Putin likens sanctions to a ‘declaration of war,’ says invasion pushback risks future of Ukrainian statehood

Francesco Abbruzzino, The Uncensored Report, LLC

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that sanctions and pushback from leaders in Ukraine and around the world in response to the invasion are risking “the future of Ukrainian statehood.”

Putin reiterated that his aims were to defend Russian- speaking communities through the “demilitarisation and de-Nazification” of the country so that Russia’s former Soviet neighbour became neutral and no longer threatened Russia.

 

Ukraine and Western countries have dismissed this as a baseless pretext for the invasion he launched on Feb. 24 and have imposed a sweeping range of sanctions aimed at isolating Moscow.

 

“These sanctions that are being imposed are akin to a declaration of war but thank God it has not come to that,” Putin said, speaking to a group of flight attendants at an Aeroflot training centre near Moscow.

 

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