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Putin Slams West, Defends Ukraine War in State of Nation Speech
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his annual state of the nation address at the Gostiny Dvor conference centre in central Moscow on Feb. 21, 2023. (Sergei Savostyanov/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images)

Putin Slams West, Defends Ukraine War in State of Nation Speech

Russian President Vladimir Putin lashed out at the West and defended his country’s devastating year-long invasion of neighboring Ukraine in a lengthy state of the nation speech Tuesday.

The speech from Moscow came a day after US President Joe Biden traveled secretly to Kyiv for a meeting with and show of support for his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenksyy and three days before the first anniversary of the invasion on February 24.

Speaking in an address attended by Russian officials and war veterans and broadcast across every state-run TV channel, Putin said that it was the West who had triggered the war in Ukraine and that Russia was “using force to end it.”

Ukraine, the Russian president said, “has become hostage of the Kyiv regime and its Western masters, which have effectively occupied the country.”

Putin also dismissed the stringent international sanctions on Russia that were imposed as a result of its invasion. He accused the West of attacking the Russian economy but said that the sanctions had not “achieved anything and will not achieve anything.”

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