Vladimir Putin holds a huge rally in front of thousands of 'Z' flag-waving Russians
Vladimir Putin has today given a tub-thumping speech to tens of thousands of banner-waving Russians in an attempt to drum up support for his stalled invasion of Ukraine, as he peddled debunked claims about why the war started and shilled a false narrative of Russia's battlefield 'success'.
The despot took to the stage at Moscow's Luzhniki World Cup stadium dressed in a £10,000 Loro Piana jacket - despite his country's economy crumbling under the weight of Western sanctions - to address a crowd waving Russian national flags and banners marked with the letter 'Z', which has become a potent symbol of the invasion.
Putin, who called the rally to mark the anniversary of the last time he attacked Ukraine to annex the Crimea region, spoke of sharing a 'common destiny' with Crimeans, of 'de-Nazifying' the region in 2014, and of the 'bravery' of soldiers currently fighting in Ukraine. He was met with chants of 'Russia, Russia, Russia.'
Speaking in front of banners that read 'For a world without Nazism' and 'For Russia' - with the letter 'Z' in each picked out in bold - he said: 'Sevastopol [capital of Crimea] did the right thing when they put up a barrier to neo-Nazis and radicals, which is already happening on other territories.
'[The] people of Donbass also disagreed with this, and straight-away they organised military operations against [the Nazis]. They were surrounded and shelled by guns, the Ukrainians sent airstrikes against them. This is called genocide,' he said, repeating his widely-debunked justification for attacking. 'It is to save people from this suffering and genocide that we launched our military operation.'
Putin then praised troops taking part in his 'special operation', who he said are fighting for the 'universal values' of all Russians. The words 'we don't abandon our own' were emblazoned on screens around the stadium. Paraphrasing the Bible, he said: 'There is no greater love than giving up one's soul for one's friends.
'The best confirmation of this is how our guys are fighting during this operation, shoulder to shoulder, helping each other. When it is necessary, they cover each-other as if it was their own brother from bullets. We haven't had such unity in a long time,' he said.
But a bizarre moment in the speech came when Putin suddenly disappeared from news feeds in mid-sentence - replaced by a band that was mid-way through singing, perhaps suggesting his address was not broadcast live.
The event included patriotic songs, including a performance of 'Made in the U.S.S.R.,' with the opening lines 'Ukraine and Crimea, Belarus and Moldova, it's all my country.' Moscow police said 200,000 people had attended the event - though the stadium's capacity is only 81,000.
Some Russians spoke to journalists at the event to say they were government workers who had been pressured to come. Others were students who were told they could have a day off from lectures if they attended 'a concert'.
Speeches he gave in the run-up to the invasion were widely believed to have been recorded, and Putin has rarely been seen in public since the attack began.
In a segment of the speech that was initially cut off - but later broadcast on state TV - Putin likened himself to Russian hero Admiral Fyodor Ushakov who famously never lost a battle, in an apparent attempt to boast of his 'successes' in Ukraine which in reality has turned into a bloodbath.
'It so happened that the start of the special operation coincided, quite by chance, with the birthday of one of our outstanding military leaders, the sainted Fyodor Ushakov, who throughout his brilliant military career never lost a battle,' said Putin.
'He once said: "These thunderstorms will go to the glory of Russia". So it was then. So it is today. And so it will always be.'
Ushakov was the supreme Russian commander of his age during the reigns of Catherinne the Great, her son Pavel, and grandson Alexandr I.
Several Telegram channels critical of the Kremlin reported that students and employees of state institutions in a number of regions were ordered by their superiors to attend rallies and concerts marking the Crimea anniversary. Those reports could not be independently verified.
In the wake of the invasion, the Kremlin has cracked down harder on dissent and the flow of information, arresting thousands of antiwar protesters, banning sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and instituting tough prison sentences for what is deemed to be false reporting on the war, which Moscow refers to as a “special military operation.”
The OVD-Info rights group that monitors political arrests reported that at least seven independent journalists had been detained ahead of or while covering the anniversary events in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The event was held after Russian airstrikes pounded the city of Lviv in the west of Ukraine this morning, with Russia strikes getting closer to NATO-member Poland in Putin's bloody-minded invasion of his neighbour.
Andriy Sadovyi, mayor of Lviv, said two Russian missiles launched from the Black Sea - likely by warships - had destroyed an aircraft repair facility and a bus garage close to the airport, but there were no immediate reports of casualties because both facilities were shut down. Four incoming missiles were shot down, he added.
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