Address by the President of the Russian
Federation
September 21, 2022:
Information Clearing House
-- The subject of this
address is the situation in Donbass
and the course of the special military operation
to liberate it from the neo-Nazi regime, which
seized power in Ukraine in 2014 as the result
of an armed state coup.
Today I am addressing you – all citizens
of our country, people of different generations,
ages and ethnicities, the people of our great
Motherland, all who are united by the great
historical Russia, soldiers, officers
and volunteers who are fighting on the frontline
and doing their combat duty, our brothers
and sisters in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s
republics, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions
and other areas that have been liberated from
the neo-Nazi regime.
The issue concerns the necessary,
imperative measures to protect the sovereignty,
security and territorial integrity of Russia
and support the desire and will of our
compatriots to choose their future
independently, and the aggressive policy of some
Western elites, who are doing their utmost
to preserve their domination and with this aim
in view are trying to block and suppress any
sovereign and independent development centres
in order to continue to aggressively force their
will and pseudo-values on other countries
and nations.
The goal of that part of the West is
to weaken, divide and ultimately destroy our
country. They are saying openly now that in 1991
they managed to split up the Soviet Union
and now is the time to do the same to Russia,
which must be divided into numerous regions that
would be at deadly feud with each other.
They devised these plans long ago. They
encouraged groups of international terrorists
in the Caucasus and moved NATO’s offensive
infrastructure close to our borders. They used
indiscriminate Russophobia as a weapon,
including by nurturing the hatred of Russia
for decades, primarily in Ukraine, which was
designed to become an anti-Russia bridgehead.
They turned the Ukrainian people into cannon
fodder and pushed them into a war with Russia,
which they unleashed back in 2014. They used
the army against civilians and organised
a genocide, blockade and terror against those
who refused to recognise the government that was
created in Ukraine as the result of a state
coup.
After the Kiev regime publicly refused
to settle the issue of Donbass peacefully
and went as far as to announce its ambition
to possess nuclear weapons, it became clear that
a new offensive in Donbass – there were two
of them before – was inevitable, and that it
would be inevitably followed by an attack
on Russia’s Crimea, that is, on Russia.
In this connection, the decision to start
a pre-emptive military operation was necessary
and the only option. The main goal of this
operation, which is to liberate the whole
of Donbass, remains unaltered.
The Lugansk People’s Republic has been
liberated from the neo-Nazis almost completely.
Fighting in the Donetsk People’s Republic
continues. Over the previous eight years,
the Kiev occupation regime created a deeply
echeloned line of permanent defences.
A head-on attack against them would have led
to heavy losses, which is why our units, as well
as the forces of the Donbass republics, are
acting competently and systematically, using
military equipment and saving lives, moving step
by step to liberate Donbass, purge cities
and towns of the neo-Nazis, and help the people
whom the Kiev regime turned into hostages
and human shields.
As you know, professional military
personnel serving under contract are taking part
in the special military operation. Fighting side
by side with them are volunteer units – people
of different ethnicities, professions and ages
who are real patriots. They answered the call
of their hearts to rise up in defence of Russia
and Donbass.
In this connection, I have already issued
instructions for the Government and the Defence
Ministry to determine the legal status
of volunteers and personnel of the military
units of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s
republics. It must be the same as the status
of military professionals of the Russian army,
including material, medical and social benefits.
Special attention must be given to organising
the supply of military and other equipment
for volunteer units and Donbass people’s
militia.
While acting to attain the main goals
of defending Donbass in accordance with
the plans and decisions of the Defence Ministry
and the General Staff, our troops have liberated
considerable areas in the Kherson and Zaporozhye
regions and a number of other areas. This has
created a protracted line of contact that is
over 1,000 kilometres long.
This is what I would like to make public
for the first time today. After the start
of the special military operation, in particular
after the Istanbul talks, Kiev representatives
voiced quite a positive response to our
proposals. These proposals concerned above all
ensuring Russia’s security and interests. But
a peaceful settlement obviously did not suit
the West, which is why, after certain
compromises were coordinated, Kiev was actually
ordered to wreck all these agreements.
More weapons were pumped into Ukraine.
The Kiev regime brought into play new groups
of foreign mercenaries and nationalists,
military units trained according to NATO
standards and receiving orders from Western
advisers.
At the same time, the regime of reprisals
throughout Ukraine against their own citizens,
established immediately after the armed coup
in 2014, was harshly intensified. The policy
of intimidation, terror and violence is taking
on increasingly mass-scale, horrific
and barbaric forms.
I want to stress the following. We know
that the majority of people living
in the territories liberated from the neo-Nazis,
and these are primarily the historical lands
of Novorossiya, do not want to live under
the yoke of the neo-Nazi regime. People
in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions,
in Lugansk and Donetsk saw and are seeing now
the atrocities perpetrated by the neo-Nazis
in the [Ukrainian-] occupied areas
of the Kharkov region. The descendants
of Banderites and members of Nazi punitive
expeditions are killing, torturing
and imprisoning people; they are settling
scores, beating up, and committing outrages
on peaceful civilians.
There were over 7.5 million people living
in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics
and in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions before
the outbreak of hostilities. Many of them were
forced to become refugees and leave their homes.
Those who have stayed – they number about five
million – are now exposed to artillery
and missile attacks launched by the neo-Nazi
militants, who fire at hospitals and schools
and stage terrorist attacks against peaceful
civilians.
We cannot, we have no moral right to let
our kin and kith be torn to pieces by butchers;
we cannot but respond to their sincere striving
to decide their destiny on their own.
The parliaments of the Donbass people’s
republics and the military-civilian
administrations of the Kherson and Zaporozhye
regions have adopted decisions to hold
referendums on the future of their territories
and have appealed to Russia to support this.
I would like to emphasise that we will do
everything necessary to create safe conditions
for these referendums so that people can express
their will. And we will support the choice
of future made by the majority of people
in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics
and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.
Friends,
Today our armed forces, as I have
mentioned, are fighting on the line of contact
that is over 1,000 kilometres long, fighting not
only against neo-Nazi units but actually
the entire military machine of the collective
West.
In this situation, I consider it
necessary to take the following decision, which
is fully adequate to the threats we are facing.
More precisely, I find it necessary to support
the proposal of the Defence Ministry
and the General Staff on partial mobilisation
in the Russian Federation to defend our
Motherland and its sovereignty and territorial
integrity, and to ensure the safety of our
people and people in the liberated territories.
As I have said, we are talking about
partial mobilisation. In other words, only
military reservists, primarily those who served
in the armed forces and have specific military
occupational specialties and corresponding
experience, will be called up.
Before being sent to their units, those
called up for active duty will undergo mandatory
additional military training based
on the experience of the special military
operation.
I have already signed Executive Order
on partial mobilisation.
In accordance with legislation,
the houses of the Federal Assembly –
the Federation Council and the State Duma – will
be officially notified about this in writing
today.
The mobilisation will begin today,
September 21. I am instructing the heads
of the regions to provide the necessary
assistance to the work of military recruitment
offices.
I would like to point out that
the citizens of Russia called up in accordance
with the mobilisation order will have
the status, payments and all social benefits
of military personnel serving under contract.
Additionally, the Executive Order
on partial mobilisation also stipulates
additional measures for the fulfilment
of the state defence order. The heads of defence
industry enterprises will be directly
responsible for attaining the goals
of increasing the production of weapons
and military equipment and using additional
production facilities for this purpose.
At the same time, the Government must address
without any delay all aspects of material,
resource and financial support for our defence
enterprises.
Friends,
The West has gone too far in its
aggressive anti-Russia policy, making endless
threats to our country and people. Some
irresponsible Western politicians are doing more
than just speak about their plans to organise
the delivery of long-range offensive weapons
to Ukraine, which could be used to deliver
strikes at Crimea and other Russian regions.
Such terrorist attacks, including with
the use of Western weapons, are being delivered
at border areas in the Belgorod and Kursk
regions. NATO is conducting reconnaissance
through Russia’s southern regions in real time
and with the use of modern systems, aircraft,
vessels, satellites and strategic drones.
Washington, London and Brussels are
openly encouraging Kiev to move the hostilities
to our territory. They openly say that Russia
must be defeated on the battlefield by any
means, and subsequently deprived of political,
economic, cultural and any other sovereignty
and ransacked.
They have even resorted to the nuclear
blackmail. I am referring not only
to the Western-encouraged shelling of the Zaporozhye
Nuclear Power Plant, which poses a threat
of a nuclear disaster, but also
to the statements made by some high-ranking
representatives of the leading NATO countries
on the possibility and admissibility of using
weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons –
against Russia.
I would like to remind those who make
such statements regarding Russia that our
country has different types of weapons as well,
and some of them are more modern than
the weapons NATO countries have. In the event
of a threat to the territorial integrity of our
country and to defend Russia and our people, we
will certainly make use of all weapon systems
available to us. This is not a bluff.
The citizens of Russia can rest assured
that the territorial integrity of our
Motherland, our independence and freedom will be
defended – I repeat – by all the systems
available to us. Those who are using nuclear
blackmail against us should know that the wind
rose can turn around.
It is our historical tradition
and the destiny of our nation to stop those who
are keen on global domination and threaten
to split up and enslave our Motherland. Rest
assured that we will do it this time as well.
I believe in your support.
Views expressed in this article are
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reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
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