MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin prevented a humanitarian catastrophe when he launched a special operation in Ukraine, speaker of the Russian State Duma (lower parliament house) Vyacheslav Volodin said on Sunday.
The Russian president "has done his best to ensure Russia’s security," to protect people living in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), he said in an interview with the Moscow.Kremlin.Putin program on the Duma TV channel.
"Something horrible might have happened but for his decision to begin the special military operation. He warned about what might have happened. Troops had been already pulled to the Donbass boundaries and the whole thing might have ended in a humanitarian catastrophe, might have entailed numerous casualties," he said.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation in response to a request for help by the heads of the Donbass republics. He stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, but aimed to demilitarize and denazify the country. After that, the West began to impose large-scale sanctions on Russia and intensify weapons supplies to Ukraine. Some Western politicians admit that this is actually an economic war on Russia.
