2024-04-12 09:33:59
President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying today that Russia was forced to begin attacking Ukrainian energy facilities in response to Kiev’s attacks on Russian facilities, Reuters reported.
“Unfortunately, we observed a series of strikes on our energy facilities and were forced to respond,” Russian news agencies quoted Putin as saying to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Putin said the attacks were part of Russia’s aim to “demilitarize” Ukraine, as the attacks hit Kiev’s military industry.
“If everything revolves around solving the issues that we talked about at the beginning, in the energy sector they are related, among other things, to solving one of the tasks that we have set ourselves, which is demilitarization. First of all, we start from that in this way we influence the military-industrial complex – the defense-industrial complex of Ukraine, and directly,” Putin said, quoted by TASS.
In his words, Russia refrained from carrying out such attacks in the winter “for humanitarian reasons”, reported Reuters.
For his part, at the meeting, Lukashenko stated that Belarus is ready to participate in the process of peaceful settlement of the situation in Ukraine, TASS reported.
“So in this case, I absolutely support the peace process, which Russia has never given up on – and today, among other things,” said the Belarusian president.
Moscow is ready for a constructive dialogue on the Ukrainian settlement, but will not allow the imposition of positions that are not based on reality, warned the Russian president, BTA reported.
“Our goal is not to put everyone in a difficult situation. On the contrary, we are ready to work constructively,” assured Putin in the conversation with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, referring to the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis.