Russian president repeats justification for sending forces into neighbouring country as Moscow launches swarms of drones targeting Kyiv, other regions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeated his reason for deploying the army into Ukraine as protecting Russian speakers from a “neo-Nazi dictatorship”, as his forces launched drone and missile attacks in various parts of the neighbouring country.
In a video message on Monday released to mark the second anniversary of what Russia calls “Reunification Day”, when it annexed four Ukrainian regions, Putin pledged that all the goals Moscow has set for itself in the war – now in its third year – would be “achieved”.
“The truth is on our side,” he declared. “Together, we are defending a safe and prosperous future for our children and grandchildren.”
The president also alleged the “neo-Nazi dictatorship” in Kyiv aimed to sever Russian speakers “forever from their historic Motherland, from Russia” – suggestions that the Ukrainian government and its allies have repeatedly rejected as a baseless pretext for a wider war of aggression.
Putin also said that “Western elites” after turning “Ukraine into their colony, into a military outpost aimed at Russia … systematically instilled hatred and radical nationalism, fuelled hostility towards everything Russia”, the Kremlin’s website quoted him as saying.
He added that Western countries supplied weapons and dispatched mercenaries to prepare Ukraine for a new war “so that again, as in the spring and summer of 2014, to launch a punitive operation in the southeast”.
Russia took military control of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in 2014 and annexed it after a referendum that Ukraine and Western governments rejected as illegal. In the same year, it backed separatists who seized large parts of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
Russia used Crimea as a launchpad for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and has since proclaimed its annexation of four other Ukrainian provinces – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – after referendums that were also denounced as illegal. It does not fully control all the territory in these regions.
Putin has repeatedly said Russia will continue fighting in Ukraine until it secures the neighbouring country’s “demilitarisation”, “denazification” and neutrality.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities said on Monday Russia attacked Kyiv with swarms of combat drones overnight, triggering air raid sirens for five hours.
The drones attacked from all sides, the Kyiv military administration said on Telegram, adding that all the drones had been repelled.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said drone debris fell by a residential building with emergency services working on site. According to preliminary information, there were no casualties.
In a separate statement, the Ukrainian air force said a total of 73 drones, as well as three different varieties of missiles, including an Iskander ballistic missile, were launched by Russia on the country overnight.
The statement said 67 of the drones and a cruise missile were downed over the Kyiv, Cherkasy, Vinnytsia, Kirovohrad, Zhytomyr, Poltava, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv regions.
Mykolaiv Governor Vitaliy Kim said a drone attack caused a fire at a critical infrastructure facility in the southern region.
Russia has launched air attacks on Kyiv and Ukraine throughout September, targeting Ukraine’s energy, military and transport infrastructure and killing dozens of civilians.
It has repeatedly said Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is a legitimate military target and denies attacking civilians or civilian infrastructure.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has consistently urged Western countries to provide more air defence systems, for better protection of Ukrainian cities from constant Russian drone and missile attacks.
