In a video address, on the occasion of the second anniversary of the incorporation of four new territories into Russia (Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye), which is commemorated this Monday, Putin stated that the West transformed Ukraine into an outpost against Russia after 2014.

“They systematically instilled hatred and radical nationalism, incited hostility towards all things Russian, supplied weapons, sent mercenaries and advisors, trained the Ukrainian Army for a new war, to carry out another punitive action in the Southeast of Ukraine, like they did in 2014,” the president declared.

The objectives, Putin added, were both Donbass and Crimea and other regions of Russia. For Putin, “the subsequent development of events fully confirmed the necessity and validity of the special military operation, its character as a true liberation struggle.”

The president recalled that Russia never abandoned its brothers in southeastern Ukraine and tried to solve the arduous conflict politically.

“You know how those negotiations ended: in lies, falsification and lying by the Western elites who turned Ukraine into their colony, into a beachhead in front of Russia,” the Russian leader remarked.

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