Kate Plummer
Feb 21, 2023
content.jwplatform.com
Vladimir Putin today delivered a speech ahead of the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian President attacked the West during the wide-ranging speech in which he vowed to continue with the conflict and repeated baseless claims that Ukraine is a Nazi state.
It comes after US President Biden unexpectedly visited Kyiv to show support to his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Zelensky himself recently visited the UK to address parliament and ask for more military support.
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Here's a rundown of what Putin said:
"Historic events will determine the future of our country... each of us is bound by a huge responsibility."
Despite having a personal responsibility for the devastating conflict, Putin opted to share the blame around to just about everyone bar himself.
He added that the West's commitment to peace turned out to be "fraud", and a "cruel lie" and claimed that Kyiv was trying to gather biological and nuclear weapons. This claim is nonsense, by the way.
"We were doing everything possible to solve this problem peacefully, negotiating a peaceful way out of this difficult conflict, but behind our backs a very different scenario was being prepared."
Next, he claimed he tried to solve the conflict peacefully and blamed the West for being anti-Russia for years.
Putin accused the West of "opening the way" for Nazis to take power in the 1930s, and said that since the 19th century the West has tried to tear away Russia's "historical lands" - "what is now called Ukraine".
"Family means a union between a man and a woman."
Then he threw in some homophobia for good measure and slammed the West (once again) for allowing same-sex marriage.
"We have to protect our children from degradation and degeneration - and we will," he added.
"It's essential that all participants in the special military operation... receive annual leave of at least 14 days".
Moving on to his human resources era, Putin dropped annual leave for the army and everyone applauded. We wonder whether they'll next get corporate bonding activity days - like mini-golf.
Sanctions claims
Putin said Western sanctions designed to make the Russian people "suffer" had not succeeded, and claimed the share of Russian roubles in international transactions has "doubled".
Arms reductions
Putin announced that Russia has suspended participation from the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty - a strategic arms reduction treaty between the US and Russia signed in 2002.
Great news...
"The truth is on our side"
Hmm...
Here's what people made of the two-hour rant:
\u201cPutin speech bingo:\n\nNazis in Ukraine \u2611\ufe0f\nAmerican bases all over the world \u2611\ufe0f \nPaedophiles in the West \u2611\ufe0f\nMarriage is a union between a man and a woman \u2611\ufe0f\u201d— Jonny Tickle (@Jonny Tickle) 1676971694
\u201c\ud83e\udd23Everyone is so enthusiastic about Putin's speech\n\nBelieve me, I am making people a favor to listen to that dull, uninteresting, boring speech\n\n#Putin #Russia\u201d— @PStyleOne1 (@@PStyleOne1) 1676976223
\u201cPutin sounds like a broken record..."it is them not us" -- but his speech normalises the war and establishes it a permanent new reality of Russian life. A forever war...\u201d— Arkady Ostrovsky (@Arkady Ostrovsky) 1676975354
\u201cGood lord, my expectations were low, but Putin is not even pathetic anymore. He\u2019s just laughable.\nIn the wake of Biden\u2019s visit to Kyiv, nothing could be a weaker response than this sorry-ass \u201cspeech.\u201d\u201d— Illia Ponomarenko \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6 (@Illia Ponomarenko \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6) 1676972293
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