Russian president Vladimir Putin has given a big press conference.
A Ukrainian journalist remembered Vladimir Putin’s earlier statements on the absence of Russian troops in Donbas and conveyed greetings from Russian military Yerofeyev and Alexandrov detained in Ukraine in May 2015.
“We have never stated that there are no people tackling specific issues in the military field in Donbas. But this does not mean that there are [our] regular troops there. Feel the difference!” the Russian leader said.
In July, the Russian Defense Ministry repudiated their connection to GRU special forces who were captured by Ukrainian military in the territory controlled by the unrecognised Donetsk republic.
Read also: Kremlin washes hands of Russian soldiers captured in Ukraine, calls them ‘mercenaries’
“I do not know whether there is any third party. But if the Turkish leadership decided to suck up to the U.S., I do not know whether Americans need it,” Vladimir Putin commented on a Turkish journalist’s question about third parties in the Russia-Turkey conflict.
Putin presented the 2015 year results, read out the data on the country’s inflation, wages, GDP, etc. The peak of the crisis Russian economy is over for the Russian economy, he stressed.
A record number of journalists (1390) were registered at the press conference.
