Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Maria ZakharovaMOSCOW, March 18Russia is a country that cherishes peace, guards it and fights evil, and the people of Russia cannot be frightened, said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. real and true freedom is freedom from evil. We cannot be scared because we live in love and faith,» she said, speaking at a concert in Luzhniki dedicated to the day of the reunification of Crimea and Sevastopol with Russia.
New Russia does not abandon its own, said SobyaninRussia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Armed Forces strike only at military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops. With the support of the Russian Armed Forces, the DPR and LPR groups are developing an offensive, but there is no talk of the occupation of Ukraine, the President of Russia emphasized. As of March 18, more than 4 thousand military infrastructure facilities were destroyed, as well as more than 180 aircraft and helicopters, tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, 138 multiple launch rocket systems and 183 drones, including the Turkish Bayraktar TB2.Justice is being restored in the Donbass, Pushilin saidThe offensive is taking place in several directions, Kyiv is blockaded from the west, the Russian Armed Forces have achieved air supremacy over all of Ukraine. The territory around the Chernobyl (mothballed) and Zaporozhye (operating) nuclear power plants was taken under control. Eight years later, the North Crimean Canal was unblocked, and work is underway to restore water supply to the Crimea. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, as of March 2, 498 Russian soldiers were killed and 1,597 wounded during the operation. Among the Ukrainian side, according to the Russian military department, the losses are many times higher: more than 2,870 killed and about 3,700 wounded. Foreign mercenaries fighting for Ukraine are also liquidated: according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, up to 180 foreign «Soldier of Fortune» As the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation noted, «there will be no mercy for mercenaries, wherever they are.»Putin noted the heroism of the Russian military during the operation in UkraineAccording to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on March 14, more than 630 civilians were killed and more than 1.1 thousand were injured during the conflict. These statistics take into account, among other things, losses in the territories of the DPR and LPR, which, according to UNHCHR estimates, account for 26 dead and 130 injured. not included in these statistics. In this context, Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasyl Nebenzya noted that US Deputy Secretary General Rosemary DiCarlo, losing sight of this information, “obviously took a side in this conflict.” Against the backdrop of hostilities in a large number of cities and villages of Ukraine, a humanitarian catastrophe is emerging. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation lays responsibility for this on the Kiev authorities, who refuse to coordinate the work of humanitarian corridors, as well as local nationalists, in some cases, according to the military department, holding civilians as human shields. Concert-rally dedicated to the day of the reunification of Crimea and Sevastopol with Russia, began at 15.00 at the large sports arena «Luzhniki».
