"Patrushev continued by describing Russia's military as geared toward seeking to "free its regions from occupation and must put an end to the West’s bloody experiment to destroy the fraternal people of Ukraine."
"We are not at war with Ukraine because we can’t have hatred for ordinary Ukrainians by default," he stressed. He then presented Russian and Ukrainian heritage and closely bound up together, according to state media:
"Get this: the Ukrainian language is one of the official languages in Crimea. Ukrainian cultural centers, Ukrainian folk song and dance groups continue to exist in many cities. A considerable number of people in the south of the Far East regard Ukrainian culture as their own, given a large proportion of migrants from the times of Stolypin," he said, referring to Pyotr Stolypin, a prime minister of the Russian Empire in the early 1900s, who oversaw a resettlement policy.
"The sooner the people of Ukraine realize that the West is using them to wage a war on Russia, the more lives will be saved," Patrushev added. "Many have realized that long ago, but they are afraid to say that publicly out of fear of reprisals. It’s not a part of the West’s plans to save someone’s life to the detriment of its enrichment and other ambitions. Even so, the Americans, the British and other Europeans often create an illusion that they protect civilization from barbarians."
He then referenced the ongoing Western backed attempts of Kiev to make Russian language and culture illegal, which directly impacts millions in the region: "all this story with Ukraine was engineered by Washington to rehearse the technologies of dividing a people that’s one and sow discord," he said.
Meanwhile, there's a growing move among leading NATO countries to begin transferring Western tanks and troop carriers to the Ukrainian battlefield. Starting last week, France began leading the way, resulting in a fierce response from the Kremlin...
But following this warning that a "red line" has been crossed, the Biden administration approved sending Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and now Britain is the next to be mulling tanks for Ukrainian forces, as Sky News reports Monday:"
