″It was our sacred duty to protect them″. Putin says he didn’t want confrontation with Kiev

The Russian president assured this Sunday that he did not want to start a confrontation with Ukraine and that he anticipated a “peaceful” resolution of tensions with Kiev before the beginning of years of conflict that led to the Russian invasion of that country.

Putin returned to the theme of the annexation of Crimea in 2014, one of the direct precedents of the current armed conflict, to say that his country “simply could not give the people of Crimea a sword when they were already confronting the nationalists”.

Russia ended up annexing the peninsula to its territory through a decree declared illegal by Kiev and its allies.

“We had assumed that we would be able to resolve the situation absolutely peacefully. I was never anxious to trigger any confrontation,” said the Russian president, in an interview with the Rossiya 1 channel, quoted by the TASS news agency.

“We couldn’t just refuse our support and protection to the people of Crimea. They were already under attack from the Nazis, as Ukrainians say, and it was our sacred duty to protect them“, he explained.

However, Putin reiterated that he initially hoped to resolve the situation in Crimea, and by extension the breakaway regions of Donestk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine, through negotiations.

“But now we realize that our so-called partners had no intention of resolving anything by peaceful means. They were simply pumping weapons into Ukraine and preparing its forces for military operations,” he added.

Putin made the remarks after a visit to Crimea, followed by a stop in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, occupied by Russian forces, where he pledged to promote reconstruction and development projects, while accusing Ukrainian forces of attacks against civilians.

The Russian president also said, in statements collected by the TASS agency, that the Ukrainian forces had planted mines in medical centers and hospitals in the city before abandoning their positions. “All medical equipment is mined. This is not how normal people behave,” he said.

Putin finally promised to speed up plans to build a new residential area in the city to turn it into a “little part of paradise”.