Russia prevented aggression with its military action in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his speech at the military parade held on Red Square on the 77th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany.
"Open preparations were underway for another punitive operation (in the Donets basin), for the invasion of our historical lands, including Crimea. "Kiev has announced the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons, and the NATO bloc has started active military development in the territories neighboring us," Putin said. - "In this way, a completely unacceptable threat was created directly on our borders," he added.
According to Putin , "everything was about the inevitable confrontation with the neo-Nazis, the Banderistas" , who were supported by the United States and its partners.
“I repeat, we have seen how the military infrastructure is unfolding, that hundreds of foreign consultants have started work, and that NATO countries regularly deliver the most modern weapons. The danger grew every day. Russia gave a pre-emptive response to the aggression. It was a forced, timely and the only right decision - a decision of a sovereign, strong, independent country".
The Russian president - who in his speech apparently no longer counted on the sovereignty of Ukraine - said that the militia of the Donetsk basin and the soldiers of the Russian army "are fighting on their own land, where their ancestors defeated the enemy" . He added that "for the future of the homeland" , so that no one forgets the lessons of the Second World War and that "executioners, punishment squads and Nazis have no place in the world".
He said the parade will include soldiers who have come directly from the war zone, where today Russia's soldiers of different nationalities "cover each other as brothers" in battle, defending what their fathers and great-grandfathers fought for.
"The main meaning of their lives has always been the well-being and security of our country. For us, and for their heirs, loyalty to the country is the most important value, a reliable pillar of Russia's independence," the president said, adding that Russia will always look up to the "generation of winners" who defeated Nazism.
Putin announced a minute of silence for the memory of those whose lives were extinguished by the Second World War, but also for those who were burned alive in the House of Trade Unions in Odessa in May 2014, as well as for the civilians killed in the Donets basin and those killed in battle.
Source: MTI
(Header image: REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov)
