From our correspondent in Moscow
In his annual speech to the Federal Assembly – the Russian Parliament – Vladimir Putin responded Thursday in a threatening tone to Emmanuel Macron’s mention of the possible sending of Western troops to Ukraine. “We remember those who sent contingents to our territory,” recalled the Russian president, referring to the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945), his constant reference. “The consequences for those who intervene would be even more tragic for them, we too have weapons that are capable of hitting targets on their territory,” warned the head of the Kremlin, recalling Moscow’s development of new weapons hypersonic. In his address lasting more than two hours, a record for this type of address, he attacked in particular the “expansion of NATO to the East”, citing Finland and Sweden, which, -he said, “choose targets on our territory”.
“Everything that they are inventing at the moment, what they are scaring the world with, all this constitutes a real threat of a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons, which means the destruction of civilization,” Vladimir claimed Putin, once again raising the threat of atomic weapons, as he has done several times since the invasion of Ukraine. “These people have forgotten what war is,” he said, pointing to Westerners – “For them, it’s just cartoons,” continued Vladimir Putin, affirming that “the actions of the United States and their satellites led to the dismantling of the European security system.” Certainly, “Russia is ready to dialogue with the United States on strategic stability,” the Kremlin leader continued. Opening sketch, recurring in the Russian posture. “But we are dealing with a state whose authorities are openly carrying out hostile actions against us,” he immediately continued, accusing Washington in particular of “unfounded allegations about the deployment of nuclear weapons in space.” However, he further underlined, “no world order is possible without a sovereign and strong Russia”.
However, the feeling of victimization still surfaces in the speeches of the leader who, here again, wants to believe that “the West is not only seeking to slow down the development of the Russian Federation; he wants a dependent space, in decline, on the verge of extinction. (…) They would like to do to Russia what they did in other regions and in Ukraine: sow discord and weaken it from within, but they made the wrong calculation.” Because “Russia will not allow anyone to interfere without a sovereign and strong Russia,” the Russian president also said.
Two weeks before presidential elections without real opposition, Vladimir Putin also wanted to show his confidence, both with regard to the military situation and the country’s economy. In a better position than a year ago, when the Russian army was struggling in the south and north-east of Ukraine, before the failure of Kiev’s counter-offensive, the president congratulated that his troops were “advancing confidently in several directions” of the front. For him, “the absolute majority of the Russian people” supports the “Special Military Operation,” according to the euphemism officially in force. He also welcomed the economic “flexibility and resistance”, despite Western sanctions, going so far as to promise that Russia would rank in the future among the top four economies on the planet. “We preserved the unity of the country, we did not allow it to be torn into pieces,” the Kremlin leader said. His speech was largely devoted to an impressive catalog of projects for the Russian regions. An endless anthology of promises which implicitly underlined the serious social inadequacies of a country whose population wonders about the real benefits it could derive from the war in Ukraine
