“Lay down your arms and return to your families,” Putin warns Ukrainian forces
Putin has warned Ukrainian forces to lay down their arms and go home, according to state-run news agencies RIA-Novosti and TASS.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced military action in Donbas in a national broadcast speech early Thursday, asking Ukrainian forces to lay down their arms and return home.
Putin cautioned that the Ukrainian government would bear full responsibility for any potential bloodshed, and expressed confidence that Russian army troops would carry out their responsibilities.
Putin also threatened the West with ‘consequences greater than any they have faced in history’ if they intervene in his invasion of Ukraine.
In the speech, he addressed the leaders who had aligned in opposition to the invasion.
“To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside: If you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history,” he said.
“All the relevant decisions have been taken. I hope you hear me.”
Putin’s speech came after, the Ukrainian foreign ministry reported attacks in multiple cities.
Putin cited well-worn justifications to justify the strike. He presented it as a means of defending Ukrainians from “nazification” and “genocide” as a form of self-defense against NATO’s eastward encroachment.
The US warned in the run-up to these events that Russia would organize false-flag operations and provocations in order to justify a war it had already planned.
Putin had already dispatched soldiers to the eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, which are held by rebel forces.
On Thursday, this erupted into attacks on other sections of Ukraine, which Putin claimed were in response to separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk asking for assistance.
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