Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday eased fears that Russia could attack Poland, the Baltics or the Czech Republic. He literally called it “absolute nonsense”. However, as the transcript of the entire interview with the military pilots shows, the head of the Kremlin actually admitted that Moscow is far from arming itself on the same scale as the West and thus cannot engage in a larger conflict with it. At the same time, it is far from the first time that Russian propaganda played with the wording of its statements, or even changed them.
According to the original version circulated in the Western media, Putin stated that NATO is trying to intimidate the population in order to maintain their support for further aid to Ukraine, against which Russia has been waging war for more than two years. At the same time, the head of the Kremlin pointed out that if the West supplies the Ukrainians with F-16 fighter jets, the Russian army will shoot them down.
Putin has criticized NATO expansion, saying of countries on the alliance’s eastern flank that “apparently believe that all this somehow corresponds to their national interests, they are afraid of a big Russia”.
“We have no aggressive intentions towards these states,” Putin said. “So this is complete nonsense, the possibility of an attack on some other countries, on Poland, the Baltics, even Bohemia is scary. Just nonsense, another way to deceive your residents and get more money from people to carry the burden on their shoulders.” he also said in connection with the cost of aid to Ukraine from the West.
We will arm ourselves fractionally
However, during the interview with the pilots, Putin also claimed that NATO member countries, led by the United States, spend many times more on defense than Russia. He cited data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) for the year 2022 – i.e. the first year of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Thirty-nine percent of world spending is in the United States. And Russia – 3.5 percent. What about us? Taking this ratio into account, will we go to war with NATO? That’s just nonsense,” said the Russian president, who thus de facto admitted lagging behind the West. In the fall of last year, he admitted that defense and security spending in Russia had doubled, from three to six percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
Fog in DNA
At the same time, this is already a lot of evidence of how Russia constantly works with its statements and how it gradually changes them. The most famous example is Putin’s rhetoric around the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “These military exercises are purely defensive and pose no threat to any other country. It was planned and all the objectives of these exercises were achieved.” the president claimed about Russia’s military exercises six days before the invasion. “(Invasion) is not our preferred option, we don’t want it. (The West) must give us guarantees, and immediately,” he then uttered only a day later.
Russia’s alleged ambitions to acquire Ukrainian territory are also constantly changing. “Not only has their (Ukrainian) counter-offensive failed, but the initiative is entirely in the hands of the Russian armed forces. If this continues, Ukrainian statehood may be dealt an irreparable, very serious blow,” declared outside Putin, referring to last year’s Ukrainian counter-offensive.
A little later, however, he admitted that defending the whole of Ukraine was not so hot. “I do not rule out … that at some point we will be forced to create a certain security zone in the territories controlled by the Kiev regime,” the Russian president said without further details.
A rather loose interpretation of who started the war in Ukraine and why it was not Russia is also known. “The military and political pressure (of the West) is constantly increasing and we have to respond to that. I have said more than once that we did not start the so-called war in Ukraine. On the contrary, we are trying to end it,” said Putin some time ago, whose performance was broadcast live by Rossiya 24 television. The Russian president once again identified the events in Kyiv at the turn of 2013 and 2014 as the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict, which he described as “bloody and unconstitutional” and a Western-orchestrated coup d’état.
He himself called the three-day special military operation a war and made no secret of the fact that the invasion was planned. “The momentum is positive. Everything is developing according to the plan of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff,” Putin once said. At the same time, his plans for the February invasion, according to Western countries and the media, assumed that the Russians would occupy Ukraine in a few days. “I hope that our soldiers will please us more than once with their combat results,” he also noted.
Missiles in Europe
Even the mere consolation regarding an attack on Prague or Warsaw is relatively pointless. Moscow has claimed several times in the past that it is capable of sending missiles to any European capital in a matter of minutes.
Shortly after the start of the war, for example, they threatened Great Britain or France on state television Rossiya 1. The debate was led by the station’s popular presenter Olga Skabejevová. One of the debaters, Russian MP Alexei Zhuravlyov, became angry during the program and suggested launching nuclear missiles. “One Sarmat and that’s it,” Zhuravlyov declared. “The British Isles were and are no more,” he glossed. The other debaters objected to him that they were having a serious discussion and that the proposed solution would cost the lives of everyone on the planet. “But I mean it (…) At least we would start with a clean slate,” the deputy did not want to back down.
The television director later showed a graphic with the estimated length of the rocket’s flight from Kaliningrad to Berlin, Paris and London. While the German capital would be hit in 106 seconds, it would take 200 seconds in the French capital and 202 seconds in London.
Tags: Putins #eternally #shallow #speeches #comforting attack Czech Republic #means
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