Putin accuses West of turning Ukrainians into ‘cannon fodder’
Moscow, Aug 16 (EFE).- Russia’s president Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that the United States and the West were using Ukrainians as “cannon fodder” to prolong the conflict.
“They (Western countries) need conflicts to maintain their hegemony,” Putin said in a video address at a security conference in Moscow.
“This is why they have been using the people of Ukraine as cannon fodder while running the anti-Russia project; they have closed their eyes to the use of neo-Nazism ideology and mass killings of civilians in Donbas and they have been supplying weapons, including heavy ones, to the Kyiv regime,” he added.
Putin pointed out that in light of these circumstances, Russia decided to launch a “special military operation in Ukraine that fully complies with the UN Charter.”
The military operation in Ukraine has “clear goals: to ensure the security of Russia and Russian people and to save citizens of Donbas from a genocide,” the Russian leader stressed.
“The developments in Ukraine show that the United States has been seeking to prolong the conflict,” he continued, noting that Washington was acting the same way to “stoke up” conflicts in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
At the same conference, Russian defense ministry Sergei Shoigu said that his country had no plans to use chemical or nuclear weapons in Ukraine, adding that Russia did not need to resort to these means to achieve its goals.
“The use (of nuclear weapons) is restricted to emergencies only, as outlined in Russian guidelines that are publicly available,” he said. “Claims of possible use of chemical weapons in Ukraine are absurd too.” EFE
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