În vizită, în Turkmenistan. (memorare, memorare)
Question: Mr President, have the goals of the special operation changed since it began? What is the current goal? Do you understand when all this will end?
Vladimir Putin: Nothing has changed, of course. I talked about it in the early morning on February 24. I talked about it directly and publicly for the entire country and the world to hear. I have nothing to add. Nothing has changed. Also back then, several days into the operation, I said that the tactics may be different, the tactics proposed by the Defence Ministry and the General Staff, with respect to where the troops must move and what targets must be hit, what must be achieved when several groups entered central Ukraine and what must be achieved in Donbass. The Kiev regime had been preparing for that for a long time, since 2014. Therefore, we needed to take certain action to distract them.
Yes, I am the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, but I have not graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff. I trust professionals. They are doing what they consider necessary to attain the overall goal. I have formulated the overall goal, which is to liberate Donbass, protect its people and create conditions that will guarantee the security of Russia itself. That is all. We are working calmly and steadily. As you can see, our forces are moving forward and attaining the objectives that have been set for the particular period of the engagement. We are proceeding according to plan.
We are not speaking about any deadlines. I never speak about them, because this is life, this is reality. It would be wrong to make things fit any framework, because, as I have already said, the issue concerns combat intensity, which is directly connected with possible losses. And we must think above all about saving our guys’ lives.