Dear friends!
The subject of my speech is the situation in Donbass and the development of the special military operation to liberate it from the neo-Nazi regime that took power in Ukraine in 2014 following an armed coup.
I address you today, all citizens of our country, people of different generations, ages and nationalities, the people of our great Motherland, all those who are united by the great historical Russia, soldiers and officers, volunteers who are currently fighting on the front lines, who are on combat duty, our brothers and sisters - the people of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, Kherson and Zaporozhie regions and other regions liberated from the neo-Nazi regime.
This will involve taking the necessary and urgent measures to protect Russia's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, supporting the desire and will of our compatriots to determine their own future and opposing the aggressive policy of certain Western elites, who are trying by all means to maintain their domination and, in order to do so, to block and eliminate any centre of independent sovereign development, to continue to impose their will on other countries and peoples and to implant their pseudo-values.
The aim of this West is to weaken, divide and ultimately destroy our country. They are already explicitly saying that they succeeded in dividing the Soviet Union in 1991, and that it is now time for Russia itself to disintegrate into a multitude of regions and zones that are fighting each other to the death.
And they have been making such plans for a long time. They have encouraged international terrorist gangs in the Caucasus, fostered NATO's offensive infrastructure near our borders. They have made total Russophobia their weapon of choice, including decades of deliberate cultivation of hatred of Russia, especially in Ukraine, to which they have prepared the fate of an anti-Russian beachhead, and turned the Ukrainian people into cannon fodder to push them into war against our country, They started this war as early as 2014, using armed forces against civilians, organizing genocide, blockade and terror against people who refused to recognize the government that emerged in Ukraine following the coup.
And after the current regime in Kiev publicly rejected a peaceful solution to the Donbass problem and, moreover, announced its claim to nuclear weapons, it became absolutely clear that a new, another large-scale attack on the Donbass, as had already happened twice before, was inevitable. And then, just as inevitably, an attack on Russian Crimea would follow - on Russia.
In this context, the decision to conduct a preventive military operation was absolutely necessary and the only option. Its main objectives - the liberation of the entire territory of Donbass - were and remain unchanged.
The Lugansk People's Republic has already been almost completely cleared of neo-Nazis. Fighting continues in the Donetsk People's Republic. In eight years, the occupying regime in Kiev has created a deeply staggered line of permanent fortifications here. Attacking them head-on would result in heavy losses, which is why our units, as well as the military units of the Donbass republics, are acting methodically and competently, using military equipment, saving personnel and liberating the territory of Donetsk step by step, clearing towns and villages of neo-Nazis and helping the people whom the Kiev regime has turned into hostages and human shields.
As you know, the special military operation involves professional soldiers serving under contract. Volunteer units are also fighting alongside them: people of different nationalities, professions and ages - true patriots. They have stood up to defend Russia and the Donbass with all their hearts.
In this regard, I have already instructed the Government and the Ministry of Defense to fully determine the legal status of volunteers and combatants of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics units as soon as possible. It should be identical to that of professional soldiers in the Russian army, including material and medical support and social guarantees. Particular attention should be paid to organizing the supply of equipment and materials to volunteer units and people's militias in the Donbass.
In the course of the main defense operations in the Donbass, our troops, on the basis of the plans and decisions of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff on the general strategy of action, have also liberated important areas of the Kherson and Zaporozhie regions and other areas from the neo-Nazis. As a result, a long front line has been formed, stretching for over a thousand kilometers.
What do I want to say publicly for the first time today? Already after the beginning of the special military operation, including during the negotiations in Istanbul, Kiev's representatives reacted very positively to our proposals, and these proposals were mainly related to guaranteeing Russia's security, our interests. But it is clear that a peaceful solution did not suit the West, so after reaching some compromises, Kiev was actually given a direct order to demolish all the agreements.
Ukraine has been pumped full of weapons again. The Kiev regime has deployed new bands of foreign mercenaries and nationalists, military units trained to NATO standards and placed under the de facto command of Western advisors.
At the same time, the regime of repression across Ukraine against its own citizens, established immediately after the armed coup in 2014, has been intensified in the harshest possible way. The policy of intimidation, terror and violence has taken increasingly massive, horrific and barbaric forms.
I would like to emphasize that we know that the majority of people living in the territories liberated from the neo-Nazis, above all the historical lands of Novorussia, do not want to be under the yoke of the neo-Nazi regime. In Zaporozhie, Kherson region, Lugansk and Donetsk, they have seen and witnessed the atrocities committed by the neo-Nazis in the occupied districts of Kharkov region. The descendants of the Banderists and Nazi punishers are killing people, torturing, imprisoning, settling scores, slaughtering and torturing civilians.
More than seven and a half million people lived in the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics and the Zaporozhie and Kherson regions before the hostilities began. Many of them were forced to become refugees, to leave their homes. And those who remained - about five million people - are now under constant artillery and rocket attacks by neo-Nazi militants. They hit hospitals and schools and commit terrorist acts against civilians.
We cannot, we have no moral right to hand over our loved ones to the torturers, we cannot fail to respond to their sincere desire to decide their own fate. The parliaments of the Donbass People's Republics and the civil-military administrations of the Kherson and Zaporozhie regions have decided to hold referendums on the future of these territories and have asked us, Russia, to support this.
I would like to stress that we will do everything to ensure safe conditions for the referendums so that people can express their will. And we will support the decision on their future taken by the majority of residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics and the Zaporozhie and Kherson regions.
Dear friends!
Today, our armed forces, as I have already said, are operating on a front line of more than a thousand kilometres, confronting not only neo-Nazi formations, but in fact the entire military machine of the West.
In this situation, I consider it necessary to take the following decision - it is fully appropriate to the threats we face - namely, in order to protect our homeland, its sovereignty and territorial integrity, in order to ensure the security of our people and the populations of the liberated territories, I consider it necessary to support the proposal of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff to proceed with a partial mobilisation in the Russian Federation.
I repeat, we are talking about a partial mobilisation, which means that only those citizens who are currently reservists will be called up for military service, above all those who have served in the armed forces and have certain military specialties and relevant experience.
Those called up for military service will undergo additional military training before being deployed to the units, taking into account the experience of the special military operation.
The decree on partial mobilisation has been signed.
In accordance with the law, the chambers of the Federal Assembly - the Federation Council and the State Duma - will be officially informed by mail today.
Mobilisation measures will begin today, 21 September. I instruct the regional heads to provide all necessary assistance to the work of the military commissariats.
I particularly emphasize that Russian citizens called up for military service as part of the mobilisation will enjoy the status, payments and all social guarantees of those serving under contract.
I would like to add that the decree on partial mobilisation also provides for additional measures to fulfil the state's defense order. The directors of the military-industrial complex are directly responsible for increasing the production of weapons and military equipment, as well as for deploying additional production capacities. Furthermore, all issues related to the material, financial and resource support of defence enterprises must be resolved by the government without delay.
Dear friends!
In its aggressive anti-Russian policy, the West has crossed all limits. We constantly hear threats against our country and our people. Some irresponsible Western politicians are not only talking about plans to arrange the delivery of long-range offensive weapons to Ukraine - systems that would allow to strike Crimea and other parts of Russia.
Such terrorist strikes, including those using Western weapons, are already taking place in border locations in the Belgorod and Kursk regions. NATO is conducting real-time reconnaissance throughout southern Russia using modern systems, aircraft, ships, satellites and strategic drones.
Washington, London and Brussels are directly pushing Kiev to transfer military operations to our territory. They are already openly saying that Russia must be defeated by all means on the battlefield, followed by the deprivation of its political, economic, cultural and any other form of sovereignty and the complete plundering of our country.
Nuclear blackmail has also been deployed. We are not only talking about the Western-sponsored bombing of the Zaporozhie nuclear power plant, which threatens to cause a nuclear catastrophe, but also about the statements of certain high representatives of the leading NATO states about the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction - nuclear weapons - against Russia.
I would like to remind those who make such statements about Russia that our country also has various means of defense, some of which are more advanced than those of the NATO countries. If our territorial integrity is threatened, we will of course use all the means at our disposal to defend Russia and our people. This is not a bluff.
The citizens of Russia can rest assured that the territorial integrity of our homeland, our independence and our freedom will be guaranteed, let me stress once again, by all means at our disposal. And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons must know that the compass rose could turn against them.
It is in our historical tradition, in the destiny of our people, to stop those who aspire to world domination, who threaten to dismember and enslave our homeland, our Motherland. We will do it now, and we will do it.
I believe in your support.
Vladimir Putin