Putin suspends nuclear treaty, defends Ukraine invasion in major speech

President Vladimir Putin announced Tuesday Moscow's suspension of its participation in the last remaining arms control treaty between the world's two main nuclear powers, Russia and the United States.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen on a screen during his annual address to the Federal Assembly, in Sevastopol, Crimea February 21, 2023. REUTERS - ALEXEY PAVLISHAK

"I have to announce that Russia is suspending its participation in the New START treaty," Putin said in his state of the nation address. "No one should be under the illusion that global strategic parity can be violated."

He also accused Western countries Tuesday of igniting and sustaining the war in Ukraine, dismissing any blame for Moscow almost a year after the Kremlin’s  invasion of its neighbor that has killed tens of thousands of people.

In his long-delayed state-of-the-nation address, Putin cast Russia, and Ukraine, as victims of Western double-dealing and said Russia, not Ukraine, was the one fighting for its very existence.

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“We aren’t fighting the Ukrainian people,” Putin said in a speech days before the war’s first anniversary on Friday. Ukraine “has become hostage of the Kyiv regime and its Western masters, which have effectively occupied the country.”

Russia will suspend its observation of the New START nuclear weapons treaty, Putin says, dealing a blow to the last accord with the US limiting their strategic arsenals https://t.co/SLbRwYNqm7

— Bloomberg (@business) February 21, 2023

The speech reiterated a litany of grievances that the Russian leader has frequently offered as justification for the widely condemned war and ignored international demands to pull back from occupied areas in Ukraine.

Observers are expected to scour it for signs of how Putin sees the conflict, which has become bogged down, and what tone he might set for the year ahead.

The Russian leader vowed no military let-up in Ukrainian territories he has annexed, apparently rejecting any peace overtures in a conflict that has reawakened fears of a new Cold War.

A woman receives her ballot at a polling station during a referendum on the joining of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) to Russia, in Donetsk, Ukraine September 27, 2022. REUTERS - ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO

Instead, he offered his personalized version of recent history, which discounted arguments by the Ukrainian government that it needed Western help to thwart a Russian military takeover.

“Western elites aren’t trying to conceal their goals, to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ to Russia,” Putin said in the speech broadcast by all state TV channels. “They intend to transform the local conflict into a global confrontation.”

He added that Russia is prepared to respond to that as “it will be a matter of our country’s existence.”

While the Constitution mandates that the president deliver the speech annually, Putin never gave one in 2022, as his troops rolled into Ukraine and suffered repeated setbacks.

(Agencies)