Friends,
The subject of this address is the situation in Donbass and the course of the special military operation to liberate it from the neo-Nazi regime, which seized power in Ukraine in 2014 as the result of an armed state coup.
Today I am addressing you – all citizens of our country, people of different generations, ages and ethnicities, the people of our great Motherland, all who are united by the great historical Russia, soldiers, officers and volunteers who are fighting on the frontline and doing their combat duty, our brothers and sisters in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and other areas that have been liberated from the neo-Nazi regime.
The issue concerns the necessary, imperative measures to protect the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Russia and support the desire and will of our compatriots to choose their future independently, and the aggressive policy of some Western elites, who are doing their utmost to preserve their domination and with this aim in view are trying to block and suppress any sovereign and independent development centres in order to continue to aggressively force their will and pseudo-values on other countries and nations.
The goal of that part of the West is to weaken, divide and ultimately destroy our country. They are saying openly now that in 1991 they managed to split up the Soviet Union and now is the time to do the same to Russia, which must be divided into numerous regions that would be at deadly feud with each other.
They devised these plans long ago. They encouraged groups of international terrorists in the Caucasus and moved NATO’s offensive infrastructure close to our borders. They used indiscriminate Russophobia as a weapon, including by nurturing the hatred of Russia for decades, primarily in Ukraine, which was designed to become an anti-Russia bridgehead. They turned the Ukrainian people into cannon fodder and pushed them into a war with Russia, which they unleashed back in 2014. They used the army against civilians and organised a genocide, blockade and terror against those who refused to recognise the government that was created in Ukraine as the result of a state coup.
After the Kiev regime publicly refused to settle the issue of Donbass peacefully and went as far as to announce its ambition to possess nuclear weapons, it became clear that a new offensive in Donbass – there were two of them before – was inevitable, and that it would be inevitably followed by an attack on Russia’s Crimea, that is, on Russia.
In this connection, the decision to start a pre-emptive military operation was necessary and the only option. The main goal of this operation, which is to liberate the whole of Donbass, remains unaltered.
The Lugansk People’s Republic has been liberated from the neo-Nazis almost completely. Fighting in the Donetsk People’s Republic continues. Over the previous eight years, the Kiev occupation regime created a deeply echeloned line of permanent defences. A head-on attack against them would have led to heavy losses, which is why our units, as well as the forces of the Donbass republics, are acting competently and systematically, using military equipment and saving lives, moving step by step to liberate Donbass, purge cities and towns of the neo-Nazis, and help the people whom the Kiev regime turned into hostages and human shields.
As you know, professional military personnel serving under contract are taking part in the special military operation. Fighting side by side with them are volunteer units – people of different ethnicities, professions and ages who are real patriots. They answered the call of their hearts to rise up in defence of Russia and Donbass.
In this connection, I have already issued instructions for the Government and the Defence Ministry to determine the legal status of volunteers and personnel of the military units of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics. It must be the same as the status of military professionals of the Russian army, including material, medical and social benefits. Special attention must be given to organising the supply of military and other equipment for volunteer units and Donbass people’s militia.
While acting to attain the main goals of defending Donbass in accordance with the plans and decisions of the Defence Ministry and the General Staff, our troops have liberated considerable areas in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and a number of other areas. This has created a protracted line of contact that is over 1,000 kilometres long.
This is what I would like to make public for the first time today. After the start of the special military operation, in particular after the Istanbul talks, Kiev representatives voiced quite a positive response to our proposals. These proposals concerned above all ensuring Russia’s security and interests. But a peaceful settlement obviously did not suit the West, which is why, after certain compromises were coordinated, Kiev was actually ordered to wreck all these agreements.
More weapons were pumped into Ukraine. The Kiev regime brought into play new groups of foreign mercenaries and nationalists, military units trained according to NATO standards and receiving orders from Western advisers.
At the same time, the regime of reprisals throughout Ukraine against their own citizens, established immediately after the armed coup in 2014, was harshly intensified. The policy of intimidation, terror and violence is taking on increasingly mass-scale, horrific and barbaric forms.
I want to stress the following. We know that the majority of people living in the territories liberated from the neo-Nazis, and these are primarily the historical lands of Novorossiya, do not want to live under the yoke of the neo-Nazi regime. People in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, in Lugansk and Donetsk saw and are seeing now the atrocities perpetrated by the neo-Nazis in the [Ukrainian-] occupied areas of the Kharkov region. The descendants of Banderites and members of Nazi punitive expeditions are killing, torturing and imprisoning people; they are settling scores, beating up, and committing outrages on peaceful civilians.
There were over 7.5 million people living in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions before the outbreak of hostilities. Many of them were forced to become refugees and leave their homes. Those who have stayed – they number about five million – are now exposed to artillery and missile attacks launched by the neo-Nazi militants, who fire at hospitals and schools and stage terrorist attacks against peaceful civilians.
We cannot, we have no moral right to let our kin and kith be torn to pieces by butchers; we cannot but respond to their sincere striving to decide their destiny on their own.
The parliaments of the Donbass people’s republics and the military-civilian administrations of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions have adopted decisions to hold referendums on the future of their territories and have appealed to Russia to support this.
I would like to emphasise that we will do everything necessary to create safe conditions for these referendums so that people can express their will. And we will support the choice of future made by the majority of people in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.
Friends,
Today our armed forces, as I have mentioned, are fighting on the line of contact that is over 1,000 kilometres long, fighting not only against neo-Nazi units but actually the entire military machine of the collective West.
In this situation, I consider it necessary to take the following decision, which is fully adequate to the threats we are facing. More precisely, I find it necessary to support the proposal of the Defence Ministry and the General Staff on partial mobilisation in the Russian Federation to defend our Motherland and its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to ensure the safety of our people and people in the liberated territories.
As I have said, we are talking about partial mobilisation. In other words, only military reservists, primarily those who served in the armed forces and have specific military occupational specialties and corresponding experience, will be called up.
Before being sent to their units, those called up for active duty will undergo mandatory additional military training based on the experience of the special military operation.
I have already signed Executive Order on partial mobilisation.
In accordance with legislation, the houses of the Federal Assembly – the Federation Council and the State Duma – will be officially notified about this in writing today.
The mobilisation will begin today, September 21. I am instructing the heads of the regions to provide the necessary assistance to the work of military recruitment offices.
I would like to point out that the citizens of Russia called up in accordance with the mobilisation order will have the status, payments and all social benefits of military personnel serving under contract.
Additionally, the Executive Order on partial mobilisation also stipulates additional measures for the fulfilment of the state defence order. The heads of defence industry enterprises will be directly responsible for attaining the goals of increasing the production of weapons and military equipment and using additional production facilities for this purpose. At the same time, the Government must address without any delay all aspects of material, resource and financial support for our defence enterprises.
Friends,
The West has gone too far in its aggressive anti-Russia policy, making endless threats to our country and people. Some irresponsible Western politicians are doing more than just speak about their plans to organise the delivery of long-range offensive weapons to Ukraine, which could be used to deliver strikes at Crimea and other Russian regions.
Such terrorist attacks, including with the use of Western weapons, are being delivered at border areas in the Belgorod and Kursk regions. NATO is conducting reconnaissance through Russia’s southern regions in real time and with the use of modern systems, aircraft, vessels, satellites and strategic drones.
Washington, London and Brussels are openly encouraging Kiev to move the hostilities to our territory. They openly say that Russia must be defeated on the battlefield by any means, and subsequently deprived of political, economic, cultural and any other sovereignty and ransacked.
They have even resorted to the nuclear blackmail. I am referring not only to the Western-encouraged shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which poses a threat of a nuclear disaster, but also to the statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.
I would like to remind those who make such statements regarding Russia that our country has different types of weapons as well, and some of them are more modern than the weapons NATO countries have. In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.
The citizens of Russia can rest assured that the territorial integrity of our Motherland, our independence and freedom will be defended – I repeat – by all the systems available to us. Those who are using nuclear blackmail against us should know that the wind rose can turn around.
It is our historical tradition and the destiny of our nation to stop those who are keen on global domination and threaten to split up and enslave our Motherland. Rest assured that we will do it this time as well.
I believe in your support.
Whether Putin and the Duma were forced into making the decision or the events that led up to the decision were pre-planned the inevitable has happened and there will be no turning back. For Russia, it is a ‘do-or-die’ scenario and I believe that she has prepared herself for such a conflict; pitty though that the US has dragged many states into the conflict and incidentally, China has put their army on active duty.
The goal was to take down Germany:
RAND Report
– “Stopping Russian deliveries could create a systematic crisis that would be devastating for the German economy and indirectly for the European Union as a whole”, it states, and believes that the key is to draw the European countries into war.
– “The only possible way to ensure that Germany rejects Russian energy supplies is to draw both sides into the military conflict in Ukraine. Our [USA] continued actions in this country will inevitably lead to a military response from Russia. Russia is clearly not going to leave to the massive Ukrainian army’s pressure on the Donetsk People’s Republic without a military response. This would make it possible to portray Russia as the aggressive party and then implement the entire package of sanctions, which has already been drawn up”.
Force Russia, a very large part of Latin America is with the Russian people.
Putin speaks like a grown up tasked with leading a country under assault from the NATO expansionist organisation, which is merely a figleaf for US-driven global aggression.
When I hear politicians and media prostitutes in the UK talking about this conflict, I am listening to children, to slaves, to prostitutes and to liars.
They might have adult bodies, but they certainly don’t have adult spirits. They have the spirits of pre-adolescent gang members.
Erdogan sure turned out to be a snake, didn’t he?
https://www.rt.com/russia/563200-erdogan-russia-territories-return/
But Turkey is part of NATO, and I guess that trumps all. I should have known better than to put any hope in Erdogan, and Turkey.
Russia stands alone.
I guess, ultimately, she always has, and any sovereign country must.
Pray for Russia. Pray for Russian men, as many more now go off to war. Pray for Russian families, saying goodbye to their husbands, fathers, brothers, SONS.
And may God bless Vladimir Vladimirovich, for having the courage to really call out who the enemy is and what the enemy has been doing for decades.
Slava Russia!
I doubt the Russain government have forgotten what that ‘gangster-style player wannabie’ Erdogan has done to them in past. Putin has just managed Erdogan’s childish tantrums, like shooting down the Russian fighter jet in Syria, as Russia currently has bigger fish to fry. If needs be, I’m sure they will give it more attention later down the line.
Russia dreams of peace and security within and on its borders whereas Erdogan has a wet dream of a Neo-Ottoman Empire. In the long run, the latter dream will likely fail.
Russia had two choices: 1) surrender all territories gained hoping for forgiveness and pardon from the West but actually continue to be sanctioned, undermined, and villified, 2) escalate to keep the territories gained and certainly continue to be sanctioned, undermind, and villified.
I can’t imagine that “option” (1) — surrender — was ever actually an option. That would have been a most horrific betrayal. It is an insult to Russia — and particularly to her leaders — to even consider it.
Definately not. Russia already experienced ‘option 1’ in the 90s under that drunk traitor Yeltsin. When you think about it, it is massively impressive that Putin (and his supporters) managed to quietly and carefully reverse that horror show and bulid Russia into what it is today. Especially impressive as Putin was likely surrounded by (Western sponsered) vipers on his own goverment in the early days. The life expectency of a Russian was shockingly low during that peiod – actually on a par or worse than some of the war torn ‘third world’ nations. All thanks to the ‘gifts’ of Western liberalisation. Liberal in the negative sense of course, like a child molester who has a ‘liberal’ attitude to sexual morality.
Wake up my fellow westerners, this is where laissez faire ultimately leads you!
The US had two choices:
1) Butt out of Asia and earn an honest profit through work and trade.
2) Goad its gang into smashing up stuff in the hope of gouging obscene profits.
Russia? Just sitting there, in Asia, earning an honest profit through work and trade, when a bunch of US Jews and other raving loonies show up and start poking. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.
Browder isn’t US anymore. He’s “British” now.
https://alethonews.com/2020/07/01/bill-browder-a-billionaire-accused-of-being-a-fraud-and-liar/
I must admit to being extremely moved by the situation now. Who wouldn’t be? it’s not just the looming reality of nuclear war. My heart breaks for Russia. My soul aches for her.
This war has been forced upon her. After so much struggle since her plunder in the 90s, for peace and prosperity, recovery… These hard won victories were not allowed her, not permitted. The horror and injustice of this is without bounds.
I believe at the beginning of the SMO I was more neutral. I had some understanding of the legitimacy of the SMO and the civil war in Donbass, along with a heavy dose of shock at the repressions during the pandemic, which meant initial immunity from the incessant anti Russian propaganda… but honestly the West and Ukrainian conduct, US/UK NATO scum, the treachery and suicide of Europe. The unbounded, pathological Russophobia…
Nothing Putin says is an exaggeration.
But about “Neo Nazi regime” in Ukraine – I find Putin using this term both accurate and misleading = propaganda. Why didn’t he use ‘puppet regime’ and point the finger where it belongs?
Ukraines government is part ultra nationalist ethnic cleansers ( Banderites, not really Nazis, but collaborators and genocidal brutes), genuine Neo Nazis too of course, and part ultra Neo liberal/ neo con multinational free for all . Let’s face it, policy after policy Ukraine’s Government is ideologically toxic and certainly with fascist traits and direct historic roots in Nazism, both homegrown and US, but also as fiercely against it’s own national interests as it is ultra nationalist..
I guess the term NEO NAZI, as it is used in Russia now, means all of the above. Banderites reborn, neo nazi movements, minus any hint of socialism, not even for the chosen few. Just daylight robbery, along with destruction and butchery with impunity, condoned, sponsored, fostered and promoted by Western Governments for Corporate gain.
Dear friends,
a great speech by Mr. Putin. And therefore my great thanks for sharing this text.
with kind regards, willi
Asuncion, Paraguay
So it has now come to this. I do not blame Russia in anyway at all for this; rather, our collective ‘leaders’ in the West who are just (more than willing) water carriers for our actual leaders (owners). In my 46 years of life in England I have never experienced a leader in our country that I could ever truly respect, certainly not one that I would believe was acting in our nation’s common interest. Whether it’s the blue or red (with the occasional guest appearance by the yellow) parties, they are all subservient to that dreaded parasitic Square Mile and Wall St and their European subsidiaries – the only known land-based point singularities in the universe.
It’s not just a ‘do-or-die’ for Russia, who are clearly on the side of right in this, but also for our owners. Their disgusting brand of ‘economics’, based on deliberately running up debt to enslave all nations (‘supply chain’ around their collective necks) and promoting financial gambling as apposed to real production and real services, can only continue by constantly reduing the quality of life for all peoples (apart from them of course) by pitting them against each other in ‘the mad race to the bottom’. Even if China and Russia had complied with this (and why would they?), it would have collapsed at some point later any way due to the weight of compound interest from all the fake wealth created by their financial sectors when they ran out of new territories to economically rape. Either that, or they would have murdered (vacinated) a large percentage of the world so they could start their macarbre merry-go-round again. Funnily enough, i have no sympathy for the ‘do-or-die’ situation our owners find themselves in. If ‘they ‘win, then the world loses. If they lose, then the West loses. The common man and women (me being one) in the West will suffer, but at least there might be a hope for something better in the long run if such a disaster clears out most of the psychopaths at the top end.
China was supposed to (forever) supply manufactured goods at sweatshop labour prices for ever to keep up the unjust payouts to the free-loading ‘international’ shareholder ‘community’. It was not suppposed to use the opportunity to uplift its people. On top of that, it was supposed to surrender its financial sector to the West. Russia was supposed to be the ‘raw resource whore’ and also be willing to let the West (translate – US and its bitchies) strip-mine it’s technologies on the cheap and both were supposed to conduct all this in US dollars The fact that they both declined this ‘wonderful’ offer means that they are undemocratic and evil as, apparently, being ‘democratic’ in our vaunted West means being a slave (to be used and abused) to the top 10% in our societies. Screw that 1% narrative as it lets a lot of willing (disgustingly wealthy) toadies off the hook.
I really wish we had leaders of the calibre of Putin and Lavrov. If wishes were horses! As for our leaders, I’ve encountered children that are more diplomatic then them!
The world is not perfect, and nor will it ever be, but it can be a whole lot better than it is at the moment. Russai and China are leading the way to this potential better world. The sooner the better!
Does anyone know examples of what Putin is referring to by “statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia”?