In de week dat het een jaar geleden is dat Rusland de SMO begon, houdt president Poetin vandaag zijn langverwachte jaarlijkse ‘State of the Union’. Deze toespraak duurde bijna 2 uur. Ik heb de meest interessante stukken in het Engels in dit blog geplaatst.
Good afternoon dear members of state Duma, senators, dear citizens of Russian Federation!
I am giving this state address in a very difficult context in a very difficult time there are cardinal major changes in in the world there are historic changes that determine the future of our country and our people. Every one of us has a great responsibility.
About a year ago in order to protect our people on our historic lands in order to ensure security in order to liquidate the threat that appeared from the Kiev regime after the military coup in 2014 we decided to conduct a special military operation. Step by step we will continue to resolve the objectives that are before us.
Starting from 2014 Donbass has been fighting to defend its right to live on its territory and speak its own language. They were fighting and not giving up in the conditions of a blockade and constant shelling and in the context of complete hatred from the Kiev regime they waited and they believed that their Russia would come to their help. You know this very well that we did everything possible, indeed everything possible in order to resolve this problem in a peaceful way. We were patient in our negotiations to come out of this horrible conflict. However behind our backs a completely different scenario was being prepared. The assurances from the western leaders to ensure peace in Donbass turned out to be a lie. They were just dragging time and they were trying to close their eyes to the political killings and repressions of the Kiev regime and abuse of religion and terrorist acts in Donbass. In western academies and training centers they were training nationalist units and supplying weapons.
I would like to emphasise that it was before the special military operation they were negotiating the supply of heavy military equipment and planes and anti aircraft defence systems. They were also publicly talking about supply of nuclear weapons. NATO and Western countries were setting their military bases on our borders and biological laboratories and they were training on the future theatre of military actions. Today they publicly recognise this without shying away. They are talking about the Minsk agreements and Normandy agreements to be just to show, a spectacle.
When Russia, I would like to emphasise, when Russia sincerely tried to find a peaceful solution they were playing with lives of people and they were playing a dirty game. This repulsive lie and their behaviour two faced behaviour was seen in Yugoslavia in Iraq, Syria. They will not be able to wash away that shame ever of centuries of colonialism and dictatorship. They used to this idea that they could do anything. It turns out that they are treating their own people in this way they also deceive their own people by telling them stories about a peaceful agreements.and Donbass. It’s just total and unprincipled lies.
We have been insisting on protecting our own interests and also protecting the position that there should not be a situation in the world where there are civilised countries and the rest of the world. We were very open and we were sincerely open for a dialogue with the West. We were insisting on Europe and the rest of the world to have an equal system of defence and equal system of security. We were proposing to our partners this idea and in response we were getting dishonest answers. But there were also specific actions expansion of NATO to our borders, creation of new anti rocket defence systems in Europe, developing military contingents on the borders of Russia. And I’d like to emphasise that no other country in the world has as many foreign military bases as the United states. They have hundreds hundreds of military bases around the world. The whole planet is dotted with their bases. (…)
In December 2021 we officially directed to the US and to Europe our request for guarantees for security. However we received a direct refusal to our offers and it became clear that the reaction was demonstrated and the threat was growing. We had no doubt that by February 2022 everything was prepared for a punitive action in Donbass. The Kiev regime provided artillery and aviation and other weapons to attack Donbass. (…)
I would like to repeat they started the war and we used the force in order to stop it. Those who planned a new attack on Donetsk, on Donbass ,on Lugansk they clearly understood that the next objective is strike against Sevastopol in Crimea. We understood this and they are again in Kiev talking directly about their plans. And we knew that already. We protect people and protect their homes and the objectives of the West is infinite power. They spend $150 billion to support militarily Kiev regime. To compare this to put this into perspective in 2021-2022 big seven countries provided to the poorest countries only $60 billion aid. Also in exchange for that $60 billion they require it’s a complete submission to their will. With this the flow of money, the war is not stopping and they continue supplying means to provide coups in other countries and at the recent security conference there was an endless flow of accusations against Russia.
This was done it seems in order for everyone to forget that over the last ten years it was the West who opened who released the genie from the bottle as a result of wars. We did not come up with these figures these figures are provided by them as a result of wars that were started by United States since 2021 about 900,000 people died and millions became refugees. They’re trying to delete this from their memory of people. They’re trying to pretend this did not happen but nobody forgot. The people’s tragedy is not important to them. They’re betting trillions trillions of dollars and they are trying to continue robbing everyone else and they’re covering themselves with words of democracy and values. They are trying to label other countries and publicly insult them. They are creating that image of enemy within their own countries in order to divert attention from corruption scandals within their own countries. They are diverting attention from the growing social economic problems.
I would like to remind you that in 1930s Western countries opened the path for Nazi Germany to develop. In this century they they did this to Ukraine (…) There’s nothing new everything is repeating. History keeps repeating they have supported the coup in 2014 and this was a bloody coup anti state anti constitution coup. (…) They even told us how much money they spent on it the ideological the basis for this was Russophobia. They are trying to fight us, they’re trying to fight Russia and that means they want to use anything. They want to use everyone’s terrorist, Nazis even, devil himself, to use it as weapon against Russia. (…)
We said that we’re not fighting in Ukraine we said that the Ukrainian people have become a hostages of their western masters who occupied this country in political, in economic and military sense. For decades they were destroying Ukrainian industry and robbing the country and as a consequence of this the poverty and social division grew. This was the material for the military actions. Of course they turned these people into cannon fodder and this is a sad reality but it’s a fact. The responsibility for starting the conflict for growing number of victims lies totally with the West and with Kiev regime for whom Ukrainian people are not their own effectively.
Effectively this regime is not serving their national interests, they’re serving interests of foreign powers. Ukraine is now like a training ground for them. I’m not going to talk about the plans of Western powers to increase military aid. Everyone knows about this but one thing is very clear to everyone: the greater the range of this systems the further away we will be forced to move the threat from our borders. The elites of the West are not hiding their goals, they are as they say trying to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. What does that mean to us? That means they want to end Russia, they want to turn a local conflict into a phase of a global conflict. This is how we understand this. We will react in an appropriate way because in this case we’re talking about existence of our country. They also have to take into account that it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield so they increased their information attacks and of course they are targeting our young generation.
Of course they’ll keep lying. They’re twisting historic facts. They are going against our culture, against our religious organisations. Look at what they’ve done to their own people. They’re destroying family, national identity they are abusing their children. Pedophilia is announced as a normal thing. They are they’re recognising same-sex marriages. That’s fine, they’re they’re adults. They’ve got the right to live their life. We always were very tolerant about this. In Russia nobody is trying to enter private lives of people. We’re not going to do this. However we need to tell them (…) that the family is a union of a man and a woman. But even this sacred texts are subjected to doubt. The Anglican church is planning to consider the idea of a gender neutral God. What can you say here? Millions of people in the West understand that they are being led to a spiritual destruction. The elites are going crazy and this cannot be cured, it seems. But our duty is to protect our children and we will do this we will protect our children from degradation. It’s obvious that the West will continue trying to destabilise our society. (…)
We will never be similar to western regimes and to Kiev regime who are used to witch hunting. We’re not going to hunt those who betrayed the motherland. Let them live with this. They have to live with it. (…) We need to be proud that we are a multicultural nation. And the majority of our people supported our actions in Donbass. (…) Real patriotism was seen in this support.
Dear friends, I’d like to thank everyone: all people of Russia for decisiveness and for their heroic attitude, I’d like to thank our officers of Navy and army and all the forces to the fighters of Donbass and Lugansk region, to volunteers who are fighting in different areas and bars. I apologise that I will not be able to name everyone when I was preparing this speech there was a long long list of heroic units, military units. I will not be able to name all of them. I did not want to offend anyone by not naming them. I would like to bow down to relatives and wives and parents and wives and and families and doctors and instructors, nurses who are saving the wounded to the railroad workers, construction workers who are creating the defence structures who are building homes and engineers of defence factories who are working several shifts now, to agricultural workers who are supplying constant stream of food and products. I would like to thank teachers who are sincerely taking care of the new generation of Russians, especially those who are working in very difficult conditions near to the frontline. All the cultural figures who come to the frontline, who come to the hospitals to support them, to journalists. First of all military journalists who are risking their lives in order to tell the truth to the whole world, representatives of of traditional religions who are supporting the military entrepreneurs government officials everyone who is fulfilling their national and human duty.
I would like to express special gratitude to citizens of Lugansk, Donetsk republics and Zaporozhye region. You yourselves determined your future. You made your choice despite the threats of terror of the Nazis. Even though next to you there were military action. Actions taking place and you made the choice to be together with Russia to be together with your motherland. We have started and we will continue to grow. I’d like to emphasise that this reaction of our audience addressed to the citizens of Donetsk and Lugansk and Zaporozhian, Kherson regions we bow down to you. We began and we will continue our program of social restoration and of these territories. The idea is to bring back the factories and the industry. We will create access to our internal sea, Sea of Azov. We will create the new highway to Crimea and connect the rest of Russia and all regions. Russia is providing direct support to cities and towns of Donetsk and Lugansk and other regions and they’re doing it as real brothers and sisters together. Today we’re together again and that means we’re stronger again and that means we’re going to do everything in order to bring our land back to peace in order and to ensure security. It is for our ancestors for the future of our children and grandchildren in order to restore historic justice.
This is what our fighters are fighting for, what our heroes are fighting for. I would like to respect the memory of all people of all fighters who died in military action and all civilians who died in this military action. (…) I propose to create a special state fund which objective would be personal help to the families and veterans of special military operation and those who died in action. This fund will coordinate social, medical and psychological support. (…) I’d like to point out that the structure of this fund has to be deployed this year. By the end of this year we already have measures of supporting the veterans of the great patriotic war and the veterans of other local conflicts. We need to work on this and improve this. I’d like to emphasise that the creation of this special fund does not alleviate other structures of their responsibility. I’m expecting from all municipalities, all bodies to continue providing careful help to all the veterans. We have representatives of regions who constantly are in contact with veterans, who constantly support families, who go to the frontline to support their troops. (…)
Dear colleagues, as I mentioned the West has begun not just a military or an information but also an economic aggression. But they have not achieved success in either of these areas. They won’t achieve success there. Moreover the initiators of the sanctions are punishing themselves. They provoked a growth of prices in their own countries, closures of factories, a collapse of energy sector. They are telling their citizens that it’s the Russians who are to blame. They’ve used different tools, they’ve tried to break commercial connections with our companies, they’ve tried to restrict our experts. And the theft I can’t name it any other way the theft of our currency reserves, also attacks on our infrastructure.
I’d like to emphasise that all sanctions are just a means but the objective, as the West says and I say directly, to force our citizens to suffer. This is their humanistic approach. They are trying to destabilise our society from inside. But their attempts were not justified and were not successful. Thanks to joint work of our government, of the Bank of Russia, of the subjects of the Russian Federation, of the of working people we were able to ensure stability of economic situation. We preserved the employment, we supported our financial system. Business people who are investing in the development of their business and therefore in the development of the country. We’ve launched a package of measures to support the economy totalling the origin of three trillion rubles. I’d like to point out that this is not a money printing policy, all of that is based on market principles.
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I’d like to emphasise that US and NATO are directly stating that their objective is to strategically defeat Russia. (…) Recently we’ve passed the law to put the new strategic defence facilities. (…) nuclear arsenal is not just in America it’s also in in the UK and in France. They keep developing and they’re also aimed against us they’re also again aimed at Russia their latest statements of their leaders only confirm this. We do not have the right not to take this into account. The first agreement on restricting strategic weapons was signed in 1991 with the US. This was in a principally different situation. This was in the context of mutual trust and following that our relationships went to such a level where US and Russia stated (and Soviet Union stated) they were no longer considering each other’s enemies. The agreement of 2010 has got very significant points on indivisible security and limitation of strategic weapons. But this has been long forgotten and US has exited that agreement. Our relationships deteriorated and this was the initiative of the United States. It was them who wanted to review the results of the Second World War. Fr this they started to destroy all the basis of world order after the Second World War.
Step by step they started to destroy the system of world security and control of weapons. They’ve conducted a number of wars around the world. All of that was done with a single purpose to destroy the structure of international relations, that was set up after the Second World War. After the collapse of the Soviet Union they have been constantly trying to reiterate their global dominance. And not just in relation to Russia but other countries as well. Of course the situation has changed since 1945, there are new centers of influence. And this keeps developing. This is a natural objective process that cannot be ignored. What is unacceptable is that US started to restructure this only in according to their own needs.
Now the NATO countries are offering an ultimatum and they’re saying that Russia has to comply. (…) They’re saying there is no connection between conflict in Ukraine and other hostile actions of the West. Their statements that they would like to inflict a strategic defeat on us, this is the either they are very cynical ultimately cynical or stupid. It looks like they’re not stupid they are aiming to inflict institutional defeat. So this statement that Russia is putting a stop on its participation in the strategic weapons control agreement. I would like to reiterate we’re not exiting the agreement we are putting a hold on it. Before we come back to the discussion of this we need to understand what France and the UK are trying to do. How we are going to take into account their strategic arsenals, their cumulative striking potential. (…) We know that they are thinking about testing their nuclear weapons. Including the fact that in the US they are developing new types of nuclear weapons and we have this information. In this relation Russia has to ensure Russia the readiness of the Russian nuclear potential. Of course we’re not going to strike first. Nobody has to have dangerous illusions that this global strategic parity can be destroyed.
Dear colleagues, dear citizens of Russia, Today we are going through a very difficult path. We are overcoming all difficulties together. It could not be any other way because we are proud of the example of our ancestors. This is passed from one generation to another. Only dedication to our unity, to our motherland that unity has been demonstrated since the first days of the special military operation. Hundreds of volunteers representatives of full ethnicities came to the conscription centres in order to fight for the truth, for the justice, for interests of people in Donbass. Now shoulder we have fighters from all types of from all parts of Russia and their prayers are in different languages. But all of them are fighting for truthful and for the motherland.
The heavy military duty, there the heroic acts are finding response in Russia. People are supporting their military. They cannot be just standing aside. The front line is going through the millions of hearts of Russian citizens. People are doing everything they can in order to preserve the lives of our people of our guys and the frontline. People going to the front line are taking this letters from the children because because they know that these are sincere words and they understand why they’re fighting who they’re protecting. This is the care that is provided by volunteers right from the start of the major operation. This is very important to them.
The volunteers are helping civilians to go to cover and provide water and clothing to civilians who are in the military action areas. They continue saving them and saving others. We know that one of the funds collected over 5 billion rubles for the needs of the front. This work is being conducted. Constantly companies and entrepreneurs are helping. What is especially touching especially inspiring is when people with small income providing part of their salary or their savings to help people on the frontline. This support to our military, this support to the refugees is very important. Thank you for their support we cannot overestimate the support.
Russia will respond to any challenges because we are all a single country, we are one big united people. We are confident in our power. Truth is with us. Thank you.
