Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday accused the West of using the conflict in Ukraine to “finish off” Russia, in an annual address to the nation, saying Westerners bear “responsibility” for the escalation.
“The elites of the West do not hide their objective: to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, that is to say to finish with us once and for all”, he hammered, in a speech intervening three days before the first anniversary of the Russian offensive.
“The responsibility for the escalation in the Ukrainian conflict and its victims (…) rests totally with the Western elites”, said the Russian president, repeating his thesis according to which the West supports neo-Nazi forces in Ukraine to consolidate an anti-Russian state.
Before that, he had said that he remained determined, a year after the start of his offensive in Ukraine, to continue it, while his army has been struggling for months on the battlefield, despite the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of reservists.
“To ensure the security of our country, to eliminate threats from a neo-Nazi regime existing in Ukraine since the 2014 coup, it was decided to carry out a special military operation. And we will settle step by step, carefully and methodically, the objectives that arise in front of us”, he hammered.
Facing the country’s political elite and the military who fought in Ukraine, he also thanked “all the Russian people for their courage and determination”.
Mr. Putin did not, however, outline a strategy for winning the conflict in Ukraine, nor mention the Russian military losses, which according to Ukraine and the West are abysmal.
Referring to the international sanctions that are hitting Russia, Mr. Putin considered that the West “has not achieved anything and will not achieve anything”, while the Russian economy has resisted better than anticipated by the experts.
“We have ensured the stability of the economic situation, protected the citizens”, he noted, believing that the West had failed to “destabilize our society”.
According to him, the drop in GDP in 2022 of only 2.1% is a success. He also assured that inflation would soon stabilize near its annual target of 4%.
Addressing wealthy Russian businessmen whose assets, yachts or accounts have been seized abroad as part of the sanctions, Mr Putin stressed that “no one among the simple people feels sorry for them”, recalling how an elite of oligarchs got rich after the fall of the USSR.
The Russian President therefore called them to economic patriotism: “The sources of well-being, of the future must be here, in the native country, Russia”.
“Invest in Russia”, he said, “the state and society will support you”.
Vladimir Putin also called for the prosecution of “traitors” in Russia, in the midst of a repression of any voice critical of the Kremlin and the conflict in Ukraine, with arrests and heavy prison sentences.
“Those who have chosen to betray Russia must be held accountable before the law”, declared the Russian president, during a speech to the nation, before assuring that it was not a question of a “witch hunt”.
No critical voice from the Kremlin is tolerated in Russia. Since the start of the assault on Ukraine, any criticism of the army has been punishable by 15 years in prison, and the few opposition figures who have not gone into exile have been incarcerated, like ‘Ilia Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza. But many anonymous people have also been arrested for taking a stand against the Kremlin.
Tens of thousands of Russians, perhaps hundreds of thousands, have also been in exile for a year, fearing repression or being mobilized to the front.
Finally, Mr. Putin, as he has done for several years, again presented the West as decadent, believing that pedophilia had become a norm there.
“Look at what they are doing with their own people: the destruction of families, cultural and national identities, perversion and child abuse, even pedophilia, are declared to be the norm (…). And the priests are obliged to bless marriages between homosexuals,” he said in his speech.
02/21/2023 12:01:37 – Moscow (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
