AA / Moscow
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that his country was still part of the World Economic Forum and had no intention of harming it.
Putin spoke at a meeting with Russian businessmen under the Kremlin (Russian presidency) Gold, discussing possible sanctions against his country following the military intervention in Ukraine.
“What is happening now (attack) is an action we must take, otherwise there is no other way. After all our efforts have failed (…) the threats to Russia’s security are very important,” Putin explained.
The Russian president said he was surprised by the lack of progress on security guarantees, adding that “we know what world we live in, we know it, and we are prepared for sanctions.”
He said Russia’s economy was part of the World Economic Forum and had no intention of harming his country, and called on its partners not to set a goal of excluding Russia from the Montreal economy.
* The Donbass crisis and Russia’s military intervention
In 2014, following popular protests that rocked Ukraine, President Viktor Yanukovych left the country and led a pro-Western government. The ensuing crisis led to Russia’s occupation of Crimea and the illegal annexation of the Ukrainian region, which later supported the independence of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, mainly Russian-speaking areas.
Deadly clashes erupted following the unilateral declaration of independence of the two Ukrainian regions, which later opposed separatist forces backed by Russia and the Kiev military.
With the resumption of diplomatic efforts in 2014 and 2015, Kyiv’s supporters in the West struck a ceasefire agreement with Moscow, known as the Minsk Accord, which, although aimed at easing the crisis, marked several violations and claimed the lives of some. 14,000 Ukrainians on both sides.
When Russia began deploying tens of thousands of troops along the border with Ukraine in late 2021, the United States and its Western allies said Moscow was preparing to invade Ukraine. Ukraine and its territorial integrity.
Moscow, which has consistently rejected any attempt to invade the former Soviet republic, has decided to recognize the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk, and then on February 24 decided to launch military intervention in the territory of Ukraine, in the words of Vladimir Putin. We must protect the people who have been threatened with “genocide in Kiev” and “liberate Ukraine from Nazism and militarism” and thereby call on the Ukrainian military to lay down its arms.
* Translated by Majdi Ismail from Arabic
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