By: EFE Updated 05 Mar 2022, 13: 57 pm EST
Moscow, March 5 (EFE).- Russian President Vladimir Putin affirmed today that the decision to intervene militarily in Ukraine was “difficult”, and again said that decreeing a no-fly over Ukraine would be equivalent to a declaration of war.
“I said this at the beginning of the operation and I said it before this decision was made. A difficult decision, without a doubt”, Putin said in a meeting with female flight crews of Russian airlines, broadcast on public television.
Putin referred to the request of the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, to NATO to declare an air exclusion over his country, which has been denied by the Alliance.
“We heard somewhere that it is necessary to implement a no-fly zone over the territory of Ukraine. It is impossible to do this from the territory of Ukraine itself, it can only be done from the territory of some neighboring states. But any movement in that direction will be considered by us as participation in the armed conflict by that State from whose territory threats to our country are created,” he stressed.
Putin also referred to the consequences that Ukraine’s accession to NATO could have.
“We began to talk more and more actively about the fact that Ukraine will be accepted into NATO. Do you understand what this could lead to? Or where it can lead so far?” asked the Russian leader.
Vladimir Putin repeated some of the justifications he has given to the offensive against Ukraine, since it was launched on February 24, among them the defense of the inhabitants of the pro-Russian regions of Donbas.
“People in Donbas are not stray dogs, between 13.000 and 14.000 people have died over the years. More than 500 children have been killed or maimed, but the West preferred not to notice account of this for eight years, listen, eight years,” Putin said, referring to the war that started in 2014, after the change of regime in Kiev and the Russian annexation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea.
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