Observers have been waiting for a Russian invasion of Ukraine for days. Now President Putin has ordered a military operation.
Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin has officially ordered a foreign deployment of the Russian military in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions in the conflict with Ukraine.
“I have decided to conduct a special military operation,” Putin said in a televised address on Thursday morning. “Your goal is to protect people who have been subjected to abuse and genocide for eight years.”
In doing so, Putin responded to a written request from the heads of the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics for assistance in fending off attacks by the Ukrainian army. Putin had previously promised in writing that he would intervene militarily if asked. This means that Russian and Ukrainian soldiers will soon be facing each other for the first time in the conflict that has been going on for eight years.
“For this we will strive for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine,” said Putin. On Monday he recognized the separatist areas as independent states. Eyewitnesses reported in the media and blogs that the Russian soldiers were already in the conflict area. The Russian leadership had claimed that there were no own soldiers there. The separatists initially said they wanted to take care of security on their own.
After the recognition of the “People’s Republics” by the Federation Council in Moscow, Putin had, as a precautionary measure, obtained permission for the deployment of Russian armed forces abroad. The Russian state agency Tass published the letters of the heads of the “People’s Republics” asking for help from Russia to avoid casualties among the peaceful population and a humanitarian catastrophe in the region. At the same time, they thanked Putin for recognizing them as independent states.
There is now military aggression by the Ukrainian armed forces, infrastructure is being destroyed, including schools and kindergartens, it said. “The actions of the regime in Kiev testify to the refusal to end the war in Donbass,” the letter said. Ukraine refuses to be at war with Donbass. She sees Russia as an aggressor and declared a state of emergency across the country.
The West accuses Putin of violating international law. The EU and the US imposed far-reaching sanctions on Russia. According to Western sources, Russia has gathered about 150,000 soldiers on the border with Ukraine.
Source: Stern
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