Russia Pre-Emptively Repelled Aggression, Putin Says
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Russia pre-emptively repelled a projected attack by launching its "special operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine", Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his Victory Day speech.
The decision to launch the "operation" on February 24 had been his only option under the circumstances, said Putin, Sputnik reported.
“We saw how the military infrastructure was unfolding, how hundreds of foreign advisers had begun to work there, with the most modern weapons being regularly delivered from NATO countries. The danger was growing every day. Russia offered a pre-emptive rebuff to the aggression - this was a forced, timely move and the only correct decision, one taken by a strong and independent country," Putin said, speaking at the Victory Parade in Moscow.
He said that NATO countries had refused to listen to the Russian Federation, as they had been preparing an attack on Crimea.
“Preparations had been underway for another punitive operation in the Donbass, an invasion of our historical lands, including Crimea," said Putin on Red Square.
According to Putin, NATO had started actively developing the military of territories adjacent to the Russian Federation, thus creating an unacceptable threat to this country directly at its borders.
“Everything indicated that a clash with neo-Nazis, Bandera-followers - in whom the United States and its allies had invested - was inevitable," stated Putin.
Furthermore, Putin said that Kiev had also announced that it could be in the market for buying nuclear weapons.
The Russian president said it was an honorable duty to preserve the memory of those who crushed Nazism during the Second World War.
"We are proud of the unconquered, valiant generation of victors, the fact that we are their heirs, and it is our duty to keep alive the memory of those who vanquished Nazism, who bequeathed to us the need to be vigilant and do everything so that the horror of a global war never recurs."
The West, according to Putin, has been denigrating the remarkable courage of those whose sacrifices in the Great Patriotic war had delivered victory, while praising the traitors.
He said Russia would never abandon respect for all peoples and cultures and traditional values, which the West has decided to cancel.
"Such moral degradation formed the basis for cynical falsifications of the history of the Second World War, the incitement of Russophobia, praising traitors, and mocking the memory of the victims," Putin said.
