In the Polish media space, there were quite a few comments about Vladimir Putin's message of 21 February 2023. Most of them, apart from epithets specified as "liable" or "criminal", did not even mention short passages of the statements of the president of the Russian Federation. In this way, users of most websites could only get an opinion on the message without knowing its contents.
Respecting the intellect of our Readers and their ability to critically analyse the origin text, we present a translation of extended passages of the incriminated speech. On myśmyspolska.info you can besides find texts reflecting the opposition of any of our publicists and co-workers in this matter.
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Vladimir Putin's Message of 21 February 2023.
Dear citizens of Russia!
Today's message speaks at a hard time – we all know that – a landmark time for our country, during cardinal, irreversible changes around the world, the most crucial historical events that find the future of our country and our people, erstwhile each of us bears a large responsibility.
A year ago, in order to defend people on our historical lands, to guarantee the safety of our country, to destruct the threat from the neo-Nazi regime, which appeared in Ukraine after the 2014 coup, it was decided to carry out a peculiar military operation. And step by step, we will carefully and consistently solve the tasks ahead.
Beginning in 2014, Donbas fought, defended the rights to live on his own land, speaking his native tongue, fought and did not surrender under conditions of blockade and continuous fire, unhidden hatred from the Kiev regime, believed and waited for Russia to come to rescue.
Meanwhile – and you know it well – we have done everything possible, truly everything possible to solve this problem peacefully, patiently negotiated a peaceful exit from this hard conflict.
But behind our backs, a completely different script was being prepared. The promises of the Western rulers, their assurances of the desire for peace in Donbasa have proved to be, as we now see, a forgery, a cruel lie. They simply stalled, practiced harassment, closed their eyes to political assassinations, to repression of the Kiev government against oppositionous people, to mock believers and to increasingly encourage Ukrainian neo-Nazis to carry out terrorist actions in Donbasa. The Western academy and schools trained nationalist battalion officers and provided weapons.
And I want to emphasise that even before the start of the peculiar military operation, the Kievs were negotiating with the West the transportation of air defence systems, combat aircraft and another dense equipment to Ukraine. We besides remember attempts by the Kiev government to get atomic weapons due to the fact that we spoke about it publicly.
The United States and NATO rapidly deployed their military bases and secret biological laboratories close our country's borders, mastered the theatre of future war activities in the course of maneuvers, prepared their subordinate Kiev regime, enslaved by themselves Ukraine, for a large war.
And present they admit it – they admit it publicly, openly, without hesitation. They seem proud, enjoying betrayal, calling both the Minsk Agreements and the Normandy format a diplomatic stunt, a bluff. It turns out that the full time Donbas was on fire, erstwhile there was blood pouring, erstwhile Russia honestly – I want to emphasize this – she sincerely sought a peaceful solution, they played on people's lives, they played, in fact, as they say in celebrated circles, marked with cards.
This disgusting method of deception has been tried many times. They behaved equally shamelessly, hypocritically, destroying Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria. They'll never get out of this shame. The notions of honor, trust, decency are not for them.
Throughout the centuries of colonialism, dictatorship, hegemony have become accustomed to being allowed anything, utilized to spit all over the world. It turned out that they treat the nations of their countries as disdainfully as you did – they besides cynically cheated them or cheated them with fairy tales about seeking peace, about respecting the UN safety Council resolution on Donbas. Indeed, Western elites became a symbol of a total, devoid of the principles of lies.
We were open, sincerely ready for a constructive dialog with the West, we said and insisted that both Europe and the full planet needed an indivisible safety strategy equal to all countries, and for many years we suggested that our partners discuss this thought together and work towards this implementation. But in response, they received a vague or hypocritical reaction. It's about words. But there were besides concrete actions: extending NATO to our borders, creating fresh positions for rocket defence in Europe and Asia – they decided to hide behind us with a "parasol", that is, the deployment of military quotas and not only close the borders of Russia.
I want to emphasise, yes, in fact it is all well known: no country in the planet has as many military bases abroad as the United States of America. There are hundreds of them, and I want to emphasize that, hundreds of bases around the world, the full planet is littered, just look at the map.
The full planet saw them retreat from fundamental arms agreements, including the mediate and Short-range Treaty, unilaterally breaking up with fundamental agreements maintaining planet peace. For any reason they did – as you know, we do nothing like that.
Finally, in December 2021, we officially submitted draft safety agreements to the US and NATO. But in all the key, fundamental positions for us they actually received direct refusal. Then it yet became clear that consent to the implementation of aggressive plans was issued and did not intend to stop.
The threat is expanding all day. The incoming information left no uncertainty that by February 2022 everything was ready for another bloody criminal action in Donbasa, against which, I will recall, in 2014 the Kiev government dropped artillery, tanks and aircraft.
We all remember well pictures of raids on Donetsk, raids carried out not only on him, but besides on another cities. In 2015, they again attempted a direct attack on Donbas while continuing to block, fire and panic against the civilian population. All of this, I recall, was completely contrary to the applicable papers and resolutions adopted by the UN safety Council, completely – everyone pretended that nothing was happening.
I want to say it again: they started the war, and we utilized force to halt it. Those who planned a fresh attack on Donetsk, Donbas and Lugansk understood perfectly well that the next mark would be to hit Crimea and Sevastopol, and we knew and understood it. And now so far-reaching plans are besides spoken openly in Kiev – they revealed, revealed what we already knew so well.
We defend human life, our own home. And the intent of the West is unlimited power. He has already spent over $150 billion to aid and arm the Kiev regime. For comparison, according to the Organisation for economical Cooperation and Development, the G7 countries allocated around $60 billion to aid the poorest countries in the planet between 2020 and 2021. Understandable, right? For war – 150, and for the poorest countries, which he supposedly constantly takes care of – 60, even under known demands of obedience from countries – recipients of this money. Where's all the talk about the fight against poverty, sustainable development, the environment? Where's all this going? Where'd all this go? At the same time, the flow of money for war does not decrease. Nor do they spare money to stir up unrest and shocks in another countries and again worldwide.
At a fresh conference in Munich, there were endless accusations against Russia. 1 can get the impression that this was done only to make everyone forget what the alleged West has done in fresh decades. And they let the genie out of the bottle, plunge the full region into chaos.
According to the American experts themselves, as a consequence of the wars, I would like to point out this: we did not invent these figures, the Americans themselves give them – as a consequence of the wars that the United States started after 2001, almost 900,000 people died, more than 38 million became refugees. Now they want to erase all this from humanity's memory, pretend that nothing happened. But no 1 in the planet has forgotten or forgotten it.
None of them take into account human sacrifices and tragedies, due to course billions of dollars are involved; the anticipation to proceed robbing everyone; under the pretext of words about democracy and freedom to spread neoliberal and totalitarian values by nature; to hang labels on full countries and nations, to publically insult their leaders; to suppress opposition in their own countries; to make an enemy image, to divert attention from corruption scandals – all of this does not come off screens, we see all this – from the increasing interior economic, social, interethnic problems and contradictions.
Let me remind you that in the 1930s the West actually opened the way for Nazis to regulation in Germany. And in our time they began to make Ukraine “anti-Russia”. The task isn't precisely new. People who are somewhat immersed in past know: this task dates back to the 19th century, it was cultivated in Austro-Hungary, as well as in Poland and another countries for 1 intent – to separate these historical lands which are present called Ukraine, from our country. That's the purpose. There's nothing new, there's no news, everything repeats itself.
The West accelerated the implementation of this task today, supporting the 2014 coup. After all, the coup is bloody, anti-state, anti-constitutional – as if nothing had happened, as if it were necessary, even reported how much money they spent on it. Russophobia, highly aggressive nationalism, was laid at the root of the ideological.
Recently, 1 of the brigades of the armed forces of Ukraine, it is simply a shame to say – we are ashamed that they are not there – it was named “Edelweiss” due to the fact that the Nazi division, which participated in the deportation of Jews, executions of prisoners of war, in criminal actions against the guerrillas of Yugoslavia, Italy, Czechoslovakia and Greece. The Armed Forces of Ukraine and the National defender of Ukraine are peculiarly popular among the chevrons of Das Reich, “Dead Head”, “Galicia” and another SS units, which besides have blood on their hands to the elbow. The recognition marks of the German Nazi Wehrmacht are placed on Ukrainian armored vehicles.
Neonazis don't hide who they think they are. Surprisingly, no of the powers in the West announcement that. Why? due to the fact that to them, I'm sorry for the bad manners, I don't care. It doesn't substance who to bet on fighting us, fighting Russia. The crucial thing is that they're fighting against us, against our country, which means that everyone can be used. And we saw it, and it happened: both terrorists and neo-Nazis, even if the devil is bald, you can usage it, God forgive, if they do their will, they will usage it as a weapon against Russia.
The anti-Russian task is in fact part of a retaliatory policy towards our country, creating habitats for instability and conflicts right at our borders. And then, in the 1930s, and now the plan is the same – direct aggression eastward, start a war in Europe, destruct competitors by a proxy.
We are not at war with the Ukrainian people, I have said this many times. Ukrainians themselves became hostages to the Kiev government and its western masters, who actually occupied this country in a political, military, economical sense, for decades destroyed Ukrainian manufacture and plundered natural resources. The natural consequence was social degradation, a colossal increase in poorness and inequality. And of course, under specified conditions, it is easy to gather material for military operations. No 1 thought of humans, prepared them for slaughter, and yet turned into consumption. It's sad, just afraid to talk about it, but it's a fact.
The work for incitement to the Ukrainian conflict, for escalation, for expanding the number of its victims rests solely on the Western elite and, of course, on the current Kiev regime, for which the Ukrainians are truly foreign. The current Ukrainian government serves not national interests, but the interests of 3rd countries.
The West uses Ukraine as both a taran against Russia and a polygon. I will not now be divorcing Western attempts to reverse the course of war, their plans to increase military supplies – everyone already knows that. But 1 thing should be clear to all: the more Western long-range systems appear in Ukraine, the more we will gotta distance the threat from our borders. It's natural.
The Western elites do not hide their goal: to ask – as they say, this is simply a direct speech – “the strategical defeat of Russia”. What does that mean? What is this for us? This means the end of us erstwhile and for all, that is, the intention of moving the local conflict into a phase of global confrontation. That is precisely how we realize it, and we will respond accordingly, due to the fact that in this case we are talking about the existence of our country.
But they must not be unaware that Russia cannot be defeated on the battlefield, so they are carrying out increasingly aggressive information attacks against us. First of all, young people, young generations are chosen as a target. Again they lie, distort historical facts, proceed to attack our culture, the Russian Orthodox Church and another conventional spiritual organizations of our country.
Look at what they do to their peoples: demolition of the family, cultural and national identity, perversions, exploitation of children, until pedophilia, are proclaimed norm, norm of their lives, and clergymen, priests are forced to bless same-sex marriage. God bless them, let them do what they want. What are you saying here? Adults have the right to live as they want, that's how we treated it in Russia and we will always treat it that way: no 1 interferes in private life and we will not.
But I want to tell them: but look, excuse me, holy writings, the main books of all another planet religions. Everything is said there, including that the household is simply a relation between a female and a man, but these sacred texts are now being questioned. For example, it was reported that the Anglican Church is planning – planning, but only now – to research the thought of a gender-neutral god. What can you say? God forgive me, they don't know what they're doing.
Millions in the West realize that they are led to a actual spiritual disaster. Elites, frankly, just freak out and don't seem to have a cure. But these are their problems, as I said, and we are committed to protecting our children and we will do so: we will defend our children from degradation and degeneration.
It is clear that the West will effort to undermine and divide our society, trust on national traitors who at all times – I want to emphasize it – have the same poison of contempt for their own. Fatherland and the desire to sale this poison to those who are willing to pay for it. It always has been.
Whoever entered the way of direct treason, committing terrorist offences and another crimes against the safety of our society, the territorial integrity of the state, will be held accountable. But we will never be like the Kiev government and the Western elite that are and were active in the “witch hunt”, we will never account for those who gave up, have withdrawn from their homeland. Let it stay on their consciences, let them live with it – they must live with it. The crucial thing is that people, citizens of Russia, gave them a moral assessment.
I am arrogant – I think we are all arrogant – that our multinational nation, the vast majority of citizens, took a rule position on a peculiar military operation, understood the sense of the action we are taking, supported our actions in defence of Donbas. In this support there was first of all actual patriotism – a feeling that is historically inherent in our nation. He delights with his dignity, deep awareness of everyone, I emphasize, each, his own inextricable destiny with the destiny of the Homeland.
Dear friends, I want to thank all of Russia's full nation for its courage and determination, for thanking our heroes, soldiers and army and naval officers, National Guards, members of peculiar services and all law enforcement agencies, soldiers of the Donetsk and Luhansk corps, volunteers, patriots fighting in the combat ranks of the BARS reserve army.
I want to apologize: I'm sorry that I can't name everyone during today's speech. You know, in preparing this speech, I wrote a long, very long list of these heroic individuals, then I took it out of today's speech, due to the fact that like I said, it's impossible to name everyone, and I was just afraid to insult those I won't mention.
Bow to parents, wives, families of our defenders, doctors and paramedics, medical instructors, injured nurses, railway workers and drivers supplying fronts, builders raising fortifications and rebuilding homes, roads, civilian facilities, workers and defence plant engineers who now work almost 24/7, on respective shifts, after agrarian workers who reliably guarantee the country's food security.
I thank the teachers who sincerely care for the young generations of Russia, especially those teachers who work in the most difficult, even front-line conditions; the forms of culture that come into the war zone, to hospitals to support soldiers and officers; the volunteers who aid the front and civilians; journalists, above all, of course, the war correspondents who take risks on the front line to tell the full planet the truth; pastors of conventional Russian religions, military priests whose wise word supports and inspires people; government officials and entrepreneurs – all those who execute their professional, civic and simply human duty.
Special words addressed to residents of Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republic, the Zaporosian and Khersonian districts. You, dear friends, have made your own decision about your future in referendums, made a decisive choice, despite the threats and panic of the neo-Nazis, in conditions erstwhile the war was very close, but there was and there was nothing stronger than your resolve to be with Russia, with your Homeland.
(Applause.)
I want to stress that this is an audience reaction to the inhabitants of Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republic, Zaporozh and Kherson. Again, I bow low to them all.
We have already started and will proceed with a comprehensive programme of socio-economic reconstruction and improvement of these fresh members of the Federation. This includes the revival of businesses and jobs, the ports of the Azov Sea, which have again become the inland sea of Russia, and the construction of fresh modern roads, as we did in Crimea, which now has a reliable land connection with all Russia. I'm certain we can work together on all these plans.
Today, the regions of the country supply direct support to the cities, circuits and villages of Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republic, the Zaporo region and the Kherson region, they do so honestly, like actual brothers and sisters. Now we are together again, which means that we have become even stronger, and we will do everything possible to bring back long-awaited peace to our land, to guarantee the safety of people. About the future of children and grandchildren, the restoration of historical justice, the reuniting of our people, fighting present our heroes.
Dear friends, I ask you to honor the memory of our comrades in arms who have given their lives for Russia, civilians, old people, women, children who have died under the fire of neo-Nazis and oppressors.
(Minute of silence.)
Thank you.
We all realize how hard it is for wives, sons, daughters of fallen soldiers, their parents, who raised worthy defenders of the Homeland – just as the young guards of Krasnodon, like the boys and girls who fought Nazism during the large Patriotic War, defended Donbas. All Russia present remembers their courage, their integrity, their top valor, their sacrifice.
It is our work to support families that have lost loved ones, to aid raise, rise children, to supply them with education and occupation. The household of each associate in a peculiar military operation should be in a continuous area of concern and honour. Their needs must be met immediately, without bureaucracy.
I propose the creation of a peculiar state fund. Its task will be targeted, individual assistance to families of fallen soldiers and veterans of the Military peculiar Operations. He will coordinate the provision of social, medical, intellectual assistance, solve the problems of sanatorium and rehabilitation, aid in science, sports, employment, entrepreneurship, professional improvement, gaining a fresh profession. A separate most crucial task of the foundation is to organize long-term care at home, a modern prosthetic for anyone who needs it.
I ask the Government, along with the Commission of the Council of State for Social Policy, to resolve all organisational issues as shortly as possible.
The work of the state fund should be open and the procedure for providing assistance should be simple, on a "one-stop shop" basis, without the state Treasury and bureaucracy. For each family, I stress, for each household of the deceased, for each veteran a individual social individual should be assigned, a coordinator who, in the course of individual communication in real time, will solve emerging problems. I would point out that already this year, the structures of the fund should be deployed to all regions of the Russian Federation.
We already have supporting actions for veterans of the large Patriotic War, combat veterans and participants in local conflicts. I think that in the future the state fund I mentioned can besides address these crucial issues. We gotta work this out, and I'm asking the government to do it.
I would like to stress that the creation of a peculiar fund does not remove work from another structures and levels of power. I anticipate all national departments, regions and municipalities to proceed to pay close attention to veterans, military personnel and their families. And I would so like to thank the leaders of the Federation entities, the mayors of cities, the governors who constantly meet people, go out to the line of contact and support their fellow countrymen.
What would you like to emphasize in particular? Today, professional soldiers, mobilized and volunteers jointly endure the hardships of the front – we talk about supplies and equipment, cash benefits and insurance payments due to the wound, medical care. However, appeals that come to me and to the voivodes – they besides inform me about it – to the military prosecutors, to the Ombudsman, indicate that not all these matters have yet been resolved. It is essential to realize in each peculiar case.
And 1 more thing: serving in the military region of peculiar operations – everyone understands this perfectly – involves colossal physical and intellectual stress, with regular threats to wellness and life. I so consider it essential to establish for the mobilized, in rule for all military personnel, for all participants in a peculiar military operation, including volunteers, a regular leave of at least 14 days and at least erstwhile all six months, excluding travel time, so that each soldier can visit his family, be close to relatives and friends. ...
Vladimir Putin, 21 February 2023.
