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Ukraine war: New year in Putin’s Russia - nothing is normal
The clock in the Kremlin’s Spassky Tower strikes midnight.
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The Russian national anthem plays.
Then Channel One TV kicks off 2023 with a pop song: “I’m Russian and I will go all the way…I’m Russian, to spite the world.”
Next on Top of the (patriotic) Pops: “I was born in the Soviet Union, I was made in the USSR!”
I change channels. At the Russia-1 New Year party, one of the station’s most famous war correspondents is holding a champagne glass, toasting 2023 and wishing for “more good news than bad from the front line”.
Sitting with him are men in military fatigues. A Moscowinstalled official from Russianoccupied Ukraine declares: “I wish us all peace. But peace will only come after our victory.”
You get the gist. This year’s festive extravaganzas on Russian TV are a strange mixture of let’s party and let’s win on the battlefield.
This is not normal TV fare for a New Year’s night in Russia. Then again, this is not a normal New Year’s night. “Normal” disappeared 10 months ago when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
There was nothing “normal” about Vladimir Putin’s New Year address to the Russian people. For his annual speech the president normally stands alone outside the Kremlin. This year, standing behind him, were men and women in combat uniforms.
In his speech last year, the Kremlin leader pointed out that “New Year’s Eve is literally filled with good cheer and happy thoughts”.
Good cheer and happy thoughts were in short supply this time round.
President Putin used the address to promote the Kremlin’s alternative reality: that in this conflict Russia’s the hero and Ukraine and the West are the villains.
“For years, Western elites hypocritically assured us of their peaceful intentions…but in fact, they encouraged the neo-Nazis in every possible way,” President Putin said.
President Vladimir Putin delivers his New Year’s address surrounded by people in uniform
President Zelensky spoke in Russian to tell people that the picture President Putin painted was not correct
is the sacred duty we owe to our ancestors and descendants.”
When the Kremlin talks about “defending our Motherland”, keep in mind that it was Russia that invaded Ukraine. Not the other way around. The Russian President claims his country is benefiting enormously from the dramatic events of 2022: “It was a year of… important steps towards Russia’s full sovereignty.”
The assertion that, in this war, Russia is fighting for its sovereignty and independence is puzzling, to say the least.
For a start Russia has long been a sovereign, independent nation. Even if you accept Vladimir Putin’s premise that Russia never achieved “full sovereignty” the question arises: why not? Mr Putin’s been in power for 23 years. Long enough, you may think, to sort that.
Ukraine war: Zelensky tells Russians - Putin is destroying you
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has told Russians that their leader is destroying their country.
Speaking after Vladimir Putin delivered a New Year address flanked by people in military uniform, Mr Zelensky said the Russian president was hiding behind his troops, not leading them.
Saturday saw a day of deadly strikes across Ukraine, and Mr Zelensky said Ukrainians would not forgive Russia.
At least one person died and dozens were injured in the attacks.
The head of Ukraine’s armed forces, Valerii Zaluzhny, said air defences had shot down 12 of 20 Russian cruise missiles on Saturday.
There were further missile strikes on Kyiv just hours into the New Year on Sunday, officials said. The Ukrainian Air force said it had shot down 45 Iranian-made kamikaze drones overnight.
But the strikes, which came in the opening hours of 2023, fuelled anger and hate among Ukrainians already tired of Russia’s unrelenting air campaign.
As explosions rocked the capital, some residents sang the national anthem, while officials accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians while they gathered to celebrated the New Year.
Andriy Nebitov, the head of the Kyiv police, posted an image to social media of a downed drone with the words “Happy New Year” scribbled across it in Russian.
“That is everything you need to know about the terror state and its army,” he wrote on Facebook, adding that the remains had crashed in a children’s playground.
The latest wave of attacks happened two days after one of the largest air strikes since the start of the war. Dozens of attacks in recent weeks have caused repeated power cuts.
Moscow has repeatedly denied targeting civilians, but Mr Putin has recently admitted hitting critical energy facilities.
In an address on his Telegram channel, Mr Zelensky said those who carried out Saturday’s attacks were inhuman.
Switching from Ukrainian to Russian, he then attacked Mr Putin.
“Your leader wants to show you that he’s leading from the front, and his military is behind him,” he said.
“But in fact he is hiding. He’s hiding behind his military, his missiles, the walls of his residences and palaces.
Mr Zelensky later gave a new year’s address to the Ukrainian people, thanking them for their “incredible” efforts in repelling Russian advances.
“We fight as one team - the whole country, all our regions. I admire you all. I want to thank every invincible region of Ukraine,” he said.
Mr Putin also issued a new year address which was broadcast for each of Russia’s 11 time zones as they saw in 2023.
The Russian leader tried to rally people behind his troops fighting in Ukraine, saying the country’s future was at stake.
In combative mood, Mr Putin said: “We always knew, and today it is confirmed to us yet again, that a sovereign, independent and secure future for Russia depends only on us, on our strength and will.”
He presented the invasion of Ukraine’s sovereign territory as “defending our people and our historical lands” and said “moral, historical rightness is on our side”.
Mr Putin also accused the West of “provoking” Moscow to launch its invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.
“The West lied about peace. It was preparing for aggression... and now they are cynically using Ukraine and its people to weaken and split Russia,” he said.
Ukraine and the West reject Russia’s claims about the start of the aggression.
