Russian President Vladimir Putin in his address to the Federal Assembly in Moscow SPUTNIK | Reuters
“One thing must be clear to everyone: the greater the range of weapons supplied to Ukraine, the more we will be forced to move the threat away from our borders,” warns the Russian president who announces that Russia is suspending the last nuclear disarmament treaty with the US. USA
21 feb 2023 . Updated at 12:26 p.m.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will take the war in Ukraine to the end. In his first intervention before Russian legislators since 2021, he affirmed that the country will overcome “the challenges it encounters. We will achieve our goals step by step,” he said. He also accused the West of wanting to deal Russia a “strategic defeat” in the Ukraine. “What does this mean? What is that to us? It means they want to finish us off once and for all.”said.
Putin, who had not addressed Parliament since April 2021, warned that in that case “the very existence” of the Russian Federation would be in danger. He also lashed out at the Western powers for wanting to convert a local conflict in a “global confrontation” and warned that the defeat of Russia on the battlefield “is impossible”. “One thing should be clear to everyone: the greater the range of weapons supplied to Ukraine, the more we will be forced to move the threat away from our borders,” he said. “Russia is invincible”Putin assured.
nuclear escalation
The Russian president also announced the suspension of Russia’s participation in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), the latest pact signed with the United States for the reduction and control of nuclear weapons.
Putin, who has indicated that Russia “must be prepared to carry out nuclear tests if the United States carries them out first”, has pointed out that it is not a question of “abandoning” the treaty completely but of “suspend participation”as he clarified during his speech before the Russian Federal Assembly almost a year after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Thus, he has described NATO’s calls for Russia to comply with said treaty as “absurd”, especially after the Alliance’s allies denounced Russia’s non-compliance with it in early February and asked Moscow to comply with its obligations. obligations.
The Ukrainian “polygon”
In addition, the Russian leader denounced that “the West uses Ukraine as a polygon, as a battering ram against Russia” and recalled that, even before the start of the Russian military campaign almost a year ago, Kiev was already negotiating with its sponsors the supply of weapons . “The responsibility for the outbreak of the Ukrainian conflict, for the escalation, for the increase in the number of victims falls entirely on the western elites and, of course, in current kyiv regime», he stressed.
“To ensure the security of our country, to eliminate the threat posed by the neo-Nazi regime that emerged in Ukraine after the 2014 coup, it was decided to carry out a special military operation. Step by step, carefully and consistently, we will achieve the tasks we face,” Putin claimed to justify the invasion.
more modern weapons
Putin also announced the introduction of more modern technologies in the production of weapons and drawing on the experience of the military campaign in Ukraine. “We will actively introduce the most advanced technologies that will ensure the increase in the qualitative potential of the Army and Navy. We have samples of weapons and equipment in each of the areas,” the Kremlin chief said during the state of the nation address to both houses of Parliament. The challenge now facing Russian arms manufacturers is to ensure their “mass production.”
A woman cries over the body of her father, killed by Russian forces in Kharkiv, Ukraine. ALKIS KONSTANTINIDIS | Reuters
Civilians killed in Ukraine exceed 8,000 after a year of war
The number of civilians killed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine confirmed by the United Nations today surpassed the barrier of 8.000, indicated the UN Office for Human Rights, which pointed out that a year of conflict has also caused 13,287 injuries among the non-military population. “Our data is just the tip of the iceberg in a war whose cost to civilians is unbearable,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said in a statement.
His office, which has been monitoring civilian casualties since the start of the Russian invasion, today published an annual report in which it stressed that at least 487 of the civilians killed in a year of war and 954 of the injured were boys and girls.
40% of the victims (dead and wounded) whose sex is known were women, according to the report, which acknowledges that the real number could be much higher since there are no complete data on the effects of the war in towns hard hit by the conflict such as Mariúpol, Lisichansk, Popasna or Severodonetsk, among others.
Biden’s challenge to Putin from kyiv: “America is here to stay”
Mikel Ayestaran
Joe Biden wanted to mark the first anniversary of the Ukraine war with a visit to kyiv. He could have chosen another city like Lviv, in the west of the country and safer, but he took a ten-hour train ride and stood in the heart of Ukraine to shake hands with Volodimir Zelensky and tell him: “We are not leaving, America is here to stay”. Without a bulletproof vest – unlike many other Western and EU representatives who have visited the country before him – and to the roar of air-raid sirens, the veteran Democratic leader walked through central Kiev sending the Kremlin a clear message of defiance and commitment to this war. “kyiv stands and Ukraine stands,” Biden declared. And it is in his hands that this continues like this.
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