Dear Friends!

The topic of my speech is the situation in Donbas and the course of the special military operation to liberate it from the neo-Nazi regime that seized power in Ukraine in 2014 as a result of an armed coup d'état.

I address you today: all citizens of our country, people of different generations, ages and nationalities, the people of our great Motherland, all who are united by great historical Russia, soldiers and officers, volunteers who are now fighting on the front lines, are on combat duty, our brothers and sisters - residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, Kherson and Zaporozhe regions, other areas liberated from the neo-Nazi regime.

It will be about the necessary, urgent steps to protect the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Russia, about supporting the desire and will of our compatriots to determine their own future and about the aggressive policy of some Western elites, who by all means seek to maintain their domination, and for this they try to block, suppress any sovereign independent development centers in order to continue roughly to impose their will on other countries and peoples, to impose their pseudoconcepts.

The purpose of this West is to weaken, divide and ultimately destroy our country. They are already saying directly that they were able to split the Soviet Union in 1991 and now the time has come for Russia itself to disintegrate into a multitude of fatally hostile regions and areas.

And they have been hatching such plans for a long time. They have encouraged gangs of international terrorists in the Caucasus, and promoted the NATO offensive infrastructure close to our borders. They have made their weapons of total Russophobia, including the decades of purposeful cultivation of hatred of Russia, especially in Ukraine, which they prepared the fate of the anti-Russian bridgehead, and they turned the Ukrainian people into cannon fodder and pushed to the war with our country, They unleashed it - this war - back in 2014, using armed forces against civilians, organizing genocide, blockade, terror against people who refused to recognize the government that emerged in Ukraine as a result of the coup d'état.

And after today's Kiev regime actually publicly refused a peaceful solution to the Donbass problem and, moreover, announced its claim to nuclear weapons, it became absolutely clear that a new next large-scale offensive in the Donbass, as it had already happened twice before, was inevitable. And then an attack on Russian Crimea - on Russia - would just as inevitably follow.

In this context, the decision to conduct a preemptive military operation was absolutely necessary and the only possible one. Its main objectives - the liberation of the entire territory of Donbass - were and remain unchanged.

The Luhansk People's Republic has been almost completely cleared of neo-Nazis. Fighting continues in the Donetsk People's Republic. Over the past eight years, the Kiev occupation regime has created a deeply echeloned line of long-term fortifications here. To storm them head-on would result in heavy casualties, so our units, as well as the military units of the Donbas republics, are acting systematically, competently, using equipment, saving personnel and step by step liberating the land of Donetsk, cleansing towns and villages from neo-Nazis, and helping people whom the Kyiv regime has turned into hostages, into human shields.
In this regard, I have already given instructions to the government and the Ministry of Defense to determine in full and as soon as possible the legal status of volunteers, as well as fighters of the units of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. It must be the same as that of regular servicemen in the Russian army, including material, medical support and social guarantees. Particular attention should be paid to organizing the supply of volunteer detachments and formations and the People's Militia of Donbass with equipment and gear.

In the course of solving the main tasks to protect Donbass our troops, based on the plans and decisions of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff on the general strategy of actions, also liberated from neo-Nazis considerable territories of both Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, some other areas, as a result of which a long line of military contact was formed, which is over a thousand kilometers.

What I want to say publicly today: already after the start of the special military operation, including at the talks in Istanbul, Kyiv's representatives reacted very positively to our proposals. And these proposals primarily concerned Russia's security and our interests. But it is obvious that a peaceful solution did not suit the West, so after certain compromises were reached, Kiev was long ago given almost direct orders to tear down all the agreements.

Ukraine began to be pumped even more with weapons. The Kiev regime deployed new gangs of foreign mercenaries and nationalists. Military units trained to NATO standards and under the actual command of Western advisers. At the same time, the regime of repression throughout Ukraine against its own citizens, established immediately after the 2014 armed coup, was strengthened in the harshest possible way. The policy of intimidation, terror, and violence is taking more and more massive, horrific, and barbaric forms. I would like to emphasize that we know that the majority of people living in the territories liberated from the neo-Nazis - and this is primarily the historical lands of Novorossia - do not want to be under the yoke of the neo-Nazi regime. In Zaporozhye, in Kherson region, in Luhansk and Donetsk they have seen and see the atrocities that the neo-Nazis commit in the seized districts of Kharkov region. Heirs of the Bandera and Nazi punishers kill people, torture them, imprison them, settle scores, and torture civilians.

More than seven and a half million people lived in the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics and in the Zaporozhe and Kherson regions before the outbreak of hostilities. Many of them were forced to become refugees, to leave their homes. And those who remained - about five million people - are now subjected to constant artillery and rocket fire by neo-Nazi militants.

They are hitting hospitals and schools, staging terrorist acts against civilians. We cannot, we do not have any moral right to hand over our loved ones to the torturers, we cannot fail to respond to their sincere desire to determine their own lives.

The parliaments of the People's Republics of Donbas and the civil-military administrations of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions decided to hold referendums on the future of these territories and asked us to support such a step. I emphasize that we will do everything to ensure safe conditions for the referendum. So that people can express their will. And we will support the decision on their future that will be made by the majority of residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

Dear Russians. Today our armed forces, as I have already said, operate on the line of contact, which exceeds a thousand kilometers. They confront not only neo-Nazi formations, but in fact the entire military machine of the collective West. In this situation, the following decision is considered necessary. It is fully adequate to the threats we face. Namely, in order to protect our homeland, its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to ensure the security of our people and the people in the liberated territories, I consider it necessary to support the proposal of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff to conduct a partial mobilization in the Russian Federation.

Let me repeat: we are talking specifically about partial mobilization. That is, only citizens who are currently in the reserves will be called up for military service, and above all those who have served in the ranks of the armed forces and have certain military professions and relevant experience. Those called up for military service will have to undergo additional military training taking into account the experience of a special military operation before being sent to the units. The decree on partial mobilization has been signed. In accordance with the legislation, the chambers of the Federal Assembly: the Federation Council and the State Duma will be officially informed about it by letters today. Mobilisation operations will begin today, on September 21. I instruct the heads of the regions to provide all the necessary assistance to the work of the military commissariats.

I stress in particular that Russian citizens called up for military service under mobilisation will receive the status, payments and all the social guarantees of those military personnel who serve under contract. I should add that the decree on partial mobilization also provides for additional measures to fulfill the state defense order. Managers of defense enterprises are directly responsible for solving tasks related to expansion of production of weapons and military equipment, deployment of additional production capacities. In turn, all the issues of material, resource, and financial support of defence enterprises must be resolved by the Government without delay.

Dear friends! In its aggressive anti-Russian policy, the West has crossed every line. We constantly hear threats against our country, our people. Some irresponsible politicians in the West not only talk about plans to arrange deliveries of long-range offensive weapons to Ukraine - systems that would allow strikes on Crimea and other regions of the country. Such terrorist strikes (including those using Western weapons) are already being carried out on border settlements in the Belgorod and Kursk regions. In real time, using modern systems, aircraft, ships, satellites, strategic drones, NATO carries out reconnaissance throughout the south of Russia.

Washington, London and Brussels are directly pushing Kyiv to transfer military action to our territory. They no longer hide the fact that Russia must be defeated by all means on the battlefield, followed by the deprivation of political, economic, cultural - in general, of any sovereignty. With the complete plundering of our country.
Nuclear blackmail is also used. It is not only about the Western-encouraged shelling of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which threatens an atomic catastrophe, but also about statements by some high-ranking representatives of leading NATO countries about the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons against Russia. I would like to remind those who make such statements about Russia that our country also possesses various means of destruction, some components of which are more advanced than those of NATO. If our territorial integrity is threatened, we will use all the means at our disposal to defend Russia and our people. This is not a bluff.
The citizens of Russia can be sure that the territorial integrity of our homeland, our independence and our freedom will be ensured - let me stress this once again - by all the means at our disposal. And those who are trying to blackmail us with nuclear weapons must know that the winds may blow in their direction.

It is in our historical tradition, in the destiny of our people to stop those who are striving for world domination, who threaten to dismember and enslave our Motherland, our homeland. We are going to do it now. And so we will. I believe in your support.