Putin Continued: 'I Immediately Recognise' Breakaway Republics

"I MAKE A DECISION THAT I SHOULD HAVE MADE A LONG TIME AGO AND IMMEDIATELY RECOGNISE LUHANSK AND DONETSK PEOPLES REPUBLICS," Putin said.

Below are the key quotes from Putin speech on Feb 21:

"I will say something for the first time: I asked Bill Clinton about joining NATO but they don't want a big independent country like Russia as an ally. It's not about our political system."

• "They lied to us about NATO expansion. Mutual trust has been lost and continues to get worse."
• "We have every reason to believe that NATO will continue to expand and threaten Russia. The level of military and security threat will increase. NATO will always attack Russia and threaten sanctions."
• "The Ukrainian military can use NATO weaponry to strike targets well within the Russian Federation. Moscow can be hit within 5 mins by hypersonic missiles. 8 mins by ballistic missiles."
• "We have been told that only NATO members can have legally binding guarantees on security. NATO only agreed to secondary issues and moved the negotiations away from primary issue."
• "We want to pursue a diplomatic solution but our demands must be met as a package."
  • "Three main items in our draft agreement:
    • NATO Non-expansion to the east.
    • Non-deployment of offensive military equipment to the Ukraine and Russian border
    • Bringing back military infrastructure back to 1997 when founding act was signed."
  • "These were ignored."
• "Kyiv elite states publicly that Russia doesn't want to enact Minsk. Visa versa Ukraine is doing blitzkrieg and amassing large troops. Torturing people, women, children, elderly people. We see no end to this. The West pretends that no genocide is being perpetrated against 13 million people."
• "Russia did everything it could to keep the territorial integrity of Ukraine but everything was done in vain. The aggressive regime was created by the coup of 2014 and see no way to resolve Donbas without military."
• "I am confident that all patriotic Russians will support my decisions."