Putin Suspends U.S. Nuclear Treaty, Tells Russians West ‘Wants to Finish Us Forever’
Russian leader Vladimir Putin announced in a nearly two-hour speech on Tuesday the unilateral suspension of the longstanding New START agreement that limits American and Russian nuclear development, describing Western support for Ukraine amid an ongoing Russian invasion as an existential threat to Russia.
Putin also took the time to reiterate his claim that the administration of current Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “neo-Nazi” in its ideology and to denounce “perversion” and “spiritual catastrophe” in the West, spending particular time condemning the Anglican Church for allegedly considering “the idea of a gender-neutral God.”
“Son of man, prophesy against Gog and say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against you, Gog, chief prince of[a] Meshek and Tubal. 2 I will turn you around and drag you along. I will bring you from the far north and send you against the mountains of Israel.” Ez. 39:1-2
The Russian leader made his remarks during his State of the Nation address, which the Russian constitution requires him to deliver annually. Putin has not delivered the speech for nearly two years, however, since April 2021, and had announced a delay in public appearances – including postponing his traditional end-of-year marathon press conference in December – late last year.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine – which began in 2014 but escalated through a “special military operation” announced on February 24, 2022, to a full-scale national attack on the country, took up most of Putin’s speaking time. Putin insisted that his administration “did everything possible, really everything possible to solve this problem by peaceful means,” but Western powers did not allow Ukraine to accept such a resolution. He did not appear to include Russia’s invasion and colonization of Crimea in 2014, which received no significant response from the administration of then-President Barack Obama, in his analysis of the ongoing invasion of the country.
“I want to repeat this: it was they who unleashed the war, and we used force to stop it,” Putin asserted.
Putin used his speech to announce an end to the New START agreement, a treaty passed under Obama.
“I am forced to announce today that Russia is suspending its participation in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty,” he declared, accusing the United States and the greater West of attempting to eliminate the existence of Russia as a whole.