2023-12-31 14:34:00
Putin’s belligerent New Year’s speech: Russia will “never back down”
December 31, 2023, 3:34 p.m. Listen to article
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The Russian Far East is already in the new year. Shortly before midnight, the population can listen to President Putin’s New Year’s speech: He declares 2024 the “Year of the Family” and promises that Russia will become “even stronger.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin invoked unity and perseverance among the Russian people in his New Year’s speech. Russia “hardly defended” its interests in 2023, the Kremlin chief said in his televised speech. “We have shown more than once that we can solve the most difficult tasks and never back down, because there is no force that can divide us.” He did not explicitly mention Ukraine.
The 71-year-old head of state expressly thanked the Russian soldiers: They were at the front in the fight “for truth and justice,” as the Kremlin chief reinterpreted his attack on Ukraine. Unlike last year, no military representatives in uniform appeared at Putin’s side at the address; instead, he declared 2024 the “Year of the Family”: Russia is going through a “historic phase” and will be “even stronger” next year, Putin assured . “We are one country, one big family. We ensure the confident development of our fatherland and the well-being of our citizens.”
The New Year’s message was first broadcast in the Russian Far East as the Chukotka and Kamchatka peninsulas welcomed the New Year. It will then be shown shortly before midnight in every other time zone in the vast empire until it is the turn of the capital Moscow at 10 p.m. CET.
For Russians, it is the second New Year’s Eve in the war against neighboring Ukraine ordered by Putin. On the day before the turn of the year there were major losses among the Russian civilian population for the first time, with more than 20 dead in the border town of Belgorod. Putin did not address this in his speech against the backdrop of the wintry Kremlin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also denied to the RIA Novosti agency that the text of the pre-recorded speech had been changed again.
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