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 historical and large-scale,” underlined Vladimir 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 will only move forward”
“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.
Vladimir 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.
