Mazino Dickson, Abuja
Russia is defending its war in Ukraine, saying it is not aggression but protection.
Speaking in Abuja to Nigerian journalists, Russian Ambassador to Nigeria, Andrey Podelyshev, said Moscow intervened in Ukraine to save the Russian-speaking population from state oppression, persecution and killings, allegedly committed by the Ukrainian government.
Pushing back against the narrative from Ukraine’s allies, Podelyshev said the war did not start in 2022.
“The events of February 2022 cannot be understood without reference to what happened after 2014. The conflict began with a coup d’état in Kyiv, openly supported by the United States and Europe,” the Ambassador said.
The Russian envoy claimed that the post-2014 the Ukrainian government targeted Russian language and culture, enacting laws that “prohibited the use of Russian in education, media, and even daily life.”
Podelyshev said such policies left millions of ethnic Russians in Ukraine marginalized.
Flashpoints
The eastern half of Ukraine – referred to as Donbas – has been the epicentre of the ongoing war between both countries.
Before the direct intervention of Moscow in 2022, Ambassador Podelyshev said ethnic Russians a decade ago, rallied to confront Ukrainian forces in several battles with heavy civilian casualties and massive infrastructural damage recorded.
Key cities and towns that have been at the center of the conflict in the Donbas region include Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk.
The Ambassador said: ”In Donbas, residents took up arms to defend themselves, sparking years of fighting that left over 10,000 civilians dead.
“The West ignores these victims,” Podelyshev insisted.
“For eight years, Donetsk and Luhansk were shelled, while Western countries poured weapons into Ukraine,” he added.
Another key battleground is Crimea.
Crimea is a peninsula that juts out into the Black Sea, connected to southern Ukraine by a narrow strip of land called the Isthmus of Perekop.
The Russian envoy told journalists that the Russian majority-speaking population in Crimea voted in a referendum to be merged with Russia.
“Nationalist militants were sent to Crimea, and a military campaign was launched against Donbas,” he said.
Crimea, he said, held a referendum in 2014 and “chose to join Russia to avoid a bloodbath.”
He added that Russia tried to resolve the conflict through the Minsk peace accords signed in 2014 and 2015.
“Even Merkel and Hollande admitted Minsk was used to buy time to arm Ukraine. Had those agreements been implemented, the conflict could have been resolved peacefully,” he said.
Invasion, Peace Conditions
According to the envoy, by early 2022 Ukrainian troops had massed near Donbas, preparing to retake the region.
He said the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk republics asked Russia for help.
“Russia’s military action was not aggression but assistance,” Podelyshev said.
“We sought to end the war, not start it,” he added.
He dismissed accusations of territorial expansion, insisting Moscow only acted after receiving appeals.
“Initially, Russia had no intention of territorial expansion. It acted to protect Russian-speaking populations,” he said.