The speech was described, in advance, as “voluminous”.
This Friday, shortly after 3 p.m. (2 p.m. French time), Vladimir Putin spoke at a ceremony organized at the Kremlin to formalize the annexation of the four Ukrainian regions - Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporijjia and Kherson - in which “referendums” (contested by most of the international community) were organized from 23 to 27 September.
Read alsoAnnexations in Ukraine: currency, time, school programs… how Russia had prepared everything
The entire government was there to attend the president's speech, which lasted nearly 40 minutes.
The pro-Russian representatives installed by Moscow in the four Ukrainian regions where the "referendums" took place had, for their part, a place of choice, on the platform facing the public, alongside Vladimir Putin.
The results of the referendums
It was expected: Vladimir Putin began by adopting a victorious tone, announcing that the results of the referendums in the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhya and Kherson were “unequivocal”.
"Today, we are signing the agreement for the entry" of these four regions which will "be new subjects of the Russian Federation", announced the Russian President, assuring that the attachment to Russia of the Ukrainian populations of these areas was "a right".
If he asked Ukraine to "cease fire", Vladimir Putin assured that he refused that the question of the annexation of the four southern and eastern regions be addressed in future negotiations.
A tribute to the dead
Citing many Russian personalities killed in what he still calls the "Russian special operation", Vladimir Putin asked for a minute of silence from the large assembly gathered to attend his speech.
He also had a word for the “soldiers already in combat, those mobilized and their families”.
historical references
Throughout his speech, Vladimir Putin once again tried to justify his "special operation" with references to the past of Ukraine and the USSR.
"Millions of people identify as Russians, they lived for centuries in the same country and want to return to their real country," he said.
We are fighting for historic Greater Russia,” he concluded.
He also retraced, in his own way, European history, explaining that the West, in the Middle Ages, had launched colonization.
And it is "our country, the USSR, which led an anti-colonial struggle", assured Vladimir Putin, adding that his country had demanded "equitable rights".
Always relying on history, he recalled - without really transitioning from one subject to another - that the United States was the only country to have used atomic weapons in Japan.
Accusations against the West and the United States
As he does regularly, the Russian president attacked Europe and the United States throughout his speech.
"The West has shown its true face," accused Vladimir Putin, blaming the West, which "seeks to hit us, destroy us, dismantle our state, anger our peoples."
For him, Westerners want to set up a “neocolonial system” in Russia.
"They don't want to see us free," said the president again, but "our country is not going to live by these rules."
"The prosperity of our society is a threat to them," he continued on the subject, accusing the West of wanting to "loot the resources" of Russia.
He also denounced “Russophobia, a form of racism”.
An anti-Western rhetoric that he addresses very regularly.
The accusations concerning Nord Stream
Vladimir Putin accused "the Anglo-Saxons" and the United States of being behind the mysterious explosions that led to leaks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines. "The United States is targeting everyone, even our close neighbours,” he said.
