President Rodrigo Duterte meets with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow on May 24, 2017. Malacañang Photo/file
MANILA - Russia deserves the condemnation it received from the international community for its bloody invasion of Ukraine, President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday.
In his speech during the joint meeting of the national and regional task force to end local communist armed conflict in Butuan City, Duterte rejected any comparison with Russian President Vladimir Putin, even as both of them are being accused of human rights atrocities.
Duterte said that while he may have been directly responsible for the deaths of a number of individuals under his bloody war on drugs, he did not carry out bombings that killed countless innocent civilians including children, unlike the Russian leader.
“So with drugs, ako sinasabi nila, demandado daw ako. Natatawa ako kasi dalawa na kami ni Putin ngayon. Siya human- kasi na-massacre, tapos daw pati ako. Sabi ko, hoy! Nagpapatay ako ng tao pero ang pinapatay ko kriminal. Hindi ako nagpapatay, nagbobomba ng bata, matanda,” Duterte said.
“Iyong aking kaso sa ICC magkaiba. Ako, kriminal ang pinatay ko. Eh yung giyera nila doon, it’s so brutal na you know history keeps on repeating itself,” he continued.
“Magkaibigan kami ni Putin but I’d like to say that what is happening there deserves the condemnation. Hindi maganda.”
The Philippines has explicitly condemned Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, and has called for an immediate end to the attacks. Duterte however insists that the Philippines will remain neutral on the issue, saying that he will not allow any Filipino soldier to die in a conflict which the country is not a part of.
Rodrigo Duterte, Russia, Ukraine, human rights, Vladimir Putin, Russian invasion of Ukraine