MOSCOW The Russian president’s speech to the parliament was inevitably subject to expectations and guesswork. Would it With Vladimir Putin up his sleeve some new opening in relation to Russia’s war against Ukraine?
In terms of the war itself, Putin is continuing on his chosen path, and he really had nothing new to offer on that path.
Instead, Putin could announce a new significant weakening of relations with the West. He had saved this news for the very end of the speech.
In his recent speeches, Putin has always returned to nuclear weapons in one way or another. They are a symbol of Russia’s greatness and its last guarantee.
Now Putin has announced that Russia will suspend compliance with the START treaty limiting nuclear weapons. Russia will therefore not withdraw from the agreement, but suspend its compliance, Putin emphasized.
Perhaps, in Putin’s opinion, this was a sufficient answer from the US president Joe Biden for Monday’s surprise visit to Kiev.
However, the agreement had already run into difficulties earlier, when the corona pandemic had interrupted the inspections and new ones had not been agreed upon.
During the tensions of 2021, the United States and Russia managed to agree to extend the validity of the New Start agreement until February 2026.
As always, according to Putin, everything was the West’s fault. Putin said that Russia cannot allow Western inspections of its strategic targets under the START treaty, because the West is behind Ukraine’s attacks on Russian strategic bases.
By this, Putin was referring at least to the drone attack on the Engels air base in the Saratov region in December, which was said to have been carried out by Ukraine. The base is used by the Russian strategic air force.
The crumbling of the START treaty could mean a new nuclear arms race. The treaty system limiting nuclear weapons created between the Soviet Union and the United States in the late years of the Cold War has practically now been completely dismantled.
The parties blame each other, but the initiative has often been the United States, which in 2002 withdrew from the ABM Treaty on missile defense and in 2019 withdrew from the INF Treaty on intermediate-range missiles.
Putin said that the Soviet Union and the United States initially concluded the START treaty under different circumstances, and he is right.
During the Cold War, the parties created – often through tense near-miss situations – some kind of rules of the game. In the current situation, there is no clarity about the rules of the game.
Nuclear deterrence has still functioned as a sort of spiritual stern that has demarcated Russia’s and the West’s actions in the Ukraine war, but these lines of demarcation are far from clear.
Concrete war events in Ukraine Putin didn’t really comment, because the Russian leadership has no impressive victories on the battlefield to show for now.
The first part of the speech was a repeat of Putin’s big story, how the West has built Ukraine into an anti-Russia and how the war is about Russia’s existence.
Putin calls the territories he occupied from Ukraine “historical territories” of Russia, and he seems to see practically all of Ukraine as such.
Putin said the West started the war, not Russia. The West is trying to turn a regional conflict into a global one, Putin accused.
Putin again listed how the West promotes “neoliberal” values and destroys marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
This is all old history. Russia has not achieved its goals in the phase of open war that has lasted almost a year, even though they have been formulated in a deliberately unclear manner.
“Demilitarization” seems far away when only more western weapons are delivered to Ukraine.
“Denazification” is also progressing slowly, because the Ukrainian regime, which the Russian leadership calls Nazis, is still standing and yesterday Monday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyi received the President of the United States in Kiev.
Security not Russian military actions thanks to has increased even within Russia. If you look at the Russian regions on the border of Ukraine, there are reports from time to time of firing from Ukraine.
Muscovites were surprised by the anti-aircraft equipment that appeared in the cityscape recently. It is said that the authorities also checked the condition of the population shelters.
The most concern among citizens was sparked by the partial motion launch announced in the fall, which has not yet been officially decided by the president’s ukaas, i.e. decree.
In his speech, Putin did not announce a new wave of mobilization. The purpose of the speech was to instill confidence in the citizens, and opinion polls show that the introduction of the campaign in the fall, at least momentarily, sharply lowered social moods.
In addition to senators, MPs and members of the traditional elite, there were of course soldiers from the Russian “military special operation” in the audience.
Putin said that a state foundation would be established to support families of fallen soldiers and war veterans.
There will be more fallen and wounded for a long time, because based on the speech, the Russian president is ready to continue the war he started for a long time.
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