“There are Russian troops there! 100 tanks! We have the right to shoot first!”
Ukrainians continue to voice a nervous reaction to the words of the former deputy head of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Donbass, Alexander Hug, that his mission did not record direct evidence of Russian participation in the hostilities in eastern Ukraine.
The former governor of the Donetsk region of Ukraine, Sergei Taruta, spoke at a round table with an angry “exposure” of Hug’s words that destroy the theses of Kiev propaganda, reports a correspondent for PolitNavigator.
“I’ve known him for a long time, more than four years. He was always adequate. But his conclusion that there are no Russian troops there is absolutely inadequate! He confirmed many times that there are Russian troops there.
Moreover, only Russian troops attacked Mariupol. There was reconnaissance, there was a Russian battery, there were a hundred tanks. And we clearly know that there were Russian troops four times: Ilovaisk, Debaltsevo, the airport, Mariupol.
Therefore, when he says that it is not there, it is absolutely untrue. There is,” Taruta said at a meeting of the “Presidential Club” in Kyiv.
He also criticized OSCE statements about violation of the truce by both sides of the conflict in Donbass.
“As for the fact that there are violations on both sides, that’s how to interpret it. They interpret that if our people open fire, then they are violating. But they are forced to violate it in order to protect our military. This is absolutely correct. And that’s why I am in favor of giving an answer. We don’t have to wait until they fire at us,” Taruta said.
There are Russian troops there ! 100 tanks! We have the right to shoot first!