Russian president Vladimir Putin has suspended Moscow’s participation in the last remaining nuclear arms control pact with the US – announcing the move in a bitter speech where he made it clear he will not change his strategy in the war in Ukraine.
In his long-delayed state-of-the-nation address on Tuesday, Mr Putin cast his country — and Ukraine — as victims of western double-dealing and said it is Russia, not Ukraine, fighting for its very existence.
“We aren’t fighting the Ukrainian people,” he said in a speech days before the war’s first anniversary on Friday. “The Ukrainian people have become hostages of the Kyiv regime and its western masters, which have effectively occupied the country.”
The speech reiterated a litany of grievances the Russian leader has frequently offered as justification for the widely condemned military campaign while vowing no military let-up in a conflict that has reawakened fears of a new cold war.
On top of that, Mr Putin sharply upped the ante by saying Moscow will suspend its participation in the so-called New Start Treaty. The pact, signed in 2010 by the US and Russia, caps the number of long-range nuclear warheads the two sides can deploy and limits the use of missiles that can carry atomic weapons.
Mr Putin also said Russia should stand ready to resume nuclear weapons tests if the US does – a move that would end a global ban on such tests in place since the cold war era.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken described Moscow’s decision as “really unfortunate and very irresponsible”.
“We’ll be watching carefully to see what Russia actually does,” he said during a visit to Greece.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, and made a dash towards Kyiv, apparently expecting to quickly overrun the capital. But stiff resistance from Ukrainian forces — backed by western weapons — turned back Moscow’s troops. While Ukraine has reclaimed many areas initially seized by Russia, the two sides have become bogged down in tit-for-tat battles in others.
The war has revived the old Russia-West divide, reinvigorated the Nato alliance and created the biggest threat to Mr Putin’s more than two-decade rule. US president Joe Biden, fresh off a surprise visit to Kyiv, was in Poland on Tuesday on a mission to solidify that western unity — and planned his own speech.
Observers were expected to scour Mr Putin’s address for any signs of how the Russian leader sees the conflict, where he might take it and how it might end.
While the Constitution says the president should deliver the speech annually, Mr Putin never gave one in 2022 as his troops rolled into Ukraine and suffered repeated setbacks.
Much of the speech covered old ground as Mr Putin offered his own version of recent history, discounting arguments by the Ukrainian government that it needed western help to thwart a Russian military takeover.
“Western elites aren’t trying to conceal their goals to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ to Russia,” Mr Putin said in the speech broadcast by all state TV channels.
“They intend to transform the local conflict into a global confrontation.”
He said Russia is prepared to respond since “it will be a matter of our country’s existence”. He has repeatedly depicted Nato’s expansion to include countries close to Russia as an existential threat to his country.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 21 February 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence: https://t.co/Xz8Pg92xcB
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/VdZmtYJGM8— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) February 21, 2023
Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, who was in Ukraine on Tuesday, said she hoped Mr Putin might have taken a different approach.
“What we heard this morning was propaganda that we already know,” she said in English. “He says (Russia) worked on diplomacy to avoid the conflict, but the truth is that there is somebody who is the invader and somebody who is defending itself.”
Mr Putin denied any wrongdoing, even as the Kremlin’s forces in Ukraine hit civilian targets, including hospitals, and are widely accused of war crimes. On the ground on Tuesday, the Ukrainian military said Russian forces shelled southern cities of Kherson and Ochakiv while Mr Putin spoke, killing six people.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian forces were “again mercilessly killing the civilian population”.
The King today visited Ukrainian recruits who are being trained in the UK.
A total of nine other nations have joined the UK in offering basic training to Ukrainian recruits to help them defend their homeland and retake territory. @RoyalFamilypic.twitter.com/gwYTSea7NF— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) February 20, 2023
Many observers predicted Mr Putin’s speech would address Moscow’s fallout with the West — and he began with strong words for the countries that have provided Kyiv with crucial military support and warned them against supplying any longer-range weapons.
“It’s they who have started the war and we are using force to end it,” Mr Putin said before an audience of politicians, state officials and soldiers who have fought in Ukraine.
He also accused the West of taking aim at Russian culture, religion and values because it is aware “it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield”.
Likewise, he said western sanctions would have no effect, saying they have not “achieved anything and will not achieve anything”.
Underscoring the anticipation ahead of the speech, some state TV channels put out a countdown for the event.
Reflecting the Kremlin’s clampdown on free speech and press, this year it barred media from “unfriendly” countries, including the US, UK and those in the EU.
