OPINION — “Generally speaking, nothing can replace the school of war. People return entirely different, and they are ready to lay down their lives for the Fatherland, wherever they may be working.”
That was Russian President Vladimir Putin last Tuesday, preaching what citizens gain from fighting a war for their nation’s survival. The words were in the latter part of his one-hour-and-forty-six-minute state-of-the nation speech to members of Russia’s State Duma, the lower house of its parliament.
I am not a special interpreter of Putin, but I believe in listening to what leaders say, while understanding they are delivering different messages to their own and foreign audiences and often trying to sell misinformation.
With that proviso, Putin’s entire speech left me with several thoughts. First, that Russia’s President believes that wars define people and that he is leading a defining battle for his country’s survival as a nation, although he totally distorts how and why the current fighting began.
In an interview Sunday with the state TV channel Rossiya, Putin went further saying the U.S. and its NATO allies wanted to “dismember” Russia and turn the country into a series of weak mini-states.
In last Tuesday’s speech, Putin indicated he was putting Russia on a wartime footing, reshaping its economy to be more self-sufficient and directing government spending to meet the demands of the Ukraine war.
And finally, reminiscent of his turnabout on the threatened use of nuclear weapons, Putin last week, said he is “suspending” membership in the New START Treaty, but “not withdrawing” from the Treaty altogether. In fact, he talked about additional elements for some future agreement.
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Putin last Tuesday, approached Ukraine far differently from the Putin, who in July 2021, released a long article entitled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” in which he wrote, “Our spiritual, human and civilizational ties formed for centuries and have their origins in the same sources…Together we [Russians and Ukrainians] have always been and will be many times stronger and more successful, for we are one people.”
The July 2021 Putin claimed that anti-Russian, neo-Nazis had taken over Ukraine through a July 2014 coup and that “we are witnessing not just complete dependence but direct external control, including the supervision of the Ukrainian authorities, security services and armed forces by foreign advisers.”
Then there was the Putin who on February 24, 2022, announced that his troops had entered Ukraine, in effect to pre-empt what he claimed was going to be an American-led NATO attack on his country. “Russia cannot feel safe, develop, exist with a constant threat emanating from the territory of modern Ukraine… The entire course of events and analysis of incoming information shows that Russia’s clash with these forces is inevitable. It is only a matter of time: they are getting ready. They are waiting for the right time. Now, they also claim to possess nuclear weapons. We will not allow this to be done.”
Last week, Putin embellished that false pre-emption story by stating that prior to the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian government in Kyiv had “held negotiations with the West about the delivery of air-defense systems, warplanes and other heavy equipment to Ukraine.” He also claimed that “The United States and NATO quickly deployed their army bases and secret biological laboratories near Russian borders. They mastered the future theatre of war during war games, and they prepared the Kiev regime which they controlled and Ukraine, which they had enslaved, for a large-scale war.”
That misinformation is just a taste of what the Russian public has been getting daily.
Now, after a year of unexpected fighting, Putin’s so-called “special military operation,” which he thought would be quickly successful, has turned into a full-scale war, although he bans other Russians from using that word.
His state-of-the-nation speech then illustrated in just how many ways the Ukraine war is affecting Russian planning.
The first domestic program Putin outlined was the establishment of “a dedicated state fund for bringing targeted, personalized assistance to the families of fallen fighters, as well as veterans of the special military operation.” This new fund would coordinate social and/or medical support as well as provide counseling on future education and employment for surviving veterans.
Putin said, “Every family without exception, and every veteran will have their personal social worker, a coordinator, who will be there for them in person to resolve in real time, any issue they might face. Let me emphasize that the fund must open its offices in all regions of the Russian Federation in 2023.”
As for active service personnel taking part in the special military operation, including mobilized conscripts, Putin said they “must benefit from a leave of absence of at least 14 days every six months without counting the time it takes them to travel to their destination. This way, every fighter will be able to meet family and spend time with their loved ones.”
Putin said the resources of the Presidential Grants Foundation, the Foundation for Cultural Initiatives, the Institute for Internet Development and other government entities would rebuild, repair and provide equipment to hundreds of cultural facilities in Donbass and Novorossiya, using the tsarist days name for what now are the Luhansk and Donetsk areas of Ukraine, claimed by Russia.
Putin reminded the Duma of his 2021-to-2025 plan for building up the Russian armed forces from 1 million to 1.5 million which he said, “is being implemented and adjusted as necessary.” He added, “The current and future development of the Armed Forces must be based on actual combat experience gained during the special military operation, which is extremely important, I would even say absolutely invaluable to us.”
That is a major increase in the military services to include 695,000 contract soldiers, 521,000 of whom should be in service by the end of 2023, according to Russian military officials.
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Putin also said last Tuesday, “I propose launching a special program for low-cost rental housing for defense industry employees. The rental payments for them will be significantly lower than the going market rate since a significant portion of it will be covered by the state.”
Although Putin said that “those who initiated the [economic] sanctions [on Russia] are punishing themselves,” a number of his economic proposals last Tuesday, clearly were to counter the impact that those sanctions have had on Russia’s economy.
He announced a ten-year, 4.5 trillion-ruble program to build and repair housing and utility systems, in his words, to “significantly expand our economy’s production capabilities and to increase domestic industrial capacity.” Putin also said he had created a 500-million ruble industrial mortgage fund to be used for easy-term loans to purchase or upgrade production facilities.
Putin also spent time lecturing Russians about investing or even placing their money abroad. As he put it, “Recent events have clearly shown that the image of the West as a safe haven for capital was a mirage.” He talked of those Russian elites who lost their assets, now frozen in foreign banks or had their yachts or mansions seized.
Instead, Putin said, “Everyone must know that the sources of their prosperity and their future can only be here, in their native country Russia. Russian capital, the money earned here, must be put to work for the country, for our national development.” He said that in March 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, “We launched a dedicated assistance package for businesses and the economy worth about a trillion rubles.”
Turning philosophical, Putin said, “You know, there is a maxim, cannons versus butter. Of course, national defense is the top priority, but in resolving strategic tasks in this area, we should not repeat the mistakes of the past and should not destroy our own economy.”
While the bulk of Putin’s speech focused on Russia, he did take a moment to give his views of the current direction of the U.S. in remarks that track some conservative GOP politicians’ statements.
For example, Putin said in the U.S. “it is all about the destruction of the family, of cultural and national identity, perversion and abuse of children, including pedophilia, all of which are declared normal in their life.” He added, “They are forcing the priests to bless same-sex marriages. Bless their hearts, let them do as they please…Reportedly, the Anglican Church is planning, just planning, to explore the idea of a gender-neutral god. What is there to say? Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
As far as Putin’s New START Treaty suspension, he made the argument that to allow U.S. inspection of Russian nuclear defense facilities when the U.S. at the same time is providing intelligence for Ukraine drones to attack Russian strategic air bases, “simply sounds insane.”
“A week ago,” Putin said, “I signed an executive order putting new land-based strategic systems on combat duty. Are they going to poke their nose there as well? Do they think we will let them go there just because?”
Putin also claimed that the U.S. was “not letting us conduct full-scale inspections under this treaty. Our repeated applications to inspect different facilities remain unanswered or are rejected under formal pretexts, and we cannot verify anything on the other side.”
Yesterday, during an appearance at the Brookings Institution, Mallory Stewart, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, publicly challenged Putin’s statements saying Russian inspectors had been cleared to come to the U.S., but never did.
She also described Russia’s suspension of inspections as “destabilizing,” but indicated “there are options on the table from our side,” although “it’s hard to say there is a way forward.”
Putin on Tuesday, also made the point that France and Great Britain have nuclear weapons directed at Russia. Therefore, he said, “Before we come back to discussing this issue, we must have a clear idea of what NATO countries such as France or Great Britain have at stake, and how we will account for their strategic arsenals, that is, the Alliance’s combined offensive capabilities.”
I read Putin’s statement about clarifying the role of the French and British nuclear weapons as his way to open broader nuclear talks, perhaps even to include China. And that will be when Ukraine is somehow settled, and a time when, as Putin said, “we come back to discussing this [New START] issue.”
Get the Facts: Award-winning journalist Walter Pincus is a Senior National Security Contributor at The Cipher Brief. Contributor columns are intended to express the opinions and views of the authors based on their deep experience covering national security issues and are not intended to be objective reporting on issues of the day.
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