MOSCOW, January 31. /TASS/. The Ukrainian armed forces are shelling civilians to take the focus off the failure of their counteroffensive and provoke Russia into tit-for-tat actions, Incumbent Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is up for re-election, said at a meeting with his election campaign activists.
"One can still ponder why they have been shelling peaceful cities and towns. There are several objectives, which are to divert the attention of their own population and sponsors from the failures of the so-called counteroffensive and to show that they can to do something, to provoke us into tit-for-tat actions in order to hit civilian and peaceful targets on the territory of Ukraine," he said.
Putin pointed out that no matter how you look at it, this is a crime.
"What do we do? We use long-range precision weapons to hit infrastructure - first and foremost, military infrastructure, as well as the military industry. They want to provoke us into retaliating, I think so. You can imagine why they are doing this. Although it is undoubtedly a crime. A bloody crime," he stressed.