Russian President Vladimir Putin used a Bible verse on Friday while praising Russian military forces’ actions in the war in Ukraine.
While making an appearance at a rally held at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Putin claimed that Russia had not seen “unity” from its troops like they were right now “for a long time,” according to a broadcast of the event from the BBC. Putin went on to justify his “special military operation” in Ukraine.
“There is no other love rather than if someone gives soul for their friends,” Putin said, paraphrasing John 15:13 from the Bible.
‘I THOUGHT HE WAS NEGOTIATING’: TRUMP DIDN’T THINK PUTIN WOULD ORDER UKRAINE INVASION
During the rally, which was held on the eighth anniversary of Russia claiming the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine, Putin said that the goal of his military operation in Ukraine was to “liberate people from this suffering from the genocide.”
“We are seeing the heroic deeds of our guys in this operation,” Putin said during the rally. “These words from the holy scripture of Christianity, it’s something that is very dear to those who profess this religion. But everything is down to the facts that this universal value for all the peoples and all the confessions of Russia,” he said, adding that the Russian armed forces were portraying this verse by fighting “shoulder to shoulder.”
While citing examples of them uniting together, Putin said that “they help and support each other, and if the need comes, they shield each other in the battlefield from the bullets.”
Putin began to say how by “pure coincidence” the military operation was started on the same day as the “birthday of—” before getting cut off, Max Seddon, the bureau chief in Moscow for the Financial Times, said in a Twitter thread.
Something extremely odd just happened. Putin was halfway through his speech. He said, “By pure coincidence, the start of the special operation was on the birthday of…” – and then the feed suddenly cut out pic.twitter.com/3okuDRGBQR
— max seddon (@maxseddon) March 18, 2022
The Kremlin explained that a technical glitch was the reason the livestream suddenly cut away from Putin and instead showed songs being played, according to Reuters.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The Russian police said, according to Fox News, that roughly 200,000 people were at the rally. The stadium is said to be able to seat 80,000.
While Putin attempted to focus on the unity coming from the Russian military during his speech before getting cut off, he has acknowledged that the invasion of Ukraine has weakened Russia’s economy due to the sanctions imposed on the country, accusing the United States and European allies of having stolen assets.
