Putin wants to talk about Russia’s future, not the war

Vladimir Putin’s annual address to the Federation Council (the upper chamber of the legislature) is rarely an exciting event, but it does provide an opportunity to gauge his mood and assess his priorities. This year’s – the longest yet, at over two hours – was in many ways his stump speech for March’s presidential elections, without ever even acknowledging the upcoming vote.

Early on, there was an array of the familiar talking points around his ‘special military operation’ – the invasion of Ukraine. That it was forced upon him by a ‘Nazi’ regime in Kyiv and a hostile ‘so-called West, with its colonial practices and penchant for inciting ethnic conflicts around the world, [that] not only seeks to impede our progress but also envisions a Russia that is a dependent, declining, and dying space where they can do as they please’. That ‘the absolute majority of Russians’ support it.

This was backed by the usual mix of threat, bravado, and trainspotterish fascination with the various new weapons systems he has brandished in the past, from the Kindzhal hypersonic missile (that have proven easier to shoot down than expected) to the Peresvet laser complex (that doesn’t yet seem to have been used).