VOSTOCHNY SPACEPORT /Amur Region/, April 12. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia will conduct its special operation in Ukraine at a measured pace and as scheduled in order to minimize losses.
"About the progress of the operation. I’m now hearing questions if it could be rushed," he said at a news conference following talks with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko. "It could. It depends on the intensity of warfighting and the intensity of warfighting is unfortunately associated, one way or another, with losses."
"Our objective is to achieve, attain all the goals, minimizing losses," Putin went on to say. "We will act at a measured pace, as scheduled, according to the plan that was originally proposed by the General Staff" of the Russian armed forces, he said.
"Actions in certain regions of Ukraine were designed only to contain forces, strike and destroy military infrastructure and create conditions for more active operations on the territory of Donbass," the commander-in-chief of the Russian armed forces explained. He said that the purpose of the special operation "is to provide assistance to people living in the Donbass, who feel their inextricable connection with Russia and who have been subjected to genocide for eight years."
Lukashenko stepped in to say the people of Donbass were subjected to "Ukrainian occupation."
"Yes, Ukrainian occupation, after they [the Donbass republics] were recognized as independent states. That’s right," Putin said. The Russian president said that was the goal that he set when on February 24 he announced the special military operation in Ukraine. "That’s the state of affairs, and the operation is going according to plan," he said.
Operation’s motives
Putin also explained Russia’s motives in Ukraine.
"The logic is simple. During preparations for World War I and during the Great Patriotic War a certain portion of the Ukrainian people, Ukrainian society, especially that which is associated with Western ideology, was used against Russia," he said. "And these days, now they are also trying to use it."
"The people that stand in military uniform with the stripes of SS Galician are simply outcast but there are others that just sympathize with them," he went on to say. "They don’t consider themselves Nazis but nationalists."
"But they also need to understand that the main goal isn’t assistance to Ukraine by the West," Putin continued. "Ukraine is the means to achieve such goals that don’t have anything in common with the interests of the Ukrainian people.".