by Marco Imarisio
Analysis of the Russian President’s entire speech: the surprise lay in the lack of content and tone
FROM OUR SEND
MOSCOW – Anatomy of a speech, as cautious as expected, and a caution that inspires a little hope. Because for once, the unspoken words are more important than the actually spoken ones. On the stage set up on Red Square, before the cheering of the deployed army, Vladimir Putin made no reference to nuclear power, he did not initiate an escalation, he did not turn the special military operation into a war.
None of that. Indeed, for the first time, it recognized the price in human lives that Russia is paying. The death of each of our soldiers and officers is a pain that weighs on us all, he said, adding that the state will do everything it can to help the families and give special support to the children of the victims and our wounded comrades.
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The surprise lay in the lack of content and tone of the speech. Despite the pomp of the war staging, Putin did not resort to triumphant emphasis or even nationalistic rhetoric. He began by drawing a parallel between the 1941-1945 veterans sitting behind him and the soldiers fighting in Donbass. The Donbass militia and the Russian army are fighting for their country, which the heroes of the Great Patriotic War defended to the death.
But he soon abandoned this comparison. To move on to a summary of the reasons that led him to invade Ukraine, a country that was never mentioned in his speech, as if only his reasons existed but not the state that contains them. Despite all the differences in international relations, Russia has always fought to create a fair and equal security system, a system that is vital to the entire world community. Last December we proposed concluding an agreement on security guarantees. Russia urged the West to engage in honest dialogue, to seek reasonable and compromise solutions, to take mutual interests into account. All in vain. The NATO countries didn’t want to listen to us and that means they had completely different plans. We were preparing for another aggression in Donbass, for the invasion of our historical lands, including Crimea. In the meantime, the acquisition of the nuclear weapon has been declared possible in Kyiv. Since our borders were under immediate threat, Russia pre-emptively stopped the aggression. It was the only right and timely decision. Already heard, already seen.
If we really want to find something new in the frontal assault on the US, which has now restored Russia to the role of the Great Satan of Cold War times. Never before has there been such a direct and frontal attack on Red Square, as if Washington were the culmination of all evil. The United States of America, especially after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, only cared about its exclusivity, thereby humiliating not only the whole world, but also its own satellite countries, which are forced to pretend not to notice, and swallow all this docilely. But we are a different country. Russia has a different character. We will never give up love for the homeland, faith and traditional values, ancestral customs, respect for all peoples and cultures. Whereas in the West they seem to have decided to abolish these millennial values. A moral humiliation that became the basis of cynical falsifications of the history of World War II, the fomenting of Russophobia, the glorification of traitors, and going so far as to quash the courage of those who had won victory in the midst of suffering.
The last passage is a clear indication of the little importance that the US attaches to Russia in the defeat of the Third Reich, according to Putin. American veterans, he added, are barred from coming to Moscow today. But we honor them instead, as we do other allies. The Russian President then asked for a minute’s silence, not only in honor of the fallen of World War II, but also of the martyrs of Odessa, who were burned alive in May 2014 in the House of Trade Unions”, the residents of Donbass and the participants in the Military Operation Special.
Putin closed in crescendo, recalling how at other times Russia’s enemies tried to turn against us gangs of international terrorists who tried to sow ethnic and religious hostility to weaken us from within, without ever achieving any result. But in the end there was no declaration of war, no general mobilization. Just summarizing the Russian reasons and emphasizing the fact of the things the Kremlin claims to have asked NATO and the US several times without ever receiving. Even the Z-formation fighter jets, blocked by adverse weather conditions, did not fly, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Even its president eventually flew low. Perhaps the real news is this: Putin’s speech is in the minor key, almost on the defensive. As if he wanted to get it over with too. But that is only our impression, our hope.
May 9, 2022 (Modification May 9, 2022 | 11:28)
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