Putin’s Speech Announcing Invasion Of Ukraine – Full Text In English

Putin Announces Invasion of Ukraine (February 24, 2022)

In the early morning of February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the start of a special military operation in the Donbass, within the framework of agreements with the DPR and LPR.

Putin named the goal: Ukraine must demilitarize.

The President of Russia called on the Ukrainian military to lay down their arms. At the same time, he emphasized that the Russian Federation does not need the “occupation” of Ukraine.

After the president’s statement, a massive military operation began—reports of military aviation and artillery activity followed shortly after.

Putin’s Announcement of the Invasion of Ukraine: Full Transcript

“Dear Russian citizens and friends, today I believe it is necessary to revisit the tragic events of what is happening in the Donbass and the key issue of ensuring the security of Russia itself.

With regard to our country, I refer to NATO’s eastward expansion and the approach of its military infrastructure to Russian borders; it is well known that we have been persistent and patient for 30 years.

In response to our proposal, we constantly encountered either garden deceit and lies or attempts to pressure and blackmail us, while the North Atlantic Alliance, meanwhile, maintained its military posture. Despite all our protests and concerns, the military machine is steadily expanding, moving and again approaching our borders closely.

Why is all this happening? Where is this impudent manner of speaking from the standpoint of one’s own exclusivity, infallibility, and permissiveness? Where is the disregard for our interests and absolutely legal requirements?

The truth is clear, and everything is obvious.

In the late eighties of the last century, the Soviet Union weakened and then completely collapsed.

The whole course of what was happening then is a good lesson for us, and today it convincingly shows that paralysis of the power of the will is the first step towards complete degradation and oblivion.

For some time, Russia lost confidence and the whole balance of power in the world was violated.

This led to the fact that the previous treaties and agreements are no longer valid. Persuasion and requests do not help.

Everything that does not suit the hegemon in power is declared archaic, obsolete, and, vice versa, everything that seems beneficial to them is presented as the final word, pushed arrogantly onto those who disagree.

What I am saying now concerns not only Russia, and not only us. This concerns the entire system of international relations, and sometimes even the US allies themselves.

After the collapse of the USSR, the redivision of the world began, and the norms of international law developed at that time were seen as obstacles to those who declared themselves Cold War winners. In practice, the rules for regulation should have taken into account the changing situation in the world and the balance of power.

However, this should have been done professionally, smoothly, and patiently, taking into account and respecting the interests of all countries and understanding one’s responsibility, but not in a state of euphoria from absolute superiority—a kind of modern absolutism. Moreover, against the background of arrogance from those who made and pushed through decisions that were beneficial only to themselves, the situation began to develop under a different scenario.

For example, no need to go far back. There were no UN Security Council sanctions, yet a bloody military operation was carried out against Belgrade using aircraft missiles right in the very center of Europe.

Weeks of continuous bombing of peaceful cities and life-supporting infrastructure should remind us of these facts. Some Western colleagues prefer not to remember those events. And when we mention them, they prefer to point away from international law.

It is the circumstances they interpret as they see fit. Then it was Iraq’s turn. The Syrian crisis, the illegitimate use of military force against Libya, the perversion of all UN Security Council decisions on Libya, led to the complete destruction of states, and the rise of a huge hotbed of international terrorism. The country plunged into a humanitarian catastrophe, into an abyss that persists to this day.

After many years of civil war, a tragedy that doomed hundreds of thousands of people—not only in Libya but throughout the region—gave rise to a massive migration exodus from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe.

A similar fate was prepared for Syria by the military operations of the Western coalition on the territory of this country without the consent of the Syrian government and the sanctions of the UN Security Council.

This is nothing more than aggression and intervention. However, a special place in this series is, of course, the invasion of Iraq, which, without any legal grounds, was also based on a pretext: the United States allegedly had reliable information on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The proof? The US Secretary of State shook some kind of test tube with white powder, assuring everyone that chemical weapons were being developed in Iraq. And then it was revealed that it was all a ruse. There were no chemical weapons.

At the highest state level and from the high tribune of the UN, this led to huge casualties, destruction, and a surge of terrorism.

One gets the impression that wherever the West comes to establish its own order, bloody, unhealed wounds remain.

Far from the only examples of disregard for international law are in this series, including the promises made to Russia not to expand NATO “a single inch to the east.”

I repeat: they deceived us. They threw us aside.

Yes, you often hear that politics is a dirty business, but not to the same extent. Such deceit contradicts not only the principles of international relations but also morality and ethics. This behavior is difficult to accept.

However, the United States remains a great country with a system that forms a power. All of its satellites not only humbly follow along but also copy its behavior.

We can confidently say that the entire Western bloc, led by the United States, has formed its own Empire of Lies.

After the collapse of the USSR, the unprecedented openness of the new modern Russia and our readiness to work honestly with the United States and Western partners was met with deceit.

This is exactly what happened in the 1990s and at the beginning of the 2000s, when the so-called collective West supported separatism and mercenaries in the south of Russia.

What trials we endured before we finally broke the back of international terrorism in the Caucasus! We remember this. We will never forget this.

Recently, attempts were made to destroy our traditional values and impose pseudo-values that would corrode us, our people, from the inside. This pressure grows as Western countries impose these values aggressively on themselves, leading to moral decay and destruction.

Despite all this, Russia still sought to negotiate with the United States and NATO in December 2021 on security principles, but they ignored us.

So, what next?

We cannot allow the military development of Ukraine to create an unacceptable threat to Russia. It’s clear that the forces behind this coup in Ukraine in 2014 have no peaceful resolution in mind. They’ve abandoned all efforts for peaceful negotiation and pursued a strategy of war.

Russia’s response will be immediate, and all the responsibility will rest with those ruling Ukraine and those who intervene.”