The year 2022 was a year of “difficult and necessary decisions” for Russia, but which allowed the country to “achieve full sovereignty,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said this Saturday in a New Year message to the population.
“This has been a year of difficult and necessary decisions, of very important steps to achieve the full sovereignty of Russia and a powerful consolidation of our society,” Putin said in a speech quoted by Efe and in which he appeared accompanied by military elements.
According to the head of state, this year “he has put many things in their place” and has distinguished “courage and heroism from betrayal and lack of character”.
“He showed that there is no greater force than love for family and loved ones, loyalty to friends and comrades in arms, and loyalty to the homeland,” he stressed.
According to the Russian leader, 2022 “was a year of crucial and fateful events” that laid “the foundations for the common future” of the country, something that is, in his opinion, “true independence.”
“That is why we fight today. We are defending our people in our historical territories, ”he said, referring to the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia, annexed by Russia in September, during the invasion of the country.
The military offensive launched on February 24 by Russia in Ukraine has already caused the flight of more than 14 million people -6.5 million internally displaced persons and more than 7.8 million to European countries-, according to the most recent data from the UN, which catalogs this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since the Second World War (1939-1945).
Right now, 17.7 million Ukrainians need humanitarian aid and 9.3 million need food aid and shelter.
The Russian invasion – justified by Putin, with the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security – was condemned by the wider international community, which has responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and imposing political and economic sanctions on Russia. .
Source: TSF
