INTERNATIONAL: Before the crack of dawn on Thursday, just before explosions began in cities across Ukraine, Russian state television unexpectedly broadcast an address by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The two self-proclaimed "people's republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk, in the breakaway Ukrainian region of Donbas, which he had officially recognized on Tuesday after signing a decree, as independent less than two days, had "turned to Russia with a request for help," the president has said. To answer that call he was launching a "special military operation." Its purpose: to "demilitarize" and "denazifiy" Ukraine.
Not long after, Russian missiles has begun hitting targets in Ukraine. "Our actions are self-defense against threats," he told his fellow Russians, claiming Moscow had no plans to occupy Ukraine. "We do not plan to impose ourselves on anyone," Putin has insisted.
Russia’s head of state and commander has described the "special military operation" in limited terms, to protect people living in Donbas who, he claimed, had been subjected to "genocide," a charge that Ukraine has strenuously denied. But in the next breath, he lashed out more broadly: "NATO supports Ukrainian neo-Nazis ... our actions are self-defense against threats."
Then, in an extraordinary passage, he spoke directly to members of Ukraine's military, addressing them as "dear comrades," he told them they had taken an "oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people, and not to the anti-people junta that is robbing Ukraine and abuses those same people."
"Don't follow its criminal orders!" he has demanded. "I urge you to lay down your weapons and go home."
As he has done so many times before, Putin has claimed Russia had no choice but to defend itself. With a hard-edged tone in his voice, he seemed to threaten the US, Europe and NATO which, in just a few minutes, would witness his armed forces opening fire on Ukraine, something the Kremlin had consistently dismissed as western "hysterics."
"Whoever tries to interfere with us, and even more so, to create threats for our country, for our people, should know that Russia's response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences that you have never experienced in your history.
Putin, who for years had criticized the West for ignoring his complaints about NATO's expansion toward Russia's borders, was finally striking back with fury. "I hope," he concluded his short address, "that I have been heard."
