MOSCOW. Feb 21 (Interfax) - Russia will be attaining objectives of the special military operation in a consistent manner, step by step, President Vladimir Putin said.
"The decision to begin the special military operation was made to ensure the security of our country and to liquidate the threat coming from the neo-Nazi regime formed in Ukraine after the 2014 coup. We will be achieving our objectives step by step, in an accurate and consistent manner," Putin said in his address to the Federal Assembly on Tuesday.
Since 2014, Donbass "has been fighting, defending the right to live on its own land and speak its native tongue, it has been fighting and refusing to surrender despite the siege, the ongoing attacks and the open hatred by the Kiev regime, it believed and waited for Russia to help," Putin said.
"Meanwhile, and you know that well, we did everything we could, really, everything we could to solve the problem by peaceful means. We patiently conducted negotiations on a peaceful way out of the severest crisis. Yet a completely different scenario was being hatched behind our backs," he said.
The promises of "Western leaders, their assurances of the aspiration for peace in Donbass turned out to be a fake, a cruel lie," Putin said.
"They were simply stalling, using chicanery, closing their eyes to political assassinations, the Kiev regime's repressions against those undesirable, and the mockery of believers. They increasingly encouraged Ukrainian neo-Nazis' terrorism in Donbass," he said.
"Before the special military operation began, Kiev and the West held talks on the delivery of air defense systems, planes and other heavy hardware to Ukraine," Putin said.
"We also remember the attempts of the Kiev regime to get nuclear weapons. It was actually said in public," he said.