Mr. Putin's Annual Q&A - Quotes

“[Yanukovich] didn’t have the heart to sign an act that would see force used against his citizens.”

Answering a question from an ex-Berkut - Ukrainian special forces - commander as to whether the ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich has always been such a “weakling and traitor,” Putin said that Yanukovich did his duty as he thought was right, proper and necessary.

“I spoke with him, certainly, many times, during the crisis, and after he arrived in the Russian Federation; we talked about using force… The gist of his answer was that he thought about using force many times, but he didn’t have the heart to sign an act that would see force used against his citizens,” Putin said.


{Photo by RT}

“Russia didn’t annex Crimea by force, but created conditions for people’s self-determination.”

“Punishing others, the US will cut off their nose to spite their face.”

More at:
http://rt.com/news/putin-q&a-ukraine-crimea-220/

 

Over the recent months there has been load of rubbish and accusations coming from western countries attempting to discredit the legitimacy of Crimea's self-determination and using Russian military presence in Sevastopol (which has been there long before December of 2013). I recall John Kerry (Secretary of State) calling on former president Viktor Yanukovych to not use force against the demonstrators despite their violent treatment of the Berkut security forces. (And the US constitution like many other prohibits any form of violent protest which they usually consider as 'riots' and thus is illegal.) Now that Yanukovych has been replaced by the self-proclaimed government, all the sudden Mr. Kerry and Victoria Nuland is now taking the side of the government with complete disregard of the 'people' of which they were apparently concerned for when Obama's administration made that call to Yanukovych's government.

Donetsk, Kharkov should definitely do what Crimea did and ask for Russian military presence in their region to counter the Ukrainian and rumoured NATO troops that are to be deployed there to prevent the upcoming referendum. The west may be quick to call it a 'full-scale' invasion (and use it as a justification of perhaps a war), but the will of the people is much supreme than the will of 'elected representative' from Washington or Brussels.

Good luck to Donetsk on their referendum, you shall prevail!