Straight Talk

Ukraine foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba tweets that Putin has just launched a full-scale invasion

The Russian president claims that his neighbour has become a fascist state committing genocide against ethnic Russians, an allegation that western analysts say is preposterous

by Charlie Smith on February 23rd, 2022 at 8:36 PM
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      Russian president Vladimir Putin has started a "war of aggression" against neighbouring Ukraine, according to the country's foreign minister.

      "Putin has launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine," Dmytro Kuleba tweeted. "Peaceful Ukrainian cities are under strikes".

      He added that Ukraine will defend itself and it "will win".

      "The world can and must stop Putin," Kuleba declared. "The time to act is now."

      The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg following the Second World War described a war of aggression as the "supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole".

      Under Article 39 of the United Nations Charter, the UN Security Council can make recommendations or adopt measures to restore international peace and security.

      Russia is currently president of the UN Security Council and has a veto over any actions by the UN in response to its attack.

      Putin has claimed that Ukraine has become a fascist state that is committing genocide against ethnic Russians in the country.

      This claim has been utterly dismissed by western analysts, some of whom have pointed out that the president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is half-Jewish and grew up in eastern Ukraine, where many ethnic Russians live. 

      Putin also warned that if the West intervenes, Russia will respond in a way that's unlike any encountered in history.

      As Russia moved more than 100,000 troops to the border with Ukraine in recent weeks, Putin's diplomats repeatedly denied that there was going to be an attack.

      Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk have fought the central government and recently declared independence.

      Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky has so far refused to knuckle under to pressure from Russia.

      On February 16, Zelensky declared on Facebook that his country has an "amazing army".

      "Our boys have unique combat experience and modern weapons," he wrote on Facebook. "This is already times [sic] stronger than the army eight years ago. We are confident in our armed forces, and our military too should feel our support, our togetherness and our unity."

      Below, you can see what's being said over social media.

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