Russia’s Putin says Donbass volunteers fighting to protect Motherland

President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Russian forces in Ukraine were defending the Motherland from an “absolutely unacceptable threat,” as he opened the annual parade marking victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

Putin told thousands of troops gathered in Moscow’s Red Square that Russian forces in Ukraine were continuing the battle against Nazism, but that it was important “to do everything so that the horror of a global war does not happen again.”