Putin announces Russia’s suspension of its participation in the Nuclear Weapons Treaty

In his State of the Nation address, Russian President Vladimir Putin paraphrased the same lines about his justification for invading Ukraine nearly a year ago, and did not make it clear how the war he waged could end.

But Putin delivered at least one headline, announcing that Russia would suspend its participation in the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty.

The suspension of the treaty somehow continues the awkward status quo. Under the agreement, the United States and Russia can conduct inspections of each other’s weapons sites to check for compliance, but such inspections have been suspended since 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

So, Putin’s rhetoric was nothing new. In his hour-and-45-minute speech, he offered some cliched choices from a list of grievances about the West and repeated the same justifications for its all-out war against Ukraine.

His speech recalled, in fact, the televised speech broadcast on February 24, 2022, announcing the start of the invasion of Ukraine, the so-called “special military operation” of Russia. Putin repeated the same baseless claim that Moscow had no choice but to use force against Ukraine. He repeated himself in blaming the West for the conflict.

“I want to repeat: it was they who unleashed the war,” Putin said. We used force and we are still using force to stop it.”

Comments like these seem directed at a local audience whose sense of normalcy has been disrupted in many ways. So Putin played the role of unsuspecting wartime leader, observing a moment of silence for soldiers killed in Ukraine and pledging that Russia would create a special fund to provide aid to families of veterans and soldiers killed in Ukraine and boost social benefits for them. .

The Russian president has also indirectly addressed some of the discontent within the ranks that have returned to the Kremlin after the partial mobilization last fall. The mobilization suffered from logistical and moral difficulties, supply problems, and general disorder, which aroused anger in Russian society. Putin promised that rotation in Ukraine would be more predictable and that soldiers would get much-needed leave.

“Service in the military special operations area, which everyone understands very well, is associated with enormous physical and psychological stress, with daily risks to health and life,” he said. Therefore, I consider it necessary to establish regular passes for mobilized persons, in general for all military personnel, for all participants in the special military operation, including volunteers, for at least 14 days and at least once every six months, except for travel time. So that every soldier had the opportunity to visit families, to be close to relatives and friends.

This statement can be interpreted in another way: the Russians must prepare for a long war, so the soldiers should expect some rest and relaxation.