Putin urges Ukraine army to ‘take power in its hands’

Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Friday on the Ukrainian military forces to “take power in Kiev into their own hands” from “nationalists” that are following the instructions of “foreign advisors,” particularly the ones from the United States.

Putin told reporters that the operations there are not being conducted by Ukraine’s regular troops but nationalist formations and “Neo-Nazis” that are “deploying heavy weapons right in the center of Ukraine’s major cities to provoke a retaliatory strike, and are directly responsible for the genocide in Donbass.”

“Take power into your own hands,” he urged Ukraine’s military. “It will be easier for us to come to terms with you than with this gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis, who settled in Kiev and took the entire Ukrainian people hostage.”