Moscow [Russia]: Announcing a special \u201cmilitary operation\u201d in the Donbas region, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned other countries that any attempt to interfere with the Russian action would lead to \u201cconsequences\u201d.<\/p>\n
Delivering an emergency address, Putin said the operation has been launched to demilitarize Ukraine and defend people \u201csuffering persecution and genocide\u201d by the Kiev regime.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have taken the decision to carry out a special military operation. Its goal will be to defend people who for eight years are suffering persecution and genocide by the Kiev regime. For this we will aim for demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine,\u201d said Putin, asking Ukrainian soldiers to lay down arms.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone who tries to interfere with us, or even more so, to create threats for our country and our people, must know that Russia\u2019s response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never before experienced in your history,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
This comes hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine has not posed and will not pose a threat to Russia.<\/p>\n
In an emotional appeal delivered largely in Russian, Zelenskyy said, \u201cYou are being told that Ukraine can pose a threat to Russia.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not like this in the past, it is not like this now and it will not be so in the future. You demand security guarantees from NATO. We also demand guarantees of our security \u2013 from you, from Russia, and other guarantors of the Budapest memorandum,\u201d Zelenskyy said in a video address.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President also refuted Moscow\u2019s claims that his country poses a threat to Russia and warned that a Russian invasion would cost tens of thousands of lives.<\/p>\n
The White House on Wednesday had warned that Putin will face significant consequences if Moscow invades Ukraine.<\/p>\n
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asked the Russian President to stop \u201cattacking Ukraine\u201d and to give peace a chance, speaking at an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe day was full of rumours and indications of an offensive against Ukraine was imminent. In the recent past, there were several situations with similar indications, similar rumours,\u201d Guterres told the council.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was wrong. And I would like not to be wrong again today,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Moscow [Russia]: Announcing a special \u201cmilitary operation\u201d in the Donbas region, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned other countries that any attempt to interfere with the Russian action would lead to \u201cconsequences\u201d. Delivering an emergency address, Putin said the operation has been launched to demilitarize Ukraine and defend people \u201csuffering persecution and genocide\u201d by the Kiev […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8637","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-international"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8639,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8637\/revisions\/8639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}