| | On February 24, 2022 Vladimir Putin addressed the nation and made clear the objective of the [[Special Military Operation]] in Ukraine was not [[regime change]]: | | On February 24, 2022 Vladimir Putin addressed the nation and made clear the objective of the [[Special Military Operation]] in Ukraine was not [[regime change]]: |
| | {{quotebox-float|"The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and [[genocide]] perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation. It is not our plan to occupy the Ukrainian territory. We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force."<ref>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-24/full-transcript-vladimir-putin-s-televised-address-to-russia-on-ukraine-feb-24</ref>}} | | {{quotebox-float|"The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and [[genocide]] perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation. It is not our plan to occupy the Ukrainian territory. We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force."<ref>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-24/full-transcript-vladimir-putin-s-televised-address-to-russia-on-ukraine-feb-24</ref>}} |
| | + | {{quotebox-float|"Over the past decades, new powerful centers have been formed on the planet […] each of them develops their own political system and public institutions, implements their own models of [[economic growth]], and, of course, has the right to protect themselves, to ensure national [[sovereignty]]. We are talking about real processes, about truly revolutionary, tectonic changes in [[geopolitics]], global economy, the technological sphere, in the entire system of [[international relations]]". Putin said the European Union delivered a serious blow to their own economies, prompting high [[inflation]]. He estimated the costs of the "sanctions fever" to be around $400 billion in 2022 and noted that the measures will become a burden on regular people's shoulders. "It is clear why they waged this [[propaganda]] campaign, what all these spells about 200-to-1 ruble-dollar exchange rates and claims that our [[economy]] would collapse were all about. All this was - and remains - a tool in the information warfare, an attempt to put psychological pressure on Russian society...The European Union has completely lost its political sovereignty, and its [[bureaucrat]]ic elites are dancing to someone else’s tune, accepting whatever they are told from above, causing harm to their own population and their own economy....Such a detachment from reality, from the demands of [[society]], will inevitably lead to a surge of [[populism]] and the growth of radical movements, to serious social and economic changes, to degradation, and in the near future, to a change of elites."<ref>https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/eu-backs-ukraines-european-dream-putin-says-sanctions-cost-bloc-400bn-warns-fertilizer</ref>}} |