“When one looks at suffering and bloodied children, one’s hands clench into fists and one’s eyes fill with tears. I think this is the reaction of any normal person. If he doesn’t have this reaction, then he doesn’t have a heart, or he has a heart made of stone,” Putin said.
Russia is trying to mediate a cease-fire in Gaza and to maintain contacts with both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, Reuters reminded. But recently, Moscow provoked an angry reaction from Israel when it invited a representative of Hamas for an official visit.
Israel launched a large-scale military operation in the Gaza Strip in response to an attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel on October 7, which claimed 1,400 mostly civilian lives. Israeli bombing and ground operations have killed more than 9,000 residents, including many children, according to Hamas-controlled authorities, and Tel Aviv has been repeatedly called on to protect civilian lives and prevent a humanitarian disaster in its crackdown on the Islamist movement.
In Ukraine, however, Russian attacks often hit residential areas, and Russian forces have been responsible for a number of child victims since the beginning of the war. In August, the UN reported 546 children killed and 1,156 children injured in the war in Ukraine. However, the real balance will probably be much higher, since the UN overview only includes confirmed victims and injuries.
For example, it is not yet known how many people died in the Russian bombing of a theater in Mariupol in the spring of last year, under which children were also hiding, according to the town hall and the media, there were hundreds of victims.
In Dagestan, in the south of Russia, violent riots also broke out at the local airport on Sunday due to the landing of a plane carrying several Israelis. It was in connection with this incident that Putin spoke about the children, whose suffering, in his opinion, could have made the rioters in Dagestan boil.
