Moscow, Russia:
Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed on Monday that Moscow would meet all of its goals in Ukraine, in the third year of conflict.
“The truth is on our side. All the goals set will be achieved,” Putin said in a video address released on the second anniversary of what Russia calls “Unification Day,” when Moscow annexed four Ukrainian regions.
After sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022, Russia annexed the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson. It does not fully control all the territory in these regions.
In his address, Putin repeated his justification for sending troops to Ukraine as the defense of Russian-speakers against a “neo-Nazi dictatorship” that aims to “cut them off forever from Russia, their historic homeland.”
He also criticized the “Western elites” who “turned Ukraine into their colony, a military base directed against Russia” and who incite “hatred, radical nationalism… hostility to everything Russian”.
“Today we are fighting for a secure, prosperous future for our children and grandchildren,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and was published by a syndicated channel.)
