President Vladimir Putin has insisted Russia’s military advance in Ukraine is “going to plan” as Kyiv and Moscow agreed to create humanitarian corridors for civilians to escape the Russian invasion.
After the fall of a first major Ukrainian city to Russian forces, Putin on Thursday appeared in no mood to heed a global clamour for hostilities to end as the war entered its second week.
Putin again said Russia was rooting out “neo-Nazis”, adding during the televised opening of a national security council meeting that he “will never give up on [his] conviction that Russians and Ukrainians are one people.”
Reporting from Moscow, Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari said that Putin’s statements aimed to try to “convince the Russian population that things are absolutely going according to plan, reiterating the narrative that they are fighting a good fight in Ukraine, and that they are doing it for the security of their own country.”
