Russian President Vladimir Putin today assured Russia will achieve its goals in Ukraine “step by step”, describing the moment the country is going through as “difficult”.
“A year ago, to protect the people of our historic lands, to ensure the security of our country, to remove the threat posed by the neo-Nazi regime that emerged in Ukraine after the 2014 coup, decided to launch a special military operation,” Putin said in his State of the Nation address to the chambers of parliament.
Putin underlined: “Step by step, carefully and consistently, we will solve the tasks before us.”
As of 2014, he claimed that Donbass “fought, defended the right to live in their own country, speak their native language, fought and did not give up under the conditions of constant blockades and bombings, the undisguised hatred of the Kiev regime and believed and hoped that Russia would come to the rescue”.
The Kremlin head said Russia has in the meantime done “everything possible” to solve the problem by peaceful means and has “patiently negotiated” a peaceful way out of this “very difficult” conflict.
“But a completely different scenario was being prepared behind our backs. The promises of Western rulers, their assurances about the desire for peace in Donbass, as we see now, turned out to be a lie, a cruel lie,” he said.
Putin further believed that the West was “simply buying time”, engaging in “tricks and turning a blind eye to political assassinations, regime repression in Kiev, mocking believers and increasingly encouraging Ukrainian neo-Nazis to lead terrorist actions in Donbass “.
“And I want to emphasize that even before the start of the special military operation, Kiev was negotiating with the West to provide Ukraine with air defense systems, fighter jets and other heavy equipment,” he claimed, again accusing Ukraine of trying “to acquire nuclear weapons.” acquire”.
Putin also accused the United States and NATO of “quickly deploying their military bases and secret biological laboratories close to Russia’s borders”, of “dominating the theater of future military operations with maneuvers” and of preparing a “enslaved Ukraine for a great war”. “.
“And today they admit it publicly, without hesitation. They seem proud, revealing themselves in their betrayal, calling the Minsk accords (of peace) and the Norman format of diplomatic action, a beacon,” he denounced.
Putin insisted the West was playing “with marked cards”.
The Russian president stressed that he was speaking to the Russians “at a difficult moment, a historic moment for the country, a moment of cardinal and irreversible changes around the world”.
These are, he said, “the most important historical events that will determine the future of our country and our people, when each of us has a great responsibility”.
West wants to end Russia “forever”.
Vladimir Putin also accused the West of wanting to impose a “strategic defeat” on Russia in Ukraine and end the country “once and for all”.
“Western elites make no secret of their goal: to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, that is, to finish us off once and for all,” he said in a State of the Nation address to both chambers of parliament three days before the first anniversary of the offensive against Ukraine.
“The responsibility for fueling the Ukrainian conflict and its victims (…) rests entirely with the Western elites,” the Russian president said, reiterating his statement that the West is supporting neo-Nazi forces in Ukraine to launch an anti consolidate war. struggle -Russian state.
In front of the country’s political elite and the military that fought in Ukraine, Putin also thanked “all the Russian people for their courage and determination”.
Referring to the international sanctions that hit Russia, Putin believed that the West “has achieved nothing and will achieve nothing”, while the Russian economy has resisted better than expected by specialists.
“We guarantee the stability of the economic situation, we protect the citizens,” he noted, believing that the West has failed “to destabilize Russian society.”
Purpose is not a witch hunt
Russian President Vladimir Putin today defended that “traitors” should be prosecuted and brought to justice in Russia, calling for more repression against opponents of the Kremlin and the conflict in Ukraine.
“Those who choose to betray Russia must be held accountable to the law,” Putin said this morning during his State of the Nation address, three days before the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
The Russian president assured that the aim is not to carry out a “witch hunt”, and believed that those critical of the presidency and the war face arrests and heavy prison sentences.
The lengthy speech, which lasted more than an hour and a half, is the first of its kind Putin has delivered in nearly two years.
During his intervention in parliament, Vladimir Putin also assured that more modern technologies will be introduced in the production of weapons and urged arms manufacturers to guarantee their “mass production”.
“We are going to actively introduce more advanced technologies that will guarantee an increase in the qualitative potential of the army and navy,” said the Kremlin head, adding that the prototypes that already exist in the various branches of the armed forces ” surpass their foreign analogues”.
According to Putin, the equipment level of the Russian armed forces relative to modern nuclear weapons is 91% higher than that of the West.
“We have a force development plan and our future steps must be based on real combat experience, which is invaluable,” he added.
Putin, who regularly denounces Western sexual and gender freedoms as an existential danger, returned to the subject in his speech on Tuesday, saying pedophilia had become the norm in the West. “Look what they are doing to their own people: the destruction of families, cultural and national identities, perversion and child abuse, even pedophilia, are declared the norm (…). And priests are obliged to ordain same-sex marriages ,” he said.
The speech, the first on the state of the nation given by Putin in nearly two years, comes three days before marking the first anniversary of Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine, which began in the early hours of February 24, 2022.
The Kremlin did not allow media from countries deemed “enemies” to receive accreditation for media coverage of the speech.
The day chosen for the speech, which will be broadcast on all public television stations in the country, coincides with the date when Vladimir Putin signed the recognition of the independence of the breakaway republics of Lugansk and Donetsk, in the Donbass region (Eastern Ukraine) . ).
That same day, February 21, 2022, Putin ordered the mobilization of the Russian army for “peacekeeping” in the pro-Russian separatist areas of eastern Ukraine, a prelude to the start of the military offensive against Ukraine that would take place in a few days. later on. .
Source: DN
