want it.

In this context, I also appeal to the citizens of Ukraine. In 2014, Russia had to defend the people of Crimea and Sevastopol from those you yourself call ‘Nazis’. The people of Crimea and Sevastopol made their choice - to be with their historic homeland, Russia - and we supported it. I repeat, we simply could not have done otherwise.

The current events are not related to the desire to narrow the interests of Ukraine and its people. They relate to defending Russia itself from those who have taken Ukraine hostage and are trying to use it against our country and its people.

I repeat, our actions are self-defense against the threats that are being created against us and against an even bigger disaster than what is happening now. No matter how difficult it is, I ask you to understand this and call for cooperation so that we can turn this tragic page as soon as possible and move forward together, without letting anyone interfere in our affairs, in our relationships, and build them independently - in a way that solves all problems. and, despite the existence of state borders, would strengthen us internally as a cohesive whole. I believe in this - this is exactly our future.

I also have to appeal to the soldiers of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Ladies and gentlemen! In defending our common homeland, your fathers, grandfathers, and grandfathers did not fight against the Nazis in order for the current neo-Nazis to seize power in Ukraine. You have sworn allegiance to the people of Ukraine and not to the anti-people junta that is robbing Ukraine and humiliating its people.

Do not obey its criminal orders. I urge you to lower your guns immediately and go home. Let me be clear: all soldiers in the Ukrainian army who meet this requirement can leave the war zone without hindrance and return to their families.

I would like to emphasize once again that all responsibility for any bloodshed will lie entirely and completely with the conscience of the regime in power in Ukraine.

NOW a few important, very important words for those who may be tempted to intervene as a bystander in ongoing events. Anyone who tries to stop us, let alone threaten our country, our people, should know that Russia's response will be swift and will lead to consequences you have never seen before in your history. We are ready for any developments. All the necessary decisions have been made. I hope to be heard.

Dear Russian citizens!

The well-being and self-existence of entire states and peoples, their success and vitality always depend on the strong roots of their own cultures and values, ancestral experience and traditions and depend, of course, on their ability to adapt quickly to ever-changing life; with which to go forward.

Power is always needed - always - but power can be of different qualities. The policy of the ‘kingdom of lies’ that I mentioned at the beginning of my speech is based above all on brute, straightforward force. In such cases, we are told, ‘When there is power, there is no need for intelligence.’

But we all know that the right force is in the justice and truth that is on our side. And if that is the case, it is difficult to disagree that it is strength and readiness to fight that is the foundation of independence and sovereignty, the only necessary foundation on which to build one's own future, to build one's own house, one's own family, one's own homeland.

Ladies and gentlemen!

I am convinced that the soldiers and officers loyal to their country will perform their duties professionally and courageously. I have no doubt that all levels of government, the experts responsible for the stability of our economy, our financial system and the social sector, the leaders of our companies and the business community in Russia as a whole will function in good order and efficiently. I trust the united, patriotic attitude of all parliamentary parties and social forces.

Ultimately, as history has always been, the fate of Russia is in the reliable hands of our multinational people. And that means that the decisions made will be implemented, the goals set will be achieved and the security of our country will be reliably guaranteed.

I believe in your support, in the invincible power that our love for the homeland gives us. ”

[Opinion expressed that of Vladimir Putin, the President of Russian Federation.]

[Issued: 24th February 2022]