While Vladimir Putin usually counts an hour for his annual speech to parliament, he spoke twice as long on Tuesday. “He said in it that the West and NATO have been preparing for war against Russia for years,” Bosman says. “They would be out to destroy the country.” For this, Putin says he had to initiate the so-called “special military intervention”. “A strange distortion of the facts.”
According to Bosman, the Russians are therefore rather resigned to the speech. “There are still quite a few people who believe what he says,” Bosman says, “but because he repeats everything so often, it becomes less and less common.” Then it certainly concerns the rather absurd accusations of Nazism, Satanism and pedophilia. “People think: We know by now.”
Biden’s visit is an affront to Putin
Earlier on the day of the speech, US President Joe Biden had visited Kiev for the first time since the war began. “For the Russian media, this was confirmation that Ukraine is ruled by Washington,” says Bosman. “According to them, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is nothing more than an American puppet. So, in this respect, a visit is more than logical».
“While it is really an affront to Putin,” says the correspondent from Russia. “He Never appeared at the front, while old Joe Biden now flies across the ocean to the warring land. Then he must have been a brake for Putin ».
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