It is a performance that reminds observers strongly of the hours-long monologues of the former General Secretaries of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. Vladimir Putin will speak about Russia’s current challenges in his State of the Union address on Thursday. However, the propaganda speech of the head of the Moscow Kremlin looks more like a school report. Putin reads a lot from his notes and occasionally throws in a slide with figures. The mood in the room seems gloomy; the guests selected by the Kremlin look emotionlessly at the president for hours. Occasionally there is polite applause.
For Putin, it is also about improving the mood in Russia. The Russian army is currently on the offensive in Ukraine, but the country has been at war for two years – with hundreds of thousands of deaths. This is one of the reasons why the Russian president is once again taking the opportunity to present Russia as a victim of the West and to offer the prospect of financial gifts to its own people.
On the one hand, Putin is refraining from making any major announcements on Thursday, but his speech sheds light on the Russian president’s current fears. He draws red lines for the West in the conflict in Ukraine and the threat of nuclear war. Putin seems confident of victory, but his threatening gestures are likely to irritate his main partner, China.
Putin is confident of victory, but still threatening
Especially during one part of his speech, the room suddenly becomes ice cold. Putin frowned at the audience as he accused the West of creating the threat of nuclear conflict. “They must finally understand that we also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory.” says Putin. It is a threat that the Kremlin has not often made since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The background is clear: there is at least talk in the West that soldiers from NATO countries could also be deployed in Ukraine. Surprisingly, French President Emmanuel Macron no longer ruled this out on Monday evening – and Russian propaganda is taking advantage of this advance. Putin will speak this Thursday about how the West has “colonial desires” and is fueling national conflicts around the world.
The Russian president, who himself ordered the attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022, portrays Russia as a victim, continues to pursue a confrontational course with NATO and shows no willingness to negotiate or compromise – at least not in the Ukraine conflict. Given the military situation, he sees no need to change course. Strong together until victory, regardless of your own losses.
“You talked about the possibility of sending Western military contingents to Ukraine” Putin says in his speech. Such a move would have “tragic” consequences for the countries involved, he warns.
It was mainly Russian leaders who, at least in the first few months after the start of the invasion, often talked about using nuclear weapons to stoke fear in the West of escalation and weaken Western support for Ukraine. Putin is now drawing a new red line: NATO soldiers are not allowed to operate in Ukraine. But these lines often existed: for example with tanks or artillery systems – and apparently there also seems to be great concern in Moscow about the deliveries of Taurus cruise missiles from Germany, experts say. However, so far the feared escalation has not occurred.
Offer to the US
The reason for this is simply that Putin has no interest in this escalation either, because it means that he can no longer achieve his war goals. When he speaks in his speech about an “end of civilization” through the use of nuclear weapons, he means this primarily as a deterrent. The aim is to prevent NATO from expanding its initiatives.
However, the fact that Putin has to resort to these messages again is certainly a surprise: after all, his army currently has the initiative in Ukraine. As he emphasized again in Moscow, Russia continues to expand its war economy. Russian industry is succeeding in producing more and more weapons, ammunition and military equipment. So far, the West does not seem determined enough to face the Russians in the war of attrition.
However, the Kremlin boss appears to be aware that the West as a whole has not even come close to exhausting its economic potential. So if Ukraine’s Western supporters wake up from their hibernation of debate and hesitation, things wouldn’t exactly look good for Russia.
That is why Putin tries to deter and sow division, including in his state of the nation speech. He offers the US talks on “issues of strategic stability”. This definitely means an improvement in relations, but only with everything that excludes the subject of Ukraine. This is mainly intended to appeal to the Americans around Donald Trump, who see the Ukraine conflict as a European problem. That fuels fears that Putin plans to make a bad deal for Ukraine with Trump if he wins the US presidential elections in November.
Problems in China are likely
However, there is also certainty about who Moscow sees as an equal partner: only the United States. Putin does not want to negotiate peace with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, nor with the European Union. He does not mention the EU at all because he probably does not want to attach importance to it as a regulatory power. Russia has always tried to undermine the European treaties to strengthen its position of political power. This is also why Putin has influence over countries like Hungary.
So the signs continue to point to confrontation. His lecture on Thursday: The Western G7 states will lose importance anyway, while the emerging BRICS countries will dominate the global economy in the future. The West only wants to keep Russia small, divide the country and stop its development.
It is primarily a dominant BRICS country that is unlikely to be enthusiastic about Putin’s renewed nuclear threats. At the Munich Security Conference in February, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi again made it clear that Beijing does not condone playing around with the nuclear threat. Previously, it was thanks to China’s initiative that the Kremlin verbally disarmed the area.
Putin’s renewed threat with nuclear weapons is therefore a slap in the face to his most important partner. This is annoying for the Chinese leadership, especially since the Chinese peace initiative in the war in Ukraine has not been successful so far. This is a serious setback for China’s self-image as a superpower, and it remains to be seen how Beijing will respond to the Kremlin chief’s renewed threats.
Election gifts for the population
The bottom line is that there is little news from Moscow. In any case, the tense faces in the room are an expression of the fact that the Russian story of a short special operation in Ukraine has now completely collapsed. The number of victims is high; In addition to the country’s economic problems, many Russians work 24 hours a day in the weapons factories.
As Putin emphasizes, the West, on the other hand, has forgotten what war actually means. But of course there is also war fatigue in Russia and the economic disconnection from the West, the funeral ceremonies for fallen soldiers and the repression against its own population are hurting the nerves of the Russian people.
That’s why Putin also gives his people expensive gifts in his speech: The minimum wage must be increased, kindergartens and schools must be rehabilitated and new sports facilities must be built. Russia should become more economically sovereign, but the West’s technological decoupling will make this particularly difficult.
Overall, Putin does not present any concept for the future. He mentions no war goals for Ukraine and provides no information about how his social programs will be financed. That was not expected, because with his speech at the Russian presidential elections from March 15, Putin is also applying for a new term of office. These elections are not free and fair, but he obviously wants to achieve a good result. As a result, there is much in Russia today that is reminiscent of the former Soviet Union – even beyond Putin’s speech.
Soource :Watson
I am Amelia James, a passionate journalist with a deep-rooted interest in current affairs. I have more than five years of experience in the media industry, working both as an author and editor for 24 Instant News. My main focus lies in international news, particularly regional conflicts and political issues around the world.
