MOSCOW – Speaking to a joint session of the Russian parliament and Kremlin officials, Russian President Vladimir Putin described the Ukrainian conflict as an existential struggle against the West, while also announcing Russia’s withdrawal from the last remaining arms control treaty with the United States. “They initiated this war, and we are employing our troops to put an end to it,” Putin added, alluding to the crisis in Ukraine.
Putin’s statements came only days before the one-year anniversary of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour. The gathering audience included uniformed troops who, according to the Kremlin, had just returned from the frontlines of Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Putin highlighted Russia’s considerable casualties in the conflict and asked those in attendance to observe a minute of silence in their honour. The Russian president also offered a variety of social help packages for bereaved families. Most of Putin’s speech focused on economic difficulties, with Putin saying that Western sanctions had failed. “They haven’t done anything, and they won’t,” Putin added, noting that Western economists had predicted Russia’s economy would collapse.
Any mention of Russia’s substantial failures on the battlefield, as well as its early failure to take Kyiv and depose Ukraine’s democratically elected government, was conspicuously absent from Putin’s speech. Putin also did not say how the conflict would finish and did not describe Russia’s ultimate intentions, beyond safeguarding the Russian-speaking people in eastern Ukraine from the “genocide” being perpetrated by the Ukrainian government.
Putin withdraws from the armaments control accord:
Putin also stated that Russia will postpone its participation in the New START weapons control deal with the United States, while he emphasised that Moscow will not withdraw from the accord. “I am compelled to declare today that Russia is withdrawing from the Strategic Offensive Arms Treaty,” Putin said.
New Start was signed in 2010, went into effect in 2011, and was extended through 2026. It restricts the amount of strategic nuclear weapons that Russia and the United States can use. Both nations control the vast bulk of deployable warheads.
Frequent inspections required by the agreement to ensure that neither party is cheating were halted in March 2020 because to the epidemic. When ties between Moscow and Washington deteriorated over Ukraine, Russia postponed plans to restart such inspections.
Putin made it clear in his remarks that the two crises were inextricably intertwined. “The United States and NATO have said openly that their objective is to see Russia’s strategic defeat. Then, as if nothing had occurred, they declare they’re willing to visit our military outposts, even the most recent “stated Russia’s president.
Putin also stated that he had authorised his military and civilian nuclear energy organisation to be ready to test additional nuclear weapons if the US conducted new tests first. “No one should have hazardous illusions that global parity can be eliminated,” Russian President Vladimir Putin stated.
Russia’s move was regarded as “very sad and reckless” by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The US has already accused Russia of breaking the two countries’ final surviving nuclear armaments accord.
Putin’s words came only hours before President Biden delivers his speech. Putin’s statements came only hours before President Biden was supposed to speak on the anniversary of the conflict from Poland.
Biden’s speech comes on the heels of his unexpected visit to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, on Monday, which Moscow saw as both aggressive and confirmation that Russia is basically conducting a proxy war with the US in Ukraine.
Putin gave a now-familiar list of grievances against the West, including what he called its moral and spiritual breakdown, the ideals of which he said endangered Russia’s young. Moscow Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, was sat front-row centre in the hall.
The Russian leader compared Ukraine’s “neo Fascist” regime to Nazi Germany, claiming that Moscow was defending itself in the same way that the Soviet Union defended its borders during WWII.
He closed his 45-minute speech with the words of a Soviet military slogan: “We are in the right.”
The following are some examples of what I mean.
Putin’s speech effectively fulfilled an unfulfilled promise: the Kremlin repeatedly postponed and eventually cancelled last year’s presentation amid a steady stream of terrible news from the Ukrainian battlefield.
Today’s speech also kicks off a series of linked and orchestrated events: on Wednesday, Russian MPs will convene for an extraordinary session of both chambers of parliament, during which Putin will also address a huge gathering at Moscow’s largest stadium.
Despite the extended wait, Putin’s statement today was likewise rich in calendar symbolism. It was exactly a year ago that Russian President Vladimir Putin called for the formal recognition of two pro-Russian separatist republics in eastern Ukraine, branding international diplomatic efforts to preserve Ukraine’s territorial integrity and find a diplomatic solution to the Donbas conflict “futile.”
Putin then summoned his National Security Council for a televised session to examine the independence question — now iconic for the picture of the Russian leader holding court across a large corridor to confer with, in theory, his top advisors. Putin dispatched Russian soldiers within days, reportedly to safeguard Moscow’s new friends under a hastily inked security arrangement. Ukraine’s invasion had begun.