The Russian president is slated to outline his goals for the second year of the invasion of Ukraine during his duelling addresses with Joe Biden on Tuesday, just one day after his American counterpart paid an unexpected visit to Kyiv.
According to the Kremlin, the Russian autocrat will make a state-of-the-nation address in Moscow at 9am GMT. This important speech will be mostly dedicated to the war, which will observe its one-year anniversary on Friday, February 24.
In prior speeches, Putin has screamed against NATO’s perceived danger to Russia, used his nation’s history to support the invasion’s justification, and decided to go on despite unanticipated Ukrainian opposition.
A few hours later, Biden will deliver a speech in Poland that is expected to provide a radically different perspective on Russia’s incursion. He met on Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, promising more weaponry shipments and “unwavering” support.
China has attempted to portray itself as a peacekeeper amid the verbal battle between Putin and Biden by warning that the invasion might “spiral out of control” in remarks that seem to be a jab at the US for supporting Ukraine militarily.
Top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi received a warning from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the weekend about what would happen if China joined the continuing crisis by arming Russia. China retaliated by denying that it would.
The largest war with the West since the height of the Cold War, the Ukrainian crisis will be updated by Putin in his address to Russia’s political and military elite.
Putin will present his appraisal of the global situation, with an emphasis on what he calls the “special military operation” in Ukraine, and lay out his predictions for Russia’s future after the West imposed the worst sanctions in recent memory.
Everyone is waiting for a message in the hope of hearing an assessment of what is happening, an assessment of the special military operation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on state television. “At such a crucial and very complicated juncture in our development, our lives, everyone is waiting for a message,” Peskov said.
The speech is scheduled to start at 0900 GMT in downtown Moscow and will be addressed to members of both chambers of parliament as well as military leaders and troops.
The invasion represents the Kremlin’s single-largest wager since the Soviet Union’s demise at least in 1991, and Western officials like Biden insist that the bet must fail.
Since the start of the conflict, Russian troops have had three significant military setbacks, although they still hold around one-fifth of Ukraine.
After killing tens of thousands of men, Putin, 70, now claims that Russia is engaged in an existential conflict with the haughty West, which he claims is out to partition Russia and take its abundant natural resources.
The West and Ukraine disagree with that thesis and argue that NATO’s eastward expansion does not justify what they see as an imperialistic territorial grab that will never succeed. Any assertions that it aspires to invade Russian territory have also been dismissed.
The Donbas industrial sector of Ukraine is comprised of two eastern provinces, which Russia is now attempting to fully dominate.
Despite sending thousands of conscripts into Ukraine for a winter attack, it has made only little progress so far in recent weeks’ assaults in freezing trenches along the eastern border.
A year after he started the continent’s largest war since World War Two, Kyiv and the West perceive it as an effort to give Putin victory to celebrate.
Several people are reportedly leaving Russia in the interim before Putin’s address.
Overnight, the cost of flights from Russia to other countries increased amid worries of an increase in mobilization or perhaps a formal declaration of war.
Hardliners who support the Kremlin have warned of “anticipating celebration” in the run-up to the address, including TV propagandist Margarita Simonyan, director of the official channel RT.
Yet, scared men were hurriedly leaving the nation.
Last October, when Putin declared a “partial mobilisation,” there was an early evacuation.
The cheapest direct trip from Moscow to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, is $650 [£540], which is five times the going rate, according to opposition blogger Maxim Katz, 38.
Throughout the post-Soviet Republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia, hotels, real estate brokers, taxi drivers, and airlines have taken advantage of every pre-planned speech given by Putin over the last year as if it were a professional vacation.
We have no idea how many passengers took a one-way trip.
Figures vary from 500,000 to 2,000,000, Katz said on his program.
We can state with certainty that one million individuals nationally are prepared to leave at a moment’s notice, according to the Glasgow-educated political activist who is now exiled and has 1.68 million YouTube followers. People all around Russia “life with one foot out the door.”
In the speech, which is given to the legislature and broadcast on national channels, Putin is ‘unlikely to announce measures for further escalation of the war in Ukraine, major new Russian mobilisation initiatives, or any other significant policy,’ according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.
China has attempted to establish itself as a possible peacekeeper in the war as the rhetoric between Russia and Ukraine’s western backers has heated up.
At a layover in Hungary on his way to a meeting in Moscow, Beijing’s top diplomat Wang Yi urged for a peaceful end to the Ukrainian crisis on Monday.
According to Ukraine, any diplomatic resolution calls on Russian soldiers to leave its territory, including Crimea, which Moscow acquired in 2014.
China’s foreign minister Qin Gang made the statement during a speech at a seminar hosted at the foreign ministry on Tuesday. “China is highly concerned that the Ukrainian crisis would continue to grow or perhaps spiral out of control,” Qin Gang said.
In remarks that seemed to be intended at the United States, he added, “We encourage some nations to immediately cease feeding the fire,” adding that they must “stop hyping up “today Ukraine, tomorrow Taiwan.”
In the next months, Ukraine anticipates receiving significant shipments of Western weapons that will support its intended counteroffensive. Ukrainian soldiers reported in recent weeks to have suffered significant fatalities while resisting advancing Russian forces.
As Biden was in Kyiv, the State Department announced an additional $460 million in U.S. aid to Ukraine, of which $450 million would go toward artillery ammunition, anti-armor systems, and air defense radars, while the remaining $10 million would go toward energy infrastructure.
Biden took an overnight train from Poland to the Ukrainian capital, arriving at 8 a.m. on Monday. He then took the same route back.
“Kyiv stands one year later.” Ukraine is present. In the Mariinsky Palace, the official house of the president of Ukraine, Biden said on Monday, “Democracy stands.”
Also, according to National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, Biden will “make clear that the United States will continue to stand with Ukraine… for as long as it takes” on Tuesday from Warsaw’s iconic Royal Castle.
You’ll hear sentiments in the president’s speech that will unquestionably ring true for the American people, our friends and partners, and the Polish people, too, Kirby said of the Warsaw address.
And I predict that you’ll hear him message both Mr. Putin and the Russian people.
The president landed in Warsaw late on Monday; the next day, he will meet with Andrzej Duda, the president of Poland, and other heads of state from NATO’s eastern flank.
According to the White House, he will also have phone conversations with the presidents of Italy, France, and Britain. On March 3, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is expected in Washington.
On a sunny winter Monday morning punctuated by the sound of air raid sirens, Biden, wearing his signature aviator sunglasses, and President Volodymyr Zelensky, dressed in green military fatigues, strolled side by side to a gold-domed church in Kyiv.
“Putin believed Ukraine was weak and the West was split when he began his assault over a year ago. He believed he might outlive us all. But he was totally mistaken,” Biden remarked.
“Ukraine has paid an unusually high price for this.” So many sacrifices have been made. We are aware that tough days, weeks, and years are ahead.
Russian tanks that have been burnt to the ground outside the cathedral are a reminder of Moscow’s first invasion, which started on February 24, when it attempted to take the city. Its men advanced quickly toward the walls of Kyiv, only to encounter surprisingly ferocious opposition.
Since then, cities have been left to ruins, hundreds of Ukrainian military and civilians have died as a result of Russia’s assault, and millions of people have fled. Although the West has committed tens of billions of dollars in military assistance to Kiev, Russia claims to have taken roughly a fifth of Ukraine.
The most significant visit in the history of ties between the United States and Ukraine, according to Zelensky, is the president of the United States’ first trip to Ukraine in 15 years.
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