CHEESE FRIES. Vladimir Putin is due to deliver a speech closely linked to the war in Ukraine on February 21, 2023, a few days before the anniversary of the Russian invasion. Will he announce a military escalation in the conflict? The live.
The essential
- Vladimir Putin is due to deliver a speech this Tuesday, February 21, 2023 to the Federal Assembly and senior Russian dignitaries.
- The war in Ukraine should be at the center of the Russian president’s speech. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict which erupted almost a year ago, on February 24, 2022, had economic, social and military consequences in Russia.
- Will Vladimir Putin take advantage of his speech to announce a military escalation? A new major offensive? Or will he try to camouflage his strategic failures?
- Follow Vladimir Putin’s speech live.
Live
10:40 – Aid offered to the families of Russian soldiers engaged in the war in Ukraine
“I propose to create a public aid fund specially dedicated to the aid and support of the families of soldiers and reservists who are part of the special military operation. This fund must be accessible to the families of all the dead and all veterans of the military special operation to manage all the problems encountered by relatives”. Vladimir Putin also announces the possibility of granting 14 days of leave per six-month period to allow soldiers to go near their families.
10:32 – Putin thanks the Russian army and all the men mobilized in the war in Ukraine
Vladimir Putin launches into a long list of thanks to pay tribute to the soldiers and officers of the Russian army and to all the men mobilized on the front or at the back but also in civil society to continue to turn the country around . The Head of State thanks all the Russian inhabitants and those of Donbass who support Moscow: “Nothing has shaken your determination to be with your homeland, Russia”.
10:30 – Putin warns the West
“The Kiev regime does not serve the interests of the Ukrainian people, but those of the West. The more the West delivers far-reaching systems to Ukraine, the more we will be forced to intervene to prevent the threat to our country, c is inevitable,” Vladimir Putin warned.
10:23 – Vladimir Putin castigates the West’s anti-Russian strategy
“The Ukrainian people have become hostages to the Kiev regime and Western masters” Vladimir Putin believes that the West’s “objective is to fight Russia and they are ready to use any means: terrorism, neo-Nazis. The objective of this anti-Russian strategy is to create instability on our borders”.
10:15 – According to Putin, it was the kyiv regime “that caused the war to break out”
“They are the ones who started the war and we used force to put an end to this war.”
10:14 – The “concrete actions of NATO” and the “repugnant method” of the United States denounced
“We did everything in our power to settle this problem peacefully, but behind our backs another scenario was brewing: the promises of Western officials for peace in the Donbass were a lie,” Vladimir Putin said, lambasting the actions of NATO and above all the “disgusting method of lying” of the United States which helped Ukraine. “There have been concrete actions: the deployment of NATO on our borders, military contingents arriving at our border,” he added, laying the blame on the West.
10:11 – Putin says he wants to “eliminate neo-Nazi threat”
From the very first words of his speech, Vladimir Putin referred to the war in Ukraine, recalling the Russian mission “to eliminate the neo-Nazi threat” and to save the Donbass. Again, he justified the merits of the “special military operation” to respond to the “2014 coup” in Ukraine according to his vision of history.
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Assumptions are rife about the content of Vladimir Putin’s speech, who on several occasions reinvented history to his advantage and did not hesitate to agitate the nuclear threat. However, the speech of the Russian president on February 21 could be “unsurprising” according to the specialist in Russian questions and professor at Sciences Po, Nicolas Tenzer, guest of BFMTV: “It is clear that he will announce the continuation of the war, that the objectives will continue, that NATO is the main threat to Russia, that the sanctions are not working”. But more than restarting the game of military escalation, Vladimir Putin could try to camouflage his strategic failures on the ground. In this sense, the Air Force General Patrick Dutartre abounded on the same channel anticipating an attempt by the Russian Head of State to “positive a delicate situation”.
Party to the Russian-Ukrainian war, Kiev fears that Vladimir Putin’s speech this Tuesday, February 21 will be an opportunity to re-motivate the troops and announce a new large-scale and symbolic offensive as the date of February 24 approaches. . This was verbalized by Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov in early February.
But the hypothesis of a massive attack is not favored by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). “Vladimir Putin is unlikely to announce any steps for a further escalation of the war in Ukraine, any major new Russian mobilization initiatives or any other major policies in his scheduled address to the Russian Federal Assembly on February 21,” wrote organization on Twitter.