#Announcement

🎙 On Thursday, February 26, Russia’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova will hold her weekly briefing on current foreign policy issues.

🕐 1.00 pm MSK
🕚 11.00 am GMT
🕛 12.00 pm CET
🕗 8.00 pm CST (Beijing)

For accreditation inquiries, please contact the MFA Press Centre. Accredited journalists will receive details on the technical aspects of submitting questions.

The Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman will answer media questions received by the call centre.

❗️ Accreditation is open until February 25, 10.00 am MSK.

⚡️ Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova's statement on the four-year mark since the start of the special military operation (February 24, 2026)

💬 Four years ago – on 24 February 2022 – the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, pursuant to the decision of President Vladimir Putin and in accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, launched the special military operation (SMO). Its objectives are to eliminate threats emanating from territories controlled by the Kiev regime, and to ensure the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. All actions are carried out in strict compliance with Article 51 of the UN Charter, which enshrines the right to individual and collective self-defence.

This forced step was preceded by eight long years, during which Russia made responsible efforts to facilitate a political and diplomatic settlement of the conflict in Donbass, which followed the Western-orchestrated, financed and organized armed coup in February 2014. Those who refused to submit to the diktat of the “Maidan victors” – millions of civilians in Donbass and Novorossiya – were subjected to systematic persecution.

By 2022, the number of civilian victims of the armed conflict in Donbass had exceeded 13,500.

❗️A massive anti-Russian propaganda campaign was unleashed with the sole purpose of convincing the world that Russians – and all those who consider themselves part of the wider Russian world – allegedly have no right to preserve their national and cultural identity, neither in Ukraine nor elsewhere.

Since 2014, with Western assistance, Ukraine underwent active militarization and military development of its territory as a potential theatre of operations against Russia, creating threats comparable to those against our country’s very existence. Together with NATO’s unrestrained expansion, this led to a profound security crisis in Europe. Russia sought to make itself heard in Washington and Brussels, persistently and at length explaining where and why our “red lines” lay.

Russia’s proposals to provide legally binding security guarantees – including non-expansion of NATO eastwards – were ignored.

Serious concern was also caused by Zelensky’s public statements at the Munich Security Conference in February 2022 regarding claims to nuclear weapons, which created real risks for Russia and for strategic stability as a whole. In doing so, three fundamental pillars of Ukrainian statehood – its neutral, non-aligned and non-nuclear status, which ensured its international recognition in the early 1990s – were undermined.

The timeliness and validity of the decision taken by the Russian leadership in 2022 to launch the SMO are confirmed by the continuing descent of territories controlled by the Kiev regime into open neo-Nazi extremism.

Among other things, the SMO exposed the Western plans, led by the Anglo-Saxons, to impose upon the international community a so-called “rules-based order”, the sole purpose of which is to secure and maintain Western hegemony. Today, many – including in the West – recognize the flawed and unrealistic nature of this geopolitical venture.

In pursuing the objectives of the SMO, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are courageously making an invaluable contribution to strengthening regional and international stability. Our country is actively engaging in dialogue with all interested partners on the creation of a system of equal and indivisible Eurasian security. We are convinced that this will also be facilitated by resolving the Ukrainian crisis with due regard for Russia’s legitimate interests.

☝️ All the objectives of the special military operation will be achieved.

A lasting, just and sustainable peace is possible only on the basis of eliminating the root causes of the conflict. This goal guides the current efforts of Russian diplomacy, including contacts with the countries of the Global Majority and within the framework of the Russia-US dialogue.

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