[ad_1]
Putin: the initiators of anti-Russian economic sanctions are punishing themselves
Putin says the west has begun “not just a military and information, but an economic aggression” against Russia. “They have not achieved success in either of these areas,” he says.
“The initiators of the sanctions are punishing themselves,” he said. He went on to say:
They provoked a growth of prices in their own countries, the closures of factories, the collapse of energy sector, and they are telling their citizens that is the Russians who are to blame.
Putin is now talking about Russia’s reduced GDP figures, but claims that instead of the Russian economy collapsing, it has been restructured, and Russia still does business with many areas of the world.
Key events
Putin’s speech is now very much in the territory of economic production numbers at the moment. He accused the west of “theft” of Russia’s currency reserves, and says “the Russian economy has overcome all these risks.”
Putin: the initiators of anti-Russian economic sanctions are punishing themselves
Putin says the west has begun “not just a military and information, but an economic aggression” against Russia. “They have not achieved success in either of these areas,” he says.
“The initiators of the sanctions are punishing themselves,” he said. He went on to say:
They provoked a growth of prices in their own countries, the closures of factories, the collapse of energy sector, and they are telling their citizens that is the Russians who are to blame.
Putin is now talking about Russia’s reduced GDP figures, but claims that instead of the Russian economy collapsing, it has been restructured, and Russia still does business with many areas of the world.
My colleague Isobel Koshiw’s verdict is that the speech so far is “less than conciliatory”.
So far, sounding less than conciliatory
‘Putin says the west will use anyone – terrorists, Nazis, “even the devil himself” – in order to fight Russia’
— Isobel Koshiw (@IKoshiw) February 21, 2023
Putin’s speech has now wandered into a lengthy section about local bureaucracy supporting the loved ones of those killed in the war on Ukraine, and has announced a special fund to help relatives.
Putin to citizens of ‘annexed’ Ukrainian territory: ‘You yourself determined your future’
Referring to the widely derided referendums in the partially occupied areas of Ukraine late last year, Putin said:
I would like to express a special gratitude to the citizens of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. You yourself determined your future. You made your choice despite the threats of terror of the Nazis. Next to you there were military actions taking place, and you made the choice to be together with Russia. To be together with your motherland.
The Russian president has thanked “military journalists” who, he says, are “risking their lives to tell the truth to the whole world”.
Putin is now thanking those in the Russian armed forces who have been fighting in Ukraine. He says there are too many people and units involved to name them all and he did not want to risk omitting someone. He praises mothers, wives, doctors, nurses, railway workers, engineers, agricultural workers for their role in helping the war effort.
Putin has said, without providing any evidence, that in the west “even paedophilia is announced as a normal thing.”
He says the west recognises same sex marriage. He says “That’s fine. They’re adults. They have the right to live their lives. We are always very tolerant about this in Russia.”
But, he says, scripture says marriage is between a man and a woman, and he also cites media reports that the Anglican church was considering gender neutral terms for God.
This is very familiar territory for a Putin speech. He accuses the west of trying to destabilise family life in Russia.
Putin: Ukrainian people were ‘hostages of their western masters’
Putin claims the Ukrainian people had become “hostages of their western masters” who occupied the country in political, economic and military terms. He says “the regime is not serving their national interest. They are serving the interests of foreign powers.”
He says the west is trying to turn a local conflict into a global conflict and “we will react in an appropriate way. We are talking about the existence of our country.”
Putin says the west will use anyone – terrorists, Nazis, “even the devil himself” – in order to fight Russia.
As is often the case in his speeches, Putin is now giving a history lesson, and says that in the 1930s the west opened the door to Nazi Germany, and this goes back even further. He is now talking about the Austro-Hungarian empire.
He says the west supported “an anti-state coup” in Ukraine in 2014. He says that one of the Ukrainian army units is named after a German Nazi unit, and that “those in power choose to close their eyes to this”.
Putin accuses the west of “an endless flow of accusations against Russia” at the recent Munich security conference, and says “the west released the genie from the bottle” as a result of wars, and accuses the west of perpetrating multiple coups.
Putin: ‘They started the war, and we used force in order to stop it’
“We had no doubt,” Putin says, that in February 2022 “everything was prepared” for a punitive action by Kyiv on Donbas. “All of this was completely against the documents accepted by the UN security council.”
“I would like to repeat, they started the war, and we used force in order to stop it,” Putin says.
He said the objective of the west was unlimited power, and that Sevastapol was obviously the next target after Donbas.
[ad_2]
Source link
