Putin Says He’ll Suspend Russia’s Involvement In Last Nuclear Treaty With U.S.—After Biden’s Visit To Kyiv (original) (raw)

Topline

Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday announced he would suspend Russia’s last remaining arms control treaty with the U.S., in a rambling 90-minute speech to lawmakers and military leaders—reiterating many of his earlier culture war talking points and rants about “Western elites”—a day after President Joe Biden’s surprise visit to Kyiv.

Russian President Vladimir Putin gives his annual state of the nation address in Moscow, Russia.

Sputnik

Key Facts

Putin said Russia is suspending its participation in the New START arms control treaty, blaming the move on Washington’s continued military support of Ukraine.

The Russian leader said he has ordered new ground-based nuclear weapons to be actively deployed into combat duty—a possible breach of New START’s agreed upon cap 1,550 deployed warheads—but added that Moscow will only resume nuclear testing if the U.S. does so first.

The rest of Putin’s speech repeated older talking points, including defending his decision to invade Ukraine and insisting that Russia will accomplish all its tasks “carefully and consistently.”

The Russian president once again blamed “Western elites” for prolonging the war and claimed they were using Ukrainians as cannon fodder.

At one point, the speech veered into culture war territory with Putin ranting about gay marriage, the West’s purported use of gender-neutral pronouns for God and his claim that the West was “normalizing pedophilia.”

Putin called for a moment of silence for Russian soldiers killed in the war and promised new state assistance for their families.

News Peg

Several journalists, Russia experts and even Ukrainian officials criticized Putin’s speech as boring, pointing out clips of several key attendees dozing off or looking disinterested during the speech. The most surprising and scathing criticism, however, came from former Russian intelligence colonel Igor Girkin who identifies as a nationalist and previously served as the leader of Moscow’s separatist campaign in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. On his Telegram channel, Girkin wrote: “Not a word about failures and defeats. Blah blah blah, there's no point in listening anymore...another chance to prevent turmoil has been missed.”

Tangent

Websites belonging to Russian state media were hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that took them offline during Putin’s speech, Reuters reported. It is unclear who carried out the alleged attack, but various international hacking groups, including Anonymous, have previously taken credit for temporarily taking down or hacking Russian government and state media websites since the start of the Ukraine invasion.

Key Background

Putin’s speech comes just a day after Biden made an unannounced visit to Kyiv and met with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian leader thanked Biden for his visit, calling it an “extremely important sign of support for all Ukrainians.” Beyond the symbolism, Biden also pledged an additional $500 million in military aid for Ukraine, including artillery ammunition, anti-armor systems and air surveillance radars. Biden also told Zelensky that the U.S. “will be with you...for as long as it takes.” The U.S. president took direct shots at Putin, saying his military was failing in the invasion and Russia’s economy was now a “backwater” due to Western sanctions.

Further Reading

Russia’s president addressed both houses of Parliament in a major speech (Meduza)

Biden Makes Surprise Visit To Kyiv Nearly A Year Into Russia’s Invasion (Forbes)