Putin calls for elimination of “anti-Russian enclave” in Ukraine

Latest news on the war pitting Russia and Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has denounced that Ukraine has become in recent years an “anti-Russian enclave” and has openly advocated its elimination.

Putin, on a visit to the Kaliningrad exclave, has told a group of students that this is the first target of the invasion launched on Ukraine in February, a “special operation” in Moscow’s words, Interfax news agency reports.

The Russian leader has tried to justify with historical arguments the offensive, up to the “coup d’état” of 2014, as he has described the revolution that ousted from power the then president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Russia.

According to Putin, in the Donbas or on the Crimean peninsula they did not recognize these changes and now Moscow is working to protect both the inhabitants of eastern Ukraine and Russia itself.