“He apparently doesn’t understand what the Russian people truly are—what lives in our people’s hearts and souls when it comes to the security of our Fatherland.”

Speaking about the course of the war, Putin said that the Russian Armed Forces now hold the strategic initiative along the entire front line and are acting with increasing effectiveness.

He reiterated that Russia never wanted war, reminding that it was the West-backed 2014 coup and 8 years of genocide in Donbass that forced Moscow to act.

“I think the Ukrainian people themselves need to come to understand what’s truly going on.”