Putin Claims He Will Bring Peace to Ukraine

Responding to a comment from a 12-year-old girl who supposedly moved from Luhansk to Russian-occupied territory, Putin described during a development forum in Moscow how the region has changed “for the worse” in the last eight years due to bombings, artillery strikes and hostilities, Russian state news reported Wednesday morning. Though Russia has instigated the violence in Ukraine since its initial invasion in 2014 and annexation of the Crimean peninsula, Putin was likely repeating a longstanding Kremlin assertion that a supposed neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv has persecuted Russian-speaking residents of the Donbas region.

His latest comments – thoroughly divorced from assessments in Ukraine, the West and even some corners of the Kremlin – serve as the latest evidence that Putin appears completely isolated from the realities on the ground or knowingly chooses to ignore them.

“Of course, it was very, very difficult for people,” Putin told the girl, identified only as Diana. He said the lives of the residents of Crimea and its largest city Sevastopol were “developing differently” – a likely reference to Russia’s imposed rule there – and added, “but it was the tragedy that took place in the Donbas, including in the Luhansk People's Republic, that forced, simply forced Russia to launch this military operation, which everyone is well aware of today,” according to a translation of his remarks