Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine

Putin said Russia was suspending its participation in a treaty with the U.S. that limits the two sides’ strategic nuclear arsenals.

“I am forced to announce today that Russia is suspending its participation in the strategic offensive arms treaty,” Putin said.

— Karen Gilchrist

Putin made a slew of apparent barbs at his sanctioned oligarch familiars on Tuesday, in remarks labelling them as traitors of the Russian state.

The Russian president claimed elite business people were now paying the price for taking advantage of Western influence and the liberalization of financial markets following the fall of the Soviet Union to move wealth out of the country.

“Instead of creating employment here, this capital was spent buying elite real-estate, yachts,” he said. “Some came to Russia,” he noted, “but the first wave was spent on consuming Western goods.”

Putin said that sanctions leveled against many Russian business people in the wake of the Russia-styled “special military operation” in Ukraine showed that the West was not a sanctuary.

“The latest events have demonstrated that the West was just a ghost in terms of being a safe haven,” he said.

“Those who saw Russia as just a source of income and were planning to live abroad, they saw that they just got robbed in the West,” he continued.

“Many of you will remember that I joked you will be running around Western courts, trying to save your wealth in the West, and this is exactly what happened.”

“None of the simple citizens of this country were sorry about those who lost massive bank accounts in the West,” he added.

— Karen Gilchrist

President Putin said Tuesday that Western allies are “punishing” themselves with the sanctions levied against Russia.

In his defiant address, Putin said the West had “not achieved success” in its military and economic “aggression” against Russia — nor would it.

“The initiators of the sanctions are punishing themselves. They provoked a growth of prices in their own countries, closures of factories, collapse of energy sector. They are telling their citizens it’s the Russians who are to blame,” he said, according to a translation of the speech.

Putin also said the sanctions are an attempt to destabilize Russian society, but he insisted that its economy remains strong. He added that Russia has all the financial resources it requires to guarantee its national security and development.

“Sanctions are just a means, but the objective as the West says and I say directly to force our citizens to suffer. They are trying to destabilize our society from inside, but their attempts were not justified and were not successful,” he said.

— Karen Gilchrist

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday announced a state fund to support veterans and the families of fallen soldiers in response to Russia’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Putin said the fund would provide “social, medical and psychological support” to soldiers and their families.

Announcing the fund during his state of the nation address, Putin said the funds would contribute toward education, entrepreneurship, career development and home care.

“We all understand, I understand how unbearably hard it is now for the wives, sons, daughters of fallen soldiers, their parents, who raised worthy defenders of the Fatherland,” he said.

Putin did not disclose the value of the fund. The announcement comes days ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion.

— Karen Gilchrist

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday claimed Western allies “started the war” in Ukraine during his annual state of the nation address.

Speaking in Moscow, Putin accused the West of developing military contingents on the border of Russia.

“I would like to repeat, they started the war, and we used the force in order to stop it,” Putin said according to a translation of the speech.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Moscow has referred to the conflict as a “special military operation.”

“We did everything possible in order to resolve this problem in a peaceful way. We were patient in our negotiations to come out of this terrible conflict. However behind our backs a completely different scenario was being prepared,” he said.

— Karen Gilchrist

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday dubbed President Putin’s war a “strategic failure.”

“One year after President Putin attacked Ukraine it is clear that his war has been a strategic failure in every way,” Blinken said during a news conference with Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias in Athens.

It comes as Putin is due to deliver his assessment of Russia’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine during a state of the nation address in Moscow.

— Karen Gilchrist

China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Tuesday called on certain countries to stop “fueling the fire” over the Russia-Ukraine conflict, in an apparent retort against Western allies.

“China is deeply worried that the Ukraine conflict will continue to escalate or even spiral out of control,” Qin said during a speech at the foreign ministry in Beijing. “We urge certain countries to immediately stop fueling the fire.”

The comments come as the U.S. warned China against providing military support to Russia, which Beijing has said it is not doing.

China’s top diplomat Wang Yi is due to visit Moscow Tuesday and potentially meet with President Vladimir Putin.

President Xi Jinping is also expected to deliver a “peace speech” Friday, on the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

— Karen Gilchrist

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv Tuesday to reiterate her country’s support for Ukraine as she seeks to smooth tensions in her right-wing alliance.

The trip comes a week after her coalition partner Silvio Berlusconi, the Forza Italia leader, blamed Zelenskyy for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Her visit comes a day after U.S. President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to the Ukrainian capital Monday, days ahead of the war’s one-year anniversary.

— Karen Gilchrist

Russian President Vladimir Putin will deliver a closely-watched speech at 9:00 a.m. London time in which he is expected to detail his latest thinking on what he continues to refer to as the “special military operation” in Ukraine.

“At such a crucial and very complicated juncture in our development, our lives, everyone is waiting for a message in the hope of hearing an assessment of what is happening, an assessment of the special military operation,” a Kremlin spokesman told state television, per a Reuters translation.

The speech will be made in Moscow to Russia’s two houses of parliament as well as military commanders and soldiers.

It comes as the war approaches its one-year anniversary, on Feb. 24.

— Jenni Reid