This is called genocide,' he said, repeating his widely-debunked justification for attacking.
They were surrounded and shelled by guns, the Ukrainians sent airstrikes against them.
' people of Donbass also disagreed with this, and straight-away they organised military operations against. Speaking in front of banners that read 'For a world without Nazism' and 'For Russia' - with the letter 'Z' in each picked out in bold - he said: 'Sevastopol did the right thing when they put up a barrier to neo-Nazis and radicals, which is already happening on other territories. He was met with chants of 'Russia, Russia, Russia.' Putin, who called the rally to mark the anniversary of the last time he attacked Ukraine to annex the Crimea region, spoke of sharing a 'common destiny' with Crimeans, of 'de-Nazifying' the region in 2014, and of the 'bravery' of soldiers currently fighting in Ukraine. The despot took to the stage at Moscow's Luzhniki World Cup stadium dressed in a £10,000 Loro Piana jacket - despite his country's economy crumbling under the weight of Western sanctions - to address a crowd waving Russian national flags and banners marked with the letter 'Z', which has become a potent symbol of the invasion. Vladimir Putin has today given a tub-thumping speech to tens of thousands of banner-waving Russians in an attempt to drum up support for his stalled invasion of Ukraine, as he peddled debunked claims about why the war started and shilled a false narrative of Russia's battlefield 'success'.