The support of the Russian people for the government of Vladimir Putin was revalidated in the capital of the country, in an act before more than 100,000 supporters at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow, where the final of the 2018 World Cup was played, in which he described the invasion of Ukraine as a rescue operation. The president was present to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the referendum by which the Crimean peninsula ratified its annexation to Russia in 2014, a plebiscite not recognized by Ukraine or the West, and stressed that what happens in the conflict regions were decisive for the invasion. The main reason for this special operation is to save people suffering, and to avoid this genocide against the population,” the president said in relation to the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, in a speech where he avoided using the word “invasion”.
In addition to highlighting “the bravery shown by the Russian Army in the fighting in the neighboring country,” he added that “side by side, our soldiers help each other, support each other and, if necessary, protect their comrades from bullets with their own body on the battlefield. We haven’t had such unity in a long time.” We are the multinational people of the Russian Federation, united by a common destiny in our land’: these are the first lines of Russia’s fundamental law, the Constitution, and every word is filled with a deep meaning and is of great importance,” he said at a mass event. On the other hand, Emmanuel Macron again communicated with Putin, being one of the presidents of the European Union with the greatest relationship with the Russian and called for “the lifting of the siege” and the possibility of humanitarian aid access, as well as the “immediate respect of a ceasefire”. The Kremlin’s response was not long in coming and detailed that the presidents also talked about the negotiations in search of an understanding between Moscow and Kiev, and that, on the point, Putin developed Russia’s main approaches to the “development of possible agreements” with Ukraine.
