The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has been ignoring the killing of thousands of civilians by Ukrainian death squads in Donbass for eight years, the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
"For the past eight years, Strasbourg has not had the guts to condemn the criminal policy of the nationalistic Kiev regime that committed genocide against the people of Donbass. It preferred to turn a blind eye to atrocities committed by Ukrainian death squads that left thousands of civilians dead," Zakharova said.
The statement comes days after Russian President Putin announced the beginning of a “special operation” to protect the people's republics of Donetsk and Lugansk (DPR, LPR) and "demilitarise and denazify" Ukraine. By "denazifying" he means to free Ukraine from neo-Nazi squads who have been imposing their ideology in the country since the Western-backed coup of 2014.
In his address to the nation, Putin said that Russia was left with no other choice after receiving a request for military assistance from the DPR and LPR amid intensified shelling by Kiev's forces. The Russian Defence Ministry said the operation has only been targeting military infrastructure in Ukraine while the civilian population is not in danger. Moscow says it has no plans to occupy Ukraine.