As of: February 29, 2024, 1:20 p.m
By: Hannes Niemeyer
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In his speech to the nation, Putin also threatened the West with nuclear weapons.
The subliminal warning is aimed particularly at French President Macron.
Moscow – Vladimir Putin's State of the Nation address was eagerly awaited.
Great explosiveness was predicted for her.
Not only because of the death of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and the upcoming Russian election, but also because of the newly simmering conflict in Transnistria.
However, things turned out a little differently in the speech.
State of the nation speech: After NATO's move, Putin indirectly but clearly addresses Macron
The Kremlin ruler's hour-long speech increasingly turned into a kind of election campaign commercial.
Putin promised investments – and not too few of them.
Billions should flow into our own country, into a wide variety of areas such as education, fishing, agriculture, families and the military.
The big, pressing global political issues received little or no attention.
Contrary to experts' assessments, Putin did not even mention the fact that the self-declared autonomous region of Transnistria, located between Moldova and Ukraine, had asked for Russia's protection.
He also made no mention of the death of his worst opponent, Navalny - which, however, seems less surprising.
The Ukraine war was also only briefly discussed.
At the beginning, Putin thanked the serving soldiers and the armaments manufacturing industry.
Then came an announcement to the West – and quite clearly to Emmanuel Macron.
In his state of the nation speech, Putin addressed Macron's NATO move in clear terms.
© pa/RTR/AP |
Gonzalo Fuentes + dpa/Pool Sputnik Kremlin/AP |
Gabriel Grigorov
Nuclear danger?
According to Macron's sentence, Putin remembers the Second World War
The French president recently caused a stir when he said that sending NATO troops to Ukraine was no longer ruled out.
Although Putin did not explicitly mention Macron, his warning that such a deployment could end “tragically” was aimed in a clear direction.
“Everything that they are currently coming up with, with which they are scaring the world, creates the real threat of conflict with the use of nuclear weapons, which means the destruction of civilization,” Putin said.
At the same time, he also resorted to an allusion that was probably aimed at the Second World War: “I would like to remember the fate of those who have already sent troops to our country.”
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Putin's nuclear threat in new speech: CDU man Röttgen is already warning of a “serious mistake”
Only Vladimir Putin himself probably knows how real the danger of a nuclear attack by Russia really is. However, CDU foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen is already warning against taking the Russian ruler's renewed threat at face value.
“It is a serious mistake to make Putin’s threats the benchmark for our actions,” Röttgen told the
Funke media group
on Thursday .
“Putin rightly perceives this as weakness, and our weakness encourages Putin to make the next threat or use of force.”
Putin has already “fully escalated,” said Röttgen.
“Nuclear weapons are not an option for him because he would lose China as his most important ally and the American deterrent works.”
(han/with material from dpa)