“Russia did not launch a war, it is ending it,” Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Zakharova said.
QUICK FACTS:
- Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova expressed confidence on Monday that experiments of NATO and Western public’s staying silent on the situation in Donbass resulted in a humanitarian and political disaster in Europe, The Russian News Agency (TASS) reports.
- “NATO’s experiments and the deafening silence of the Western public—these are the reasons behind the humanitarian and political disaster in Europe,” Zakharova posted on Telegram.
- “An end was to be put to this, since the West refused to conduct any negotiations whatsoever and welcomed aggressive statements and direct threats of Kiev puppets towards Russia,” she wrote.
- Zakharova said that Russia did not launch a war, but that it is “ending it.”
- For years, Russia has been urging the global community to stand against violence committed by Ukraine against the Donbass population.
- “These are millions of people, who were losing their loved ones every day, living in basements to flee the shelling,” Zakharova added.
- “Where were all these countries and their public during these eight years that the war continued, and how did they condemn the killing of at least 13,000 people throughout these years?” the diplomat asked.
WHAT ELSE THE RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY SAID:
- No one among those who are “yelling now” in “civilized countries” has ever rallied to support the population of Donetsk and Lugansk—the two republics in Donbass—with the demand to stop bloodshed until now, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Zakharova stressed.
- “The world was silent. Submissive silence of the global community and their disregard for the bloody catastrophe resulting from the anti-constitutional coup in Ukraine in 2014, staged with the direct participation of the US, the EU, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and other NATO countries, simply encouraged the Kiev regime to continue to destroy their own population,” Zakharova stressed, TASS.
BACKGROUND:
- Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed in a televised address on Feb 24 that Russia’s military operation in Ukraine was commenced in response to a request by the pro-Russia leaders of the disputed Donbass republics, according to TASS.
- Putin also said that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories.
- Russia’s Defense Ministry reported later on Thursday that Russian troops were not delivering strikes against Ukrainian cities, but that Ukrainian military infrastructure was being destroyed through the use of precision weapons.
