On conducting a special military operation

In his speech, Putin spoke about the impossibility of reaching an agreement with NATO on equal terms and accused the military alliance of expanding to the east.[3] Putin mentioned the enlargement of NATO often in his address, calling it and the military development of Ukraine "unacceptable". He said:

As NATO expands to the east, with every passing year, the situation for our country is getting worse and more dangerous. Moreover, in recent days the leadership of NATO has been openly talking about the need to speed up, and force the advancement of the alliance's infrastructure to the borders of Russia. In other words, they are doubling down on their position. We can no longer just watch what is happening. It would be absolutely irresponsible on our part.[3]

Putin said Ukraine was becoming an "anti-Russia" state, with it being supplied by other NATO members with "the most modern weapons", saying:

Further expansion of the NATO infrastructure and the beginning of military development in Ukraine's territories are unacceptable for us. The problem, of course, is not NATO itself – it is only an instrument of US foreign policy. The problem is that in the territories adjacent to us – territories that were historically ours, I emphasise – an 'anti-Russia' hostile to us is being created, placed under full external control; [it] is intensively settled by the armed forces of NATO countries and is supplied with the most modern weapons.[4]

Putin announced the start of a "special military operation" in the Donbas region, citing Article 51 of the UN Charter (on the right to self-defence), the decision of the Federation Council on the use of Russian troops in Ukraine and agreements with the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR). He said:

We have been left no other option to protect Russia and our people, but for the one that we will be forced to use today. The situation requires us to take decisive and immediate action. The people's republics of Donbas turned to Russia with a request for help... In this regard, in accordance with Article 51 of Part 7 of the UN Charter, with the sanction of the Federation Council of Russia and in pursuance of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance ratified by the Federal Assembly on 22 February of this year with the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic, I have decided to conduct a special military operation.[5][4]

Days earlier, on 21 February, Russia officially recognised the DPR and the LPR as independent states,[6][7] which were agreements with the DNR and LNR referred to by Putin. They were ratified by the State Duma and the Federation Council. He said the purpose of the "operation" was to "protect the people" in the predominantly Russian-speaking region of Donbas who, according to Putin, "for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime".[3][8] Putin also stated that Russia sought the "demilitarization and denazification" of Ukraine.[9][10]

Putin called on the Ukrainian military to "immediately lay down their arms and go home", saying: "All servicemen of the Ukrainian army who comply with this requirement will be able to freely leave the combat zone and return to their families. All responsibility for possible bloodshed will be entirely on the conscience of the ruling regime on the territory of Ukraine."[10][11] Addressing the citizens of Ukraine, he linked Russia's actions with self-defense against the threats created for it and "an even greater disaster than the one that is happening today", saying: "No matter how hard it is, I ask you to understand this and call for interaction in order to turn this tragic page and move forward together."[10]

Putin stated there were no plans to occupy Ukrainian territory and that he supported the right of the peoples of Ukraine to self-determination, saying:

Our plans do not include the occupation of Ukrainian territories. We are not going to impose anything on anyone by force. At the same time, we hear that recently in the West there is talk that the documents signed by the Soviet totalitarian regime, securing the outcome of World War II, should no longer be upheld. Well, what is the answer to this? ... The outcome of World War II, as well as the sacrifices made by our people on the altar of victory over Nazism, are sacred.[10][4]

At the end of the address, Putin warned other countries against intervening in the conflict, saying:

Whoever tries to interfere with us, and even more so to create threats for our country, for our people, should know that Russia's response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences that you have never experienced in your history. We are ready for any development of events. All necessary decisions in this regard have been made. I hope that I have been heard.[12][10][13]

Ukraine was not a member of NATO, but it applied for a NATO Membership Action Plan at the 2008 Bucharest summit. NATO refused, but it declared that Ukraine will become a member in the future.[19] NATO is a collective security alliance of 31 member states, similar to the CSTO that Russia is a member of. Outside its member states, NATO only has a military presence in Kosovo and Iraq, at the request of their governments.[20] NATO and Russia had co-operated until Russia illegally annexed Crimea.[20] NATO says it is not at war with Russia; its official policy is that it does not seek confrontation, but rather supports Ukraine in "its right to self-defense, as enshrined in the UN Charter".[20]

Several analysts and officials had warned against letting eastern European countries join NATO, because of the risk that Russia would see it as a threat.[21] Between the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Russian invasion, 14 Eastern European countries were admitted to NATO.[22] Four of them share a border with Russia, and the last time a country bordering Russia joined NATO before the invasion was in 2004.[lower-alpha 1] Ukraine was presented with the prospect of joining NATO in 2008;[23] no application was made, and the process stalled. During his visit to Russia in mid-February 2022, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed this status in the foreseeable future.[24]

Shortly before his death in a plane crash, Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin accused the Russian military leadership of lying about NATO aggression to justify the invasion. Prigozhin was a close confidant of Putin and his Wagner Group played an important role in the invasion.[25]

Putin's reference to Article 51 of the UN Charter is regarded by a number of lawyers as incorrect.[26] John B. Bellinger III, member of the Council on Foreign Relations, says Article 51 of the UN Charter allowed one UN member state to give military aid to another member state; but the DPR and LPR were not UN member states and were only recognized as independent by Russia.[26] Swiss researcher of international law Nico Krisch says that Article 51 is the right to self-defense in exceptional cases, mainly when an attack on a country has already begun or is about to begin. For other situations, there is the UN Security Council and other conflict resolution mechanisms; the blurred threat that Putin sees as NATO cannot justify military action. Krisch recalled that in the early 2000s, when the United States tried to introduce the concept of "preventive self-defense" as justification for the use of military force in Iraq, most countries opposed such an interpretation, and Russia was among them.[26] Putin's right to invoke Article 51 was also rejected by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and UN Secretary-General António Guterres.[27]

Putin's accusation that Ukraine was committing genocide in the Donbas have been widely rejected as baseless by other countries and international organizations, including the UNESCO Commission on the Prevention of Genocide.[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] Over 300 scholars on genocide issued a statement rejecting Russia's abuse of the term "genocide" to "justify its own violence".[37] Ukraine brought a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to challenge Russia's claim. The ICJ said it had not seen any evidence of genocide committed by Ukraine.[38]

Altogether, about 14,300 people were killed in the Donbas War, both soldiers and civilians. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), 6,500 were Russian proxy forces, 4,400 were Ukrainian forces, and 3,404 were civilians on both sides of the frontline.[39] The vast majority of civilian deaths were in the first year,[39] and the death rate in the Donbas War was actually falling before the 2022 Russian invasion: in the year before the invasion, there were 25 conflict-related civilian deaths, over half of them from mines and unexploded ordnance.[39]

Putin's claim that Ukraine was a neo-Nazi state has been widely rejected.[40] [41] The world's leading scholars of Nazism and the Holocaust (including Jared McBride, Francine Hirsch, Timothy D. Snyder, Omer Bartov, Christoph Diekman, and others) published a statement rejecting Putin's claims, which was signed by hundreds of historians and scholars of the subject. It says:

We strongly reject the Russian government's ... equation of the Ukrainian state with the Nazi regime to justify its unprovoked aggression. This rhetoric is factually wrong, morally repugnant and deeply offensive to the memory of millions of victims of Nazism and those who courageously fought against it.

The authors say that Ukraine "has right-wing extremists and violent xenophobic groups" like any country, but "none of this justifies the Russian aggression and the gross mischaracterization of Ukraine".[42] The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum likewise condemned Putin's accusations.[43]

Putin's claims of Nazism against Ukraine are partly an attempt to drum-up support for the war. Russian propaganda has framed it as a continuation of the Soviet Union's "Great Patriotic War" against Nazi Germany, "even as Russia supports extreme-right groups across Europe".[44][45] The Washington Post commented that "the rhetoric of the fight against fascism resonates deeply in Russia, which suffered huge losses in the fight against Nazi Germany".[46]

Ukraine, like many countries, has a far-right fringe, but analysts say Putin greatly exaggerated far-right influence in Ukraine; it does not have widespread support in the government, military, or electorate.[40][47][46] In the last election, far-right parties failed to win a seat in Ukraine's parliament.[48] Ukraine's Azov Brigade, which had far-right origins, was a focus of Kremlin propaganda. However, by the time of the invasion, sources say that the brigade had been de-politicized.[49][50][51] Since 2015, Nazi and communist symbols have been banned in Ukraine, and there are examples of Ukraine prosecuting neo-Nazis.[52]

Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Jewish and has relatives who were victims of the Holocaust.[46] He is also a Russian speaker and won the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election by a wide margin.[27]

Ulrich B. Schmid, professor of Russian culture and society at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, called Putin's allegation "despicable", and noted that Russia itself has many prominent far-right groups.[27] Some Russian units who took part in the invasion are themselves linked to neo-Nazism, such as the Rusich Group and Wagner Group.[53][54] Russian far-right groups also played a major role among the Russian proxy forces in Donbas.[55][56]

Josep Borrell, the EU representative for foreign affairs and security policy,[57] as well as Brookings Institution senior fellow Michael E. O'Hanlon and Associated Press vice president John Daniszewski, assessed Putin's words about a possible response to intervention in the conflict as a threat to use nuclear weapons.[58]

On 27 February, Putin ordered the Minister of Defense to put the strategic deterrence forces into a special mode of combat duty. The reason for this was what he called the "unfriendly actions" of Western countries in the economic sphere, as well as the "aggressive statements" of their leaders.[59]