Aha Dua Permata: Putin explains why he ordered military operation in Ukraine

Saturday 4 November 2023

Putin explains why he ordered military operation in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to the country's Civic Chamber in Moscow, Russia, on November 3, 2023.
©Sputnik / Sergey Guneev

Russia had no option but to launch its military operation against Ukraine in February 2022, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the country’s Civic Chamber on Friday. The Russian leader reaffirmed his belief that the decision was the right one, despite the difficulties resulting from it.

“We had no other choice,” Putin replied when asked if he would make the same decision again, knowing what the consequences would be. He added that “removing the assault rifle covers” must never be done lightly, but said he had reached the conclusion that military action against Ukraine was unavoidable.

“Why? Because we had already been attacked,” the Russian leader stated, without elaborating.

Putin has repeatedly explained the reasons for Moscow’s military campaign, citing Ukraine’s NATO aspirations and the looming prospect of the US-led military bloc expanding even closer to Russia’s borders as major sources of concern.

He has also stressed the need to protect the people of Donbass and end the nearly eight-year conflict that had raged between local rebels and Kiev’s forces. This was coupled with the increasingly nationalist stance of the Kiev government and its treatment of the Russian-speaking population, with Putin previously explaining the need to “denazify” Ukraine.

At the annual Victory Day Parade in May 2022, Putin described Moscow’s operation in Ukraine as a “preemptive” one, again maintaining that it was “the only right decision.” “Russia gave a preemptive rebuff to aggression,” the president insisted at the time, arguing the move had been “forced” but was the only correct decision that a “sovereign” and “independent” country could have taken.

Kiev has repeatedly claimed that Russian actions were “completely unprovoked.” The US and its allies in Europe and elsewhere have also pinned the blame for the conflict squarely on Moscow, while providing Ukraine with massive military and financial assistance.

'Not Going As We’d Hoped’: US Mercenary Says Over 500 Americans Killed in Ukraine

In an interview with a US journalist on Thursday, an American mercenary fighting for Ukraine said “quite a large number” of Americans have been killed wearing Ukrainian military uniforms.

©Photo : Screenshot/Social Media

Matthew VanDyke, an American who was serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces under a private contract, told independent commentator Andrew Napolitano that he was in an international unit with members from several other countries, including Americans, as well as some Ukrainians.

VanDyke said he had heard that up to 2,000 foreigners were serving in the Ukrainian military, including many from Latin America. He emphasized that non-Ukrainians are free to leave their military service at any time, but are paid the same salaries as Ukrainian soldiers. “There’s nobody here who’s doing it for the money,” he asserted.

VanDyke said that “quite a large number” of Americans have been killed or wounded in the war, estimating “close to 510.” Still, the mercenary said they still have new fighters “coming all the time.”

Asked about how the war was going, VanDyke criticized Kiev’s decision to wait to launch the counteroffensive, which had been a disaster, but seemed optimistic about the new weapons coming into the country from the West, which he believed could potentially turn the tide of the conflict.

However, he noted high tech weapons by themselves aren’t enough, as the Ukrainians learned when Bradley infantry fighting vehicles got taken out by Russian landmines the same as Ukrainian vehicles twice their age.

“Now there is a deadlock, even the Ukrainian military has admitted this. Things are not going as well as we hoped,” he said.

“I think by next fall we’re going to know, essentially, how this war’s going to turn out,” VanDyke predicted, noting it would take some time for Ukrainians to get used to using the new weapons.

VanDyke said he had gone to Ukraine to fight Russian forces because it was his duty “to uphold the international system that my grandfather fought for in World War 2, that a lot of people died for for decades after, it needs to be preserved,” he said, “and I’m willing to fight and die to preserve that.”

Napolitano asked VanDyke about how he felt about serving alongside neo-Nazis in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The gun-for-hire didn’t deny that such people existed, but said “as long as they shoot in the right direction, I don’t really care, I’m not the Thought Police,” adding that “I don’t want anything to do with people who have such ideologies.”

US preparing nuclear test site in Nevada – Moscow

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday warned the US not to resume full-scale nuclear tests after President Vladimir Putin withdrew Moscow’s ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in order to restore parity.

“The United States must understand that conducting full-scale tests, for which the infrastructure in Nevada is reportedly prepared, will force us to respond in kind,” the ministry said in a statement.

Last month, the US Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) carried out an underground detonation at a site northwest of Las Vegas with the purpose of “improving the detection of underground nuclear explosive tests.” The explosion involved “chemical high-explosives and radiotracers,” the NNSA said.

On Thursday, Moscow officially withdrew its ratification of the CTBT, noting that the US Congress has avoided ratifying the 1996 agreement for over 25 years “under far-fetched pretexts.”

“This couldn't go on forever,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “In conditions when the United States is pursuing a deeply hostile course towards our country, maintaining the previous imbalance in approaches to the CTBT that has developed between Moscow and Washington turned out to be no longer possible.”

The US has not conducted a live nuclear test since 1992. Russia has openly said it will not resume testing first but will respond if the US forces its hand.

However, the Pentagon has recently announced plans for developing a high-yield version of the B61 gravity bomb, while a congressional advisory body has urged a massive expansion of the US nuclear arsenal, no matter the cost.

Earlier this week, the US Air Force destroyed an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) during a test, after it encountered an unspecified “anomaly” that will need to be investigated. It was the second such test since early September. The US is planning to replace the aging missiles with a new design, which is expected to be ready sometime in the 2030s.