MOSCOW, April 25. /TASS/. Russia is conducting a special military operation in Ukraine with the aim of saving the lives of civilians. If the Russian army were tasked with fighting a full-scale war, it would have been over long ago, Russia’s State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on his Telegram channel on Monday following Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s statement to the effect that war was unparalleled to any other in the 20th century.

"This is a special military operation. If Russia were fighting a full-scale war, it would have been over long ago. This would have happened if we used the United States’ customary carpet bombings and scorched land tactics, repeatedly employed by ‘the world’s most democratic Air Force’ in Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq and Syria," Volodin said.

He stressed that "Russian soldiers and officers do not kill civilians, but liberate them, sometimes at the cost of their own lives."

"Our soldiers are doing their utmost to save peaceful residents," Volodin said.