Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said his country “had no other choice” but to invade Ukraine, calling it “the right decision.”
The isolated Russian leader’s remarks, which were translated by the state-owned media outlet RT, were described as discussing the “ongoing military operations in Ukraine,” which Putin called an “an obvious thing, it was unavoidable, the only question was one of timing.”
Putin reiterated his claims that Russia’s invasion was to “help people, saving them from Nazism,” a propaganda argument employed to invoke the former Soviet Union’s military victories in World War II.
Russia’s attacks on Ukraine are allegedly responsible for destroying a Holocaust memorial site in Kyiv, and global leaders have accused Russian forces of carrying out war crimes, including targeting civilians for extrajudicial killings and raping both women and children.
The mayor of the southern port city of Mariupol told The Associated Press that Russian forces are bringing in mobile crematoriums to burn bodies and said that civilian casualties are in the tens of thousands.
A Ukrainian military unit has said that Russian forces have deployed chemical weapons in Mariupol, an allegation that Western nations are working to verify and that could mark a sharp escalation of atrocities being uncovered.
While Russian forces have retreated from outside Kyiv, marking a significant turning point in Russia abandoning its primary goal of overthrowing the Ukrainian government, the U.S. and other world leaders are warning that forces are regrouping for a more intensified assault on Ukraine’s east, where Russian-backed separatists have a foothold in the Donbas region.
Putin, in his remarks reported by RT, said “we have no doubts [our] goals will be achieved. We are not going to be isolated,” referring to the U.S.-led campaign of global sanctions.
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