ASTANA, November 28. /TASS/. The Kiev regime’s "ringleaders" are now completely illegitimate, they are usurpers and do not even have the right to give orders to the armed forces, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council.

"The most important thing is that even in the era of the most sophisticated weapons, the fate of any military conflict, any military campaign, including a special military operation, is decided on the ground, on the battlefield. Ultimately, everything depends on the soldier. Of course, both equipment and combat gear are necessary for victory. But the most important thing is motivation, the soldier's inner readiness to fight and, if necessary, to sacrifice himself for the sake of the Fatherland," Putin said.

"For example, what should today's forcibly mobilized Ukrainian soldiers and officers give their lives for? For the Banderite neo-Nazi regime in Kiev? For its ringleaders, who have already lost their legitimacy?" Putin noted. "They are completely illegitimate today. From the legal point of view, they do not even have the right to give orders to the armed forces, because they are usurpers of power. By the way, those who carry out these orders become accomplices to crimes. They have no right to push people towards death and drive them to slaughter. Moreover, as I have already said, their orders are criminal."

Putin pointed out that Russian soldiers and officers were fighting for the future of their country and their children.

"Our fighters know perfectly well what they are fighting for, what they are paying for with their blood. They see that it has fallen to their lot, to the lot of our generation as a whole, the way it has happened many times in our history, to stand in the way of those forces which have once again decided to destroy Russia, to inflict, as they [Western countries] say today, a strategic defeat on it. This is the reason why our guys are fighting for their homeland, for the future of Russia and their children," Putin said. "No supplies of even the most sophisticated weapons to Ukrainian territory will change the situation on the battlefield."

"We have people of different nationalities [serving] in the army. Some will cross themselves and others will ask Allah for help, but everyone will go forward together. Nothing will stop them," Putin pointed out.