INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Recasts throughout and updates with reaction and analysis.President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday vowed to press onward with Russia's war in
Ukraine and railed against the West for a litany of wrongdoings in his first state-of-the-nation address since invading Ukraine one year
ago.Addressing lawmakers from both houses of parliament alongside other members of the elite, Putin relied on familiar talking points as he
sought to prepare Russians for a long war, pledging to continue Russia's offensive that started with a failed attempt to capture Kyiv and
has slowed to a brutal war of attrition in eastern Ukraine."Step by step, we will carefully and systematically achieve [our] aims," Putin
said three days ahead of the anniversary of the start of the invasion.The only major new announcement in the two-hour speech was that Russia
States.Otherwise, Putin largely resorted to a traditional package of spending promises and accusations of betrayal and aggression directed
its best to solve the problem in Ukraine peacefully, but the statements of Western leaders turned out to be fraudulent and untrue," Putin
said at the Gostiny Dvor exhibition center near Red Square.kremlin.ru"It's them who unleashed the war
chaos."Referring to the Ukrainian theater of war as "historical Russian land," Putin went on to claim that Western leaders were escalating
the conflict by providing military aid for Kyiv and imposing economic sanctions on Moscow."The responsibility for fueling the Ukrainian
conflict, for its escalation, for the number of victims..
lies completely with Western elites," Putin said, claiming that these elites were attempting to "inflict a strategic defeat on
Russia."Political expert Tatiana Stanovaya said that, while Putin did not say much that was new, his phrasing was noticeably more extreme
them for everything."Addressing the issue of Western arms deliveries to Ukraine, which have included tanks, armored fighting vehicles as
well as long-range missiles, Putin said that the West would trigger a response from Moscow if it supplies Kyiv with weapons that could allow
them to hit targets inside Russia."The more long-range Western systems are delivered into Ukraine, the further we'll have to push the threat
began nuclear tests.kremlin.ru"No one should be under the illusion that global strategic parity can be violated," he said.Putin was speaking
war will continue, a former senior Kremlin official told The Moscow Times, although he was dissatisfied with the lack of specifics in the
"There's every opportunity for a breakthrough in many areas."And, while Putin criticized the hundreds of thousands of Russians who are
estimated to have fled the country since the start of the invasion as "traitors," he said the authorities won't "engage in a witch
hunt."According to Russian political analyst Alexander Kynev, the fact that Putin did not make any groundbreaking announcements should be
taken as a positive sign that no major new escalation in Ukraine is imminent."The absence of news is good news," Kynev wrote.His views were
main question in the minds of Russian citizens: When will this so-called 'special military operation' end? The answer is in the whole
All of this is for the long haul
