Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that there will be no further wars after Ukraine if Russia is treated with respect, dismissing claims that Moscow plans to attack European countries as “nonsense.”
During a televised event lasting nearly four and a half hours, Putin was asked by BBC journalist Steve Rosenberg whether there would be any “new special military operations” – the term he uses for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to BBC and Gazeta Express.
“There will be no operations if you treat us with respect, if you respect our interests just as we have always tried to respect yours,” he said.
Earlier this month, Putin had claimed that Russia does not plan to go to war with Europe, but would be ready “if Europeans wish” to provoke conflict.
Responding to a question from the BBC editor on Friday, Putin also added that there would be no further Russian invasions “if you do not deceive us as you deceived us with NATO’s eastward expansion.”
For years, Putin has accused NATO of violating an alleged Western promise made to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990, prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev later denied that such a promise was ever made.
The “Direct Line” marathon combined questions from the general public and journalists from across Russia in a Moscow hall, with Putin seated beneath a large map of Russia, including the occupied regions of Ukraine, such as Crimea, which he annexed in 2014. Russian state television claimed that over three million questions were submitted.
However, only a few hours after the broadcast, Ukrainian officials reported seven deaths and 15 injuries in a Russian missile strike in the southern Odesa region. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.
