March 18, 2022 at 4:40 PM
President Vladimir Putin praised the "special military operation" in Ukraine as a "heroic" mission by the Russian army during a patriotic rally at a Moscow stadium on Friday.
Putin spoke before tens of thousands of cheering Russians at Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium, where people waved the Russian state flag and flags with the letter Z, which has become a pro-war symbol.
He said all of the Kremlin's plans for Ukraine would be implemented.
The crowd shouted: "For Russia. For the win." Above the stage on which Putin appeared was written: "For a world without Nazism."
The rally was held to celebrate the eighth anniversary of the annexation of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea on March 18, 2014.
