Vladimir Putin has given his first press conference since invading Ukraine. The timing is presumably also related to the upcoming presidential elections in Russia - in March 2024.
Putin seemed confident - contrary to multiple reports that his health has been poor, that he uses doubles - and even that he has died. At one point during the conference, Putin was presented with an AI double who asked if it is true that Putin uses doubles. Putin seemed somewhat at a loss.
The Russian President continued the familiar propaganda line that Russia is fighting to "demilitarize" and "denazify" Ukraine as well as enforcing Ukraine's neutrality (contrary to developments bringing Ukraine closer to the EU and NATO.)
The press conference quickly formed the basis for mass communication across Russia:
Putin took questions from the "general" public as well as from the media and soldiers - reinforcing the sense that the conference was conceived as an integral part of the pre-election campaign.
He claimed that Russia was holding its military line and even "modestly improving" positions against Ukraine. Putin justified the war - besides the purely propagandist "denazification" line - in terms of zones of influence - a concept harking back to the Cold War. He repeated his argument that the West's "expansion" east - NATO expansion to e.g. Poland and proposed expansion to include Ukraine and Georgia - is the real cause of the war.
He made vague threats too:
"There will be peace when we achieve our goals...As for
demilitarisation, if they (the Ukrainians) don't want to come to
an agreement - well, then we are forced to take other measures,
including military ones... Either we get an agreement... or we solve this
by force."
More credibly, given debates in the US Republican Party in particular, Putin claimed that western morale is waning. He conceded that Ukraine would probably continue to receive support "for now".
Putin also addressed a current controversy in Russia surrounding the price of eggs and inflation in general. He also denied parallels being drawn between Israel's invasion of Gaza and Russia's invasion of Ukraine - claiming that Israel's was the greater aggressor:
"...The Secretary General of the United Nations called
today's Gaza Strip the biggest graveyard of children in the
world. It is an objective assessment."
Full conference available here with English translation.
Sources: Reuters, X, GBNews, The Guardian
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