All Quotes

"Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday compared modern Western values ​​to Bolshevik dogmatism during his speech at the Valdai club forum and called for “rational conservatism.” The president recalled that the Bolsheviks showed an “absolute intolerance” to any opinion other than his own, they tried to destroy the values ​​that were formed several centuries ago. In this sense, he stressed that “looking at what is happening in various Western countries” now, we see the practices that Russia left in the distant past."

"In the early days of the war on Ukraine, tens of thousands of Russians protested an invasion launched in their name. This was encouraging. Americans could content themselves with the possibility that Russian citizens might take matters into their own hands, challenging and weakening their president, Vladimir Putin. In recent weeks, however, such protests have become rare. This is in no small part due to the criminalization of opposition; publicly contesting the Kremlin’s war propaganda carries prison terms of up to 15 years. But fear is only a piece of the story. Russians also appear to be rallying behind their president, raising the question of whether ordinary citizens are partly to blame for their regime—and perhaps even morally culpable. If Putin’s regime and the Russian people are more intertwined than they initially appeared, a presumption of innocence becomes harder to sustain. According to the Levada Center, the closest thing to an independent pollster in Russia, Putin’s favorability ratings jumped from 69 percent in January to 83 percent in late March, a month into the so-called special military operation. Perhaps more ominously, Russians appear to be informing on one another in growing numbers, condemning friends, neighbors, and colleagues for insufficient support of the war effort. One hard-line member of Parliament noted that a “cleansing” was inevitable. In a speech, Putin himself colorfully praised his fellow Russians’ ability to “distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a fly that accidentally flew into their mouths.”"

"We had a moment in history, between 1988 and 1991, where we could have worked with Mikhail Gorbachev to make his vision of perestroika succeed. Instead, we allowed him to fail, without any real plan on how we would live with what emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union. Save for a short period of time during the Second World War where we needed the Soviet Union to defeat Germany and Japan, we have been in a continual state of political conflict with the Soviet Union. Even after the Soviet Union collapsed, we viewed the Russian Federation more as a defeated enemy that we needed to keep down, than a friend in need of a helping hand up. Yeltsin’s Russia was useful to the US and NATO only to the extent that we could exploit it economically while controlling its domestic politics in a manner that kept Russia in a perpetual state of weakness. The Obama “reset” was simply a ploy to remove Vladimir Putin, who rejected the vision of Russia projected by the west, and replace him with Dmitri Medvedev, whom Obama believed could be remade in the figure of Yeltsin. The fact that Putin believes in a strong Russia has upset the plans of the US, NATO, and Europe for post-Cold War hegemony, predicated as they were on a weak, compliant Russian state."

"Russia’s invasion of Ukraine remains a blatant breach of international law."

"The killing of thousands of civilians as we have seen is a war crime for which the Russian president bears responsibility."

"We feel immense grief for the victims and also, it must be said, great anger towards the Russian president and this senseless war."

"I am beginning to think that those people are right when they say: 'It is useless to talk to him, it's just a waste of time.'"

"Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing Article 51 as his authority, ordered what he called a “special military operation” against Ukraine for the ostensible purpose of eliminating neo-Nazi affiliated military formations accused of carrying out acts of genocide against the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass, and for dismantling a Ukrainian military Russia believed served as a de facto proxy of the NATO military alliance. Putin laid out a detailed case for pre-emption, detailing the threat that NATO’s eastward expansion posed to Russia, as well as Ukraine’s ongoing military operations against the Russian-speaking people of the Donbass... The bottom line is that Russia has set forth a cognizable claim under the doctrine of anticipatory collective self defense, devised originally by the U.S. and NATO, as it applies to (Charter of the United Nations) Article 51 which is predicated on fact, not fiction. While it might be in vogue for people, organizations, and governments in the West to embrace the knee-jerk conclusion that Russia’s military intervention constitutes a wanton violation of the United Nations Charter and, as such, constitutes an illegal war of aggression, the uncomfortable truth is that, of all the claims made regarding the legality of pre-emption under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, Russia’s justification for invading Ukraine is on solid legal ground."

"MOSCOW—Surveying his accomplishments in the past month with evident satisfaction, Vladimir Putin reportedly grew pleased Thursday as his plot to ruin the Russian economy and destroy its international standing went exactly to plan. “It’s incredible that in a few short weeks, my goal to tank the ruble and humiliate the Russian military on the global stage has gone off without a hitch,” said the Russian president, adding that when he laid out his plan to his inner circle months ago, few had believed that he could make such swift progress on stalling his army outside of Kyiv against a military that was an embarrassing order of magnitude smaller than his own. “The cherry on top is that by isolating myself from every country in Europe and driving the world together in condemnation of me, I’ve essentially made us into a vassal state of China’s. So we’re basically fucked from an economic and geopolitical perspective, which is just what I hoped to get out of this war. Now if I can just a get a few more thousand of my own troops killed, I’ll have everything I could ever want.” At press time, Putin had reportedly begun devising plans to invade Estonia with the express intention of spreading his forces ever thinner across eastern Europe in an unwinnable quagmire."

"The bitter truth is that Washington's foreign policy establishment never actually considered Zelensky - or his predecessor Poroshenko - to be allies or partners of the United States. Overflowing with a toxic mix of ignorance, arrogance, and extreme cynicism, Washington's elites have always viewed Ukraine as a tool to "regime-change" a Russia that, after its post-Yeltsin recovery, would no longer take its direction from them. The false gods of American exceptionalism are jealous ones indeed. The American foreign policy establishment wanted a perpetual "Yanks to the Rescue" Russia, whereby US "consultants" and spooks would ensure that the most obsequious candidate would continue to win and rule. A string of Russian presidents who would, à la Shevardnadze and a whole string of other post-Soviet leaders, run the country like a family business: lots of biznis deals for family members... and maybe 10 percent for the "big guy." Americans are victims (willing or not) of a mass media system as propagandistic as any that existed during Soviet Communism.... When it became obvious that Yeltsin's one-time understudy, Vladimir Putin, wasn't going to play that way, the party line came down that he must be demonized. ...Putin had to be demonized and, ultimately, "regime-changed."... Discourse in the US is so infantile that just writing this objective truth will no doubt land this author in the "Putin's puppet" purgatory. Not for the first time."

"There must be a price for the unprovoked, unlawful, unwarranted, unjustified attacks and threats and intimidation that has been imposed by Russia on Ukraine. This cannot be a consequence-free action by Vladimir Putin and the Russian regime."

"Everything we see today is proof that President Putin made a wrong calculation, a wrong calculation about the decision of the Ukrainians to defend themselves, a wrong calculation about the decision of the West to make Russia pay The costs of this war, a miscalculation of the unity we have as European partners and a miscalculation of NATO’s determination in recent months are stronger than ever."

"Perhaps I should have mentioned one last miscalculation of President Putin – namely that he will not go unpunished. We see the war crimes committed, we see that the civilian population has been targeted, we see the refugees being attacked, it is very clear to us and we have discussed that we are united in the sense that these things must be known, evaluated and prosecuted at some point. Some people are responsible for what happened and must be held accountable."

"It is clear that Putin is systematically targeting civilians, whether it’s hospitals or train stations or maternity wards. This is one of the reasons why Canada was one of the first countries to call on the International Criminal Court to look into Putin’s war crimes."

"It is clear that Vladimir Putin is responsible for heinous war crimes."

"Putin has fundamentally miscalculated in a whole bunch of different ways."

"Putin was wrong and he is, right now, failing and flailing in his response to the situation."

"We continue to ensure that we do everything necessary to make sure Putin and his cronies are held to account."

"I admire president Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people for their courage, and how the continue defending their country in the unprovoked and illegal war of Putin. I look forward to the meeting with Zelenskyy, where my message will be that Denmarrk continues helping Ukraine. The West stands together in supporting the Ukrainian people."

"Putin must not win this war."

"There can be no way back to business as usual with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's Russia. Our aim should not be to do business with war criminals."

"I have the impression that the horror of war with its carnage, with what they did to children and women, is completely independent of the words and phone calls that are made."

"So far, Putin's goal has not been the search for peace, but the attempt to annihilate the Ukrainian resistance, occupy the country and entrust it to a friendly government."

"What do we want to call Bucha's horror if not war crimes?"

"Putin was pushed by the Russian population, by his party and by his ministers to invent this special operation."

"The troops were supposed to enter, reach Kyiv in a week, replace the Zelensky government with decent people and a week later come back."

"The aggression against Ukraine is unjustifiable and unacceptable, Forza Italia's] position is clear. We will always be with the EU and Nato."

"Massacres of civilians in Bucha and other localities are real war crimes."

"The brutal footage of attacks on Ukrainian civilians by Russian troops will be the evidence needed against Russian President Vladimir Putin and others to be held accountable for the brutal war in Ukraine at the Hague Tribunal and elsewhere."

"From the very beginning of the war, I [have] said that [Putin] only understands the language of strength, and he can be stopped [only] on the battlefield — not by sanctions."

"Putin’s regime has cast a shadow of malice, revanchism and revisionism over Europe. Ukraine, a free and democratic country, has been attacked without provocation or justification. Ukrainian cities are being bombed and besieged. Ukrainian civilians driven out, wounded and killed. It’s shocking. Terrifying. And criminal."

"Today, Russia is reliably defending the dignity of the state and its fundamental interests from the challenges and threats by the US and its vassal forces. Such reality is unthinkable without your distinguished leadership and strong will."

"Russia has started the invasion of Ukraine. A dark day in Europe, and for the people in Ukraine. A united international reaction to Putin's breach of international law is needed."

"We must immediately respond to Russia’s criminal aggression on Ukraine. Europe and the free world have to stop Putin. Today’s European Council should approve fiercest possible sanctions. Our support for Ukraine must be real."

"Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a clear violation of international law, a direct attack on our shared values."

"At the same time as Putin is driving Russia into isolation, we are strengthening Europe, our international cooperation and our safety."

"Sweden is not neutral if a European country is attacked or is in a crisis."

"I am driven to conclude that Putin was always determined to attack his neighbour, no matter what we did."

"Now we see him for what he is - a bloodstained aggressor, who believes in imperial conquest."

"The reality is that Vladimir Putin has already crossed the red line into barbarism."

"Through their invasion of Ukraine, Putin, his inner circle and generals are now mirroring the fascism and tyranny of 70 years ago, repeating the errors of last century’s totalitarian regimes."

"How can you deal with a crocodile when it's in the middle of eating your left leg? The guy's completely not to be trusted."

"If we let Putin get away with it and just annex, conquer sizable parts of a free, independent, sovereign country, which is what he is poised to do, if not the whole thing, then the consequences for the world are absolutely catastrophic."

"If you want a perfect example of toxic masculinity, it’s what he is doing in Ukraine."

"President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering. Russia alone is responsible for the death and destruction this attack will bring, and the United States and its allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive way. The world will hold Russia accountable."

"He thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead, he met a wall of strength he could never anticipated or imagined: he met Ukrainian people."

"I think he is a war criminal."

"We saw reports that Russian forces were holding hundreds of doctors and patients hostage in the largest hospital in Mariupol. These are atrocities. They're an outrage to the world. And the world is united in our support for Ukraine and our determination to make Putin pay a very heavy price."

"Putin is inflicting appalling, appalling devastation and horror on Ukraine, bombing apartment buildings, maternity wards, hospitals."

"This is disgusting."