Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday praised Russia's successes during his quarter century at the helm of the country in his New Year's speech, which marks the 25th anniversary of his coming to power.
“Dear friends, in a few minutes the year 2025 will take its right, completing the first quarter of the 21st century. This period has been marked in Russia by numerous events, particularly historic and large-scale,” underlined Mr. Putin
“There remains a lot to do, but we can be proud of what has been accomplished, it is our common good for future development,” he said in his traditional address to the nation and in which he did not made only one allusion to the conflict in Ukraine.
Hailing an “independent, free and strong” country, he judged that Russia had “been capable of meeting the most difficult challenges”.
“We are sure that everything will be fine, that we will only move forward,” he insisted, in this brief address broadcast as the Russian Far East entered the new year.
Mr. Putin, then Prime Minister, succeeded Russian President Boris Yeltsin on December 31, 1999, who, ill and discredited, had resigned to everyone's surprise.
-Since then, the Kremlin strongman has prided himself on having remade Russia into a great power, capable of competing with the West and on having restored honor to the Russians after the humiliation of the dislocation of the Soviet empire.
While the country has been immersed in its murderous assault against Ukraine for almost three years, he saluted the soldiers deployed on the front, the only reference in this speech to the most serious conflict in Europe since the Second World War.
“On this New Year's Eve, the thoughts and hopes of relatives and friends, of millions of people across Russia, are with our fighters and our commanders,” he said.
He also did not mention Russia's economic difficulties, hit by high inflation and growth showing signs of running out of steam, all problems fueled by the conflict in Ukraine and Western sanctions.
Mr. Putin also recalled that the year 2025 will mark 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany, a central element of the Russian discourse of national greatness, the Kremlin considering that the USSR is the main architect of the victory of the Allies in 1945.
