Russia did not start any war, but is trying to end the one unleashed against it with a special military operation, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday at the state awards ceremony, Interfax reports.

Vladimir PutinPhoto: Volodymyr Astapkovich / AP / Profimedia

“We are often accused and we hear that Russia has started some kind of war. Falsehood. Russia is trying to stop this war, which is being waged against us, against our people, part of which, due to historical injustice, is outside the historical territory of the Russian state. But they have not ceased to be our people,” he said.

He promised that Russia would “do everything to protect these people,” while acknowledging that the country was going through difficult times.

“However, today is a special moment of our strong consolidation, activation of our national feeling, desire at any cost to strengthen the foundations of our spirituality, to create conditions in the field of economy, production and education of our youth. ensure the unconditional future of our country,” Putin said.

Russian officials claim that Russia did not attack anyone

Several senior Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, have said since the start of the war in Ukraine that Russia did not actually start the military conflict, but this appears to be the first time Vladimir Putin has made such a statement.

However, earlier this year he offered a new justification for the so-called “special military operation”, saying it was aimed at ending the fighting in Donbas, which he said had been going on since 2014.

He also noted that Russia “could not but react” to the events taking place in Ukraine since the year when Moscow illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula.

Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine ignited a separatist conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, regions historically known as Donbas, shortly after Moscow annexed the peninsula.

Despite ample evidence of this, Russia has for years denied any ties to or military support for the separatists, saying they are just “Russian patriots” fighting independently against Kiev’s oppression.

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