Putin Delivers Address on Decision To Recognize Breakaway Republics from Ukraine
Feb. 22, 2022 (EIRNS)—In a televised address delivered shortly after signing the decrees grant recognition to the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, Russian President Vladimir Putin effectively charged the U.S. with aiming to break Russia up into pieces. “ All right, you do not want to see us as friends or allies, but why make us an enemy? There can be only one answer—this is not about our political regime or anything like that. They just do not need a big and independent country like Russia around. This is the answer to all questions,” Putin said. “This is the source of America’s traditional policy towards Russia. Hence the attitude to all our security proposals.”
Putin also said that Ukraine will serve as a NATO foothold for a strike against Russia, should it join the alliance. “I will explain that American strategic planning documents confirm the possibility of a so-called preemptive strike at enemy missile systems. We also know the main adversary of the United States and NATO. It is Russia. NATO documents officially declare our country to be the main threat to Euro-Atlantic security. Ukraine will serve as an advanced bridgehead for such a strike,” he said.
Even without alliance membership, Ukraine is already in practical terms integrated into its military command structures, Putin continued. “This means that NATO headquarters can issue direct commands to the Ukrainian armed forces, even to their separate units and squads. The United States and NATO have started an impudent development of Ukrainian territory as a theater of potential military operations,” he said.
“We are seeing how persistently the Kiev regime is being pumped with arms,” Putin stressed. “Since 2014, the United States alone has spent billions of dollars for this purpose, including supplies of arms and equipment and training of specialists. In the last few months, there has been a constant flow of Western weapons to Ukraine, ostentatiously, with the entire world watching.
“Foreign advisors supervise the activities of Ukraine’s armed forces and special services and we are well aware of this,” Putin continued. “Over the past few years, military contingents of NATO countries have been almost constantly present on Ukrainian territory under the pretext of exercises,” t
he Russian President said. “The Ukrainian troop control system has already been integrated into NATO. This means that NATO headquarters can issue direct commands to the Ukrainian armed forces, even to their separate units and squads.
“We know well about that. Military contingents of NATO countries have been present actually constantly on the territory of Ukraine under various pretexts in recent years,” the Russian president said. “The United States and NATO have started an impudent development of Ukrainian territory as a theatre of potential military operations. Their regular joint exercises are obviously anti-Russian,” Putin pointed out. In fact, the Kiev regime has already passed a law permitting the presence of foreign forces in Ukraine for ten major exercises in 2022.
Earlier in his address, Putin provided an historical overview, in which he argued that Ukraine has never had real statehood at any time in its modern history, particularly from the time of the October 1917 Revolution and the Civil War of 1922. Without using the term, Putin described what amounts to the creation of a failed state in Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union, one that has never had true sovereignty, particularly in the realm of the economy, which has been dominated by external interests only concerned with removing as much loot as they can from the country. As examples, Putin cited the shutting down of major Soviet-era industrial complexes, such as the Nikolayev shipyard on the Black Sea, which has gone out of business; the Antonov aviation concern which hasn’t produced an aircraft since 2016; Yuzhmash, a factory specializing in missile and space equipment, which is bankrupt; and the Kremenchug Steel Plant, which is also bankrupt.
“This situation begs the question: poverty, lack of opportunity, and lost industrial and technological potential—is this the pro-Western civilizational choice they have been using for many years to fool millions of people with promises of heavenly pastures?” Putin said. “It all came down to a Ukrainian economy in tatters and an outright pillage of the country’s citizens, while Ukraine itself was placed under external control, directed not only from the Western capitals, but also on the ground, as the saying goes, through an entire network of foreign advisors, NGOs and other institutions present in Ukraine.”
The English transcript of his 58-minute address is posted to the Kremlin website; and RT has posted the video of his remarks with English interpretation dubbed in.
