As those concerned with Ukraine waited skeptically for April 16 peace talks among Ukraine, Russia, the European Union and the United States in Geneva, Russian President Vladimir Putin heated up the conflict, suggesting that he will not stop until Ukraine is destroyed as a sovereign nation.
He called Ukrainians and Russian one nation and threatened with a full-scale invasion of the Russian army.
In a televised talk to the nation that lasted for many hours, Putin also admitted at last that the “little green men” in Crimea were Russian soldiers, but he denied the presence of Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine at the moment – contrary to world opinion.
The host set a tone of conversation saying by clailming that, in eastern Ukraine, “a real genocide has been set.” Putin, in turn, gave numerous offensive remarks about Ukraine’s sovereignty, its people on the east and west and the role of the West in aggravation of the problem.
The audience greeted most of his words with loud applause. The former opposition politician, Irina Khakamada, even called Putin a “winner” and hailed his success in annexxing Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula without firing a shot.
An imperialistic mood was added by words the Kremlin’s chief propagandist, TV host Dmitry Kiseliov, who said he felt that Russia is being “suffocated by NATO,” and Putin’s joke that Russian won’t take Alaska back from the United States because it doesn’t need “one more cold territory.”
Here are the top 10 outrageous and remarkable remarks about Putin’s speech regarding Ukraine.
1. Putin reaffirms he could order military invasion to Ukraine
“I remind that the Federation Council allowed the president to use military force in Ukraine. I very much hope that I will not have to apply this right and that we will manage to solve these acute, I would say the most acute problems in Ukraine nowadays by political and diplomatic means.”
2. Putin claims he didn’t plan annexation of Crimea in advance
“We have never planned any annexation. But when the danger for people in Crimea became real and the people of Crimea decided they need to be finally self-identified, I decided we have to help. This operation wasn’t planned at all.”
3. Putin at last admits that “little green men” in Crimea were Russians
“Of course we had to ensure that the referendum is honest. So yes, our troops stood behind the backs of Crimean self defense fighters. Just imagine there were 20,000 Ukrainian troops, we had to ensure that the Ukrainian army won’t use their military forces in Crimea against their own people.”
4. Putin denies the presence of Russian “little green men” in eastern Ukraine
“This is nonsense. There are no any Russian special units, no special services, no instructors in Eastern Ukraine. These are all the local residents. And the best proof of this is the fact that people in fact took off their masks.”
5. Putin defended Ukrainian’s Berkut riot police unit that was disbanded by the new government for extraordinary brutality towards protesters in Kyiv
“You and your comrades performed your duties definitely honestly, very professionally and worthily… What happened to you in the end and how your colleagues are now being treated in Kyiv, this will make a negative outcome for Ukrainian state.”
6. Putin defends Ukraine’s ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, who is now hiding in Russia
“I don’t agree that he ran away. He really had to leave. He didn’t just run away from Kyiv, he went to the region and just after he came there from Kyiv, the building of presidential administration and government were captured.”
7. Putin said that some southeastern regions of Ukraine were artificially added to the country only in the early 20th century
“Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Nikolayev (Mykolaiv) and Odessa weren’t part of Ukraine in czar times, these are the territories that were given to Ukraine by Soviet government in the 1920s. God knows, why they did that,” he said calling all these regions Novorossiya.
8. Putin calls Russians and Ukrainians one nation, artificially torn apart
“The will to embroil Russia and Ukraine, to separate, pull apart in fact the one nation is an issue of international policy for over the centuries… But today it happened so that we live in different countries. And unfortunately this policy of separation, pulling apart, weakening of both parts of this one nation is going on.”
9. Putin claims he will not recognize the results of the May 25 presidential elections in Ukraine
“What are the legitimate elections when candidates from the east are constantly being beaten, poured with some ink, not allowed for meetings with their electorate?.. If the constitution isn’t changed then it’s just impossible to choose a new president when there is alive an acting, legal president. So if we want, if they want to make the elections legitimate then there is a need to change constitution and talk about federalism and decentralization.”
10. Putin confirms that annexation of Crimea was provoked by fears of NATO’s eastward expansion
“When infrastructures of a military bloc approaches towards our borders, then it provokes some fears and questions… Of course, first of all, it was the support of residents of Crimea, but also some thoughts that if we do nothing at some moment based on the same principles, Ukraine will be dragged into NATO and we will be told: ‘This is not you business” – and NATO ships will stay is Sevastopol, city of Russian maritime glory.’
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected] Kyiv Post staff writer Daryna Shevchenko contributed to this report. and can be reached at [email protected]
