he said Russian President Vladimir Putin On Wednesday, during a brief speech at a major national festival hosted by Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium, Russia was currently fighting for its “historic lands” in Ukraine.

“Today, the (military) leadership told me that battles are being fought for our people within our historic lands,” Putin said on a stage before a crowd of tens of thousands of Russians.

Appearing for a few minutes, the president paid tribute to the Russian soldiers stationed in Ukraine, who are “fighting bravely, bravely and heroically: we are proud of them.” He said all those supporting the Russian army are “defenders of the motherland … medical personnel, defense department and transport personnel … all of you have come today to support our fighters.”

Officials organized the national event in support of the attack in Ukraine. In temperatures below minus 15 degrees, hundreds of participants waved Russian flags while patriotic songs and words of soldiers fighting on the Ukrainian front were broadcast on stage.

The festival, organized under the slogan “Glory to the Defenders of the Fatherland”, comes ahead of the day of the same name and two days before the first anniversary of Russia’s attack on its neighbor.

Children from the Ukrainian region of Donbass, especially from the city of Mariupol (southeast), climbed on stage and hugged a Russian soldier who shouted in front of the crowd: “We will win!” Russia has blamed it Abducted thousands of Ukrainian children From the lands it occupies, these areas are Russian and it denies it, considering that it has arranged legal adoptions.

Famous singer Grigory Leps opened the concert with a patriotic song glorifying Russia, and images of the “Motherland Calling” statue located in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) were projected on screens in the arena.

Officials of the Russian occupation authorities from the Ukrainian regions were also inside the stadium and gave interviews to the Russian official media. “The West is complicit in Ukrainian war crimes,” said Denis Bushilin, a pro-Russian separatist leader in the Donetsk region, denouncing the “Nazi ideology” of the Ukrainian authorities.

Putin is justifying his decision to trigger Europe’s deadliest conflict since 1945 by accusing Kiev of masterminding the “genocide” of Russian-speaking people in Ukraine. He believes that Westerners, who have handed weapons to a Ukrainian ally, are responsible for this escalation, and that Europeans and Americans are waging a proxy war to try to destroy Russia.

Facing major field setbacks, the Kremlin now equates the offensive in Ukraine with a “Great Patriotic War” against Nazi Germany.

France 24/AFP