“What is currently happening is a forced measure, as they did not leave us any other way to proceed,” Putin said at the meeting with the businessmen.
“Such security risks have been created that it was impossible to respond by other means”argued the president, reported the Russian news agency Sputnik.
The comments came about 14 hours after Putin announced the start of an attack on Ukraine in a televised message to the Russian nation.
In that speech, Putin justified the attack as a way to protect civilians in two breakaway, Russian-speaking regions of eastern Ukraine whose independence he recognized this week.
He accused the United States and its allies of rejecting Russian demands that Ukraine not join NATO and other security guarantees.
He added that his intention was not to occupy Ukraine but to “demilitarize” and “denazify” the country and bring to justice those responsible for crimes.
He also warned against possible interventions from other countries.
The United States believes that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is designed to behead the Ukrainian government and that one of the three main thrusts of the assault is aimed at the capital, Kiev, a senior Pentagon official said on Thursday.
“Our assessment is that they have every intention of basically beheading the government and installing their own method of administration, which would explain these early moves,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Source: Ambito
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