Full
text of Putin’s speech at annexation ceremony
Dear
citizens of Russia, citizens of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics,
residents of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, deputies of the State Duma,
and senators of the Russian Federation!
As you know, referendums took
place in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, Zaporozhye and Kherson
regions. Their results have been summed up, the results are known. People made
their choice, a clear choice.
Today we are signing agreements
on the admission of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Luhansk People’s
Republic, the Zaporizhia Region and the Kherson Region to Russia. I am sure
that the Federal Assembly will support the constitutional laws on the adoption
and formation in Russia of four new regions, four new subjects of the Russian
Federation, because this is the will of millions of people.
(Applause)
And
this, of course, is their right, their inalienable right, which is enshrined in
the first article of the UN Charter, which directly speaks of the principle of
equal rights and self-determination of peoples.
I repeat: this is an inalienable
right of people, it is based on historical unity, in the name of which the
generations of our ancestors won, those who from the origins of Ancient Russia
for centuries created and defended Russia. Here, in Novorossia, Rumyantsev,
Suvorov and Ushakov fought, Catherine II and Potemkin founded new cities. Here
our grandfathers and great-grandfathers stood to death during the Great
Patriotic War.
We will always remember the
heroes of the “Russian spring”, those who did not come to terms with the
neo-Nazi coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014, all those who died for the right to
speak their native language, preserve their culture, traditions, faith, for the
right to live. These are the warriors of Donbass, the martyrs of the “Odessa
Khatyn”, the victims of inhuman terrorist attacks staged by the Kyiv regime.
These are volunteers and militias, these are civilians, children, women, old
people, Russians, Ukrainians, people of various nationalities. This is the real
people’s leader of Donetsk Alexander Zakharchenko, these are military
commanders Arsen Pavlov and Vladimir Zhoga, Olga Kochura and Alexei Mozgovoy,
this is the prosecutor of the Luhansk Republic Sergey Gorenko. This is
paratrooper Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov and all our soldiers and officers who
died the death of the brave during a special military operation. They are
heroes. (Applause)
Heroes of Great Russia. And I ask
you to honor their memory with a moment of silence.
(Moment of silence.)
Thank
you.
Behind the choice of millions of
residents in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, in the Zaporozhye and
Kherson regions is our common destiny and a thousand-year history. This
spiritual connection people passed on to their children and grandchildren.
Despite all the trials, they carried through the years love for Russia. And no
one can destroy this feeling in us. That is why both the older generations and
the youth, those who were born after the tragedy of the collapse of the Soviet
Union, voted for our unity, for our common future.
In 1991, in Belovezhskaya
Pushcha, without asking the will of ordinary citizens, representatives of the
then party elites decided to collapse the USSR, and people suddenly found
themselves cut off from their homeland. This tore apart, dismembered our
people’s community, turned into a national catastrophe. As once after the
revolution the borders of the union republics were cut behind the scenes, so
the last leaders of the Soviet Union, contrary to the direct expression of the
will of the majority of people in the 1991 referendum, ruined our great
country, simply confronted the peoples with a fact.
I admit that they did not even
fully understand what they were doing and what consequences this would
inevitably lead to in the end. But that doesn’t matter anymore. There is no
Soviet Union, the past cannot be returned. Yes, and Russia today does not need
it anymore, we are not striving for this. But there is nothing stronger than
the determination of millions of people who, by their culture, faith, traditions,
language, consider themselves part of Russia, whose ancestors lived in a single
state for centuries. There is nothing stronger than the determination of these
people to return to their true, historical Fatherland.
For a long eight years, people in
the Donbass were subjected to genocide, shelling and blockade, and in Kherson
and Zaporozhye they tried to criminally cultivate hatred for Russia, for
everything Russian. Now, already during the referendums, the Kyiv regime
threatened with violence, death to school teachers, women who worked in
election commissions, intimidated millions of people who came to express their
will with repressions. But the unbroken people of Donbass, Zaporozhye and
Kherson had their say.
I
want the Kyiv authorities and their real masters in the West to hear me, so
that everyone remembers this: people living in Lugansk and Donetsk, Kherson and
Zaporozhye become our citizens forever. (Applause)
We call on the Kyiv regime to
immediately cease fire, all hostilities, the war that it unleashed back in
2014, and return to the negotiating table. We are ready for this, it has been
said more than once. But we will not discuss the choice of the people in
Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson, it has been made, Russia will not
betray it. (Applause)
And today’s Kiev authorities
should treat this free will of the people with respect, and nothing else. This
is the only way to peace.
We will protect our land with all
the forces and means at our disposal and will do everything to ensure the safe
life of our people. This is the great liberation mission of our people.
We will definitely rebuild
destroyed cities and towns, housing, schools, hospitals, theaters and museums,
restore and develop industrial enterprises, factories, infrastructure, social
security, pensions, healthcare and education systems.
Of
course, we will work to improve the security level. Together we will make sure
that citizens in the new regions feel the support of the entire people of
Russia, the entire country, all the republics, all territories and regions of
our vast Motherland. (Applause)
Dear friends, colleagues!
Today I want to address the
soldiers and officers who are participating in a special military operation,
the soldiers of Donbass and Novorossia, those who, after the decree on partial
mobilization, join the ranks of the Armed Forces, fulfilling their patriotic
duty, who, at the call of their hearts, come to the military registration and
enlistment offices. I would like to turn to their parents, wives, and children,
to tell them what our people are fighting for, what enemy is opposing us, who
is throwing the world into new wars and crises, deriving their bloody profit
from this tragedy.
Our compatriots, our brothers and
sisters in Ukraine – the native part of our united people – saw with their own
eyes what the ruling circles of the so-called West are preparing for all
mankind. Here they, in fact, just threw off their masks, showed their true
insides.
After the collapse of the Soviet
Union, the West decided that the world, all of us, would forever have to put up
with its dictates. Then, in 1991, the West expected that Russia would not
recover from such shocks and would fall apart on its own. Yes, it almost
happened – we remember the 90s, the terrible 90s, hungry, cold and hopeless.
But Russia resisted, revived, strengthened, again took its rightful place in the
world.
At
the same time, the West has been looking all this time and continues to look
for a new chance to hit us, weaken and destroy Russia, which they have always
dreamed of, split our state, pit peoples against each other, doom them to
poverty and extinction. They are simply haunted by the fact that there is such
a great, huge country in the world with its territory, natural wealth,
resources, with a people who do not know how and will never live according to
someone else’s orders.
The West is ready to step over
everything in order to preserve the neo-colonial system that allows it to
parasitize, in fact, to plunder the world at the expense of the power of the
dollar and technological dictates, to collect real tribute from humanity, to
extract the main source of unearned prosperity, the rent of the hegemon. The
maintenance of this rent is their key, genuine and absolutely self-serving
motive. That is why total desovereignization is in their interests. Hence their
aggression towards independent states, towards traditional values and
original cultures, attempts to undermine international and integration
processes beyond their control, new world currencies and centers of
technological development. It is critical for them that all countries surrender
their sovereignty to the United States.
The ruling elites of some states
voluntarily agree to do this, voluntarily agree to become vassals; others are
bribed, intimidated. And if it doesn’t work out, they destroy entire states,
leaving behind humanitarian catastrophes, disasters, ruins, millions of ruined,
mangled human destinies, terrorist enclaves, social disaster zones,
protectorates, colonies and semi-colonies. They don’t care as long as they get
their own benefit.
I want to emphasize once again:
it is precisely in greed, in the intention to maintain its unlimited power,
that there are the real reasons for the hybrid war that the “collective West”
is waging against Russia. They do not wish us freedom, but they want to see us
as a colony. They do not want equal cooperation, but robbery. They want to see
us not as a free society, but as a crowd of soulless slaves.
For them, a direct threat is our
thought and philosophy, and therefore they encroach on our philosophers. Our
culture and art are a danger to them, so they are trying to ban them. Our
development and prosperity is also a threat to them – competition is growing.
They don’t need Russia at all, we need it. (Applause)
I
want to remind you that the claims to world domination in the past have been
shattered more than once by the courage and steadfastness of our people. Russia
will always be Russia. We will continue to defend both our values and our
Motherland.
The West is counting on impunity,
on getting away with everything. In fact, everything has gotten away with it so
far. Agreements in the field of strategic security go to the wastebasket;
agreements reached at the highest political level are declared false; firm
promises not to expand NATO to the east, as soon as our former leaders bought
into them, turned into a dirty deceit; treaties on anti-missile defense and
intermediate- and shorter-range missiles have been unilaterally broken under
far-fetched pretexts.
All we hear from all sides is
that the West stands for order based on rules. Where did they come from? Who
even saw these rules? Who agreed? Listen, this is just some kind of nonsense,
sheer deception, double or already triple standards! It’s just designed for
fools.
Russia is a great millennial
power, a country-civilization, and will not live by such rigged, false rules.
(Applause)
It is the so-called West that has
trampled on the principle of the inviolability of borders, and now, at its own
discretion, decides who has the right to self-determination and who does not,
who is not worthy of it. Why they decide so, who gave them such a right is not
clear. To themselves.
That
is why the choice of people in the Crimea, in Sevastopol, in Donetsk, Lugansk,
Zaporozhye and Kherson causes wild anger in them. This West has no moral right
to evaluate it, even to stutter about the freedom of democracy. No, and never
was!
Western elites deny not only
national sovereignty and international law. Their hegemony has a pronounced
character of totalitarianism, despotism and apartheid. They brazenly divide the
world into their vassals, into the so-called civilized countries and into all
the rest, who, according to the plan of today’s Western racists, should add to
the list of barbarians and savages. False labels – “rogue country”,
“authoritarian regime” – are already ready, they stigmatize entire peoples and
states, and there is nothing new in this. There is nothing new in this: the
Western elites are what they were, and have remained so – colonialist. They
discriminate, divide peoples into the first and other grades.
We have never accepted and will
never accept such political nationalism and racism. And what, if not racism, is
Russophobia, which is now spreading all over the world? What, if not racism, is
the peremptory conviction of the West that its civilization, neoliberal culture
is an indisputable model for the whole world? “He who is not with us is against
us.” It even sounds strange.
Even the repentance for their own
historical crimes is being shifted by the Western elites to everyone else,
demanding both the citizens of their countries and other peoples to confess for
what they have nothing to do with at all, for example, for the period of
colonial conquests.
It is worth reminding the West
that it began its colonial policy back in the Middle Ages, and then followed the
global slave trade, the genocide of Indian tribes in America, the plunder of
India, Africa, the wars of England and France against China, as a result of
which it was forced to open its ports for trade opium. What they did was put
entire nations on drugs, purposefully exterminated entire ethnic groups for the
sake of land and resources, staged a real hunt for people like animals. This is
contrary to the very nature of man, truth, freedom and justice.
And
we – we are proud that in the 20th century it was our country that led the
anti-colonial movement, which opened up opportunities for many peoples of the
world to develop in order to reduce poverty and inequality, to overcome hunger
and disease.
I emphasize that one of the
reasons for the centuries-old Russophobia, the undisguised malice of these
Western elites towards Russia is precisely that we did not allow ourselves to
be robbed during the period of colonial conquests, we forced the Europeans to
trade for mutual benefit. This was achieved by creating a strong centralized
state in Russia, which developed and strengthened itself on the great moral
values of Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, on Russian culture and the
Russian word open to all.
It is known that plans for
interventions in Russia were repeatedly made, they tried to use the Time of
Troubles at the beginning of the 17th century, and the period of upheavals
after 1917 failed. The West nevertheless managed to seize the wealth of Russia
at the end of the 20th century, when the state was destroyed. Then we were
called both friends and partners, but in fact they treated us like a colony –
trillions of dollars were siphoned out of the country under a variety of
schemes. We all remember everything, we have not forgotten anything.
And these days, people in Donetsk
and Luhansk, in Kherson and Zaporizhia have spoken out in favor of restoring
our historical unity. Thank you! (Applause)
Western countries have been
repeating for centuries that they bring freedom and democracy to other peoples.
Everything is exactly the opposite: instead of democracy – suppression and
exploitation; instead of freedom – enslavement and violence. The entire
unipolar world order is inherently anti-democratic and not free, it is
deceitful and hypocritical through and through.
The
United States is the only country in the world to use nuclear weapons twice,
destroying the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By the way, they set
a precedent.
Let me also remind you that the
United States, together with the British, turned Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne and
many other German cities into ruins without any military necessity during World
War II. And this was done defiantly, without any, I repeat, military necessity.
There was only one goal: just as in the case of the nuclear bombings in Japan,
to intimidate both our country and the whole world.
The United States left a terrible
mark on the memory of the peoples of Korea and Vietnam with barbaric “carpet”
bombing, the use of napalm and chemical weapons.
Until now, they actually occupy Germany,
Japan, the Republic of Korea and other countries, and at the same time
cynically call them equal allies. Listen, I wonder what kind of alliance is
this? The whole world knows that the leaders of these countries are being
watched, the first persons of these states are being installed listening
devices not only in office, but also in residential premises. This is a real
shame. A shame both for those who do this and for those who, like a slave,
silently and meekly swallow this rudeness.
They call orders and rude,
insulting shouts at the address of their vassals Euro-Atlantic solidarity, the
development of biological weapons, experiments on living people, including in
Ukraine, noble medical research.
It
is with their destructive policy, wars, and robbery that they provoked today’s
colossal surge in migration flows. Millions of people suffer deprivation,
abuse, die by the thousands, trying to get to the same Europe.
Now they are exporting bread from
Ukraine. Where is he going under the pretext of “providing food security for
the world’s poorest countries”? Where is it going? Everything goes to the same
European countries. There, five percent only went to the poorest countries in
the world. Again, another swindle and outright deception.
The American elite, in fact, uses
the tragedy of these people to weaken their competitors, to destroy nation
states. This also applies to Europe, this also applies to the identity of
France, Italy, Spain and other countries with a long history.
Washington is demanding more and
more sanctions against Russia, and most European politicians meekly agree with
this. They clearly understand that the United States, pushing through the EU’s
complete renunciation of Russian energy carriers and other resources, is
practically leading to the de-industrialization of Europe, to completely taking
over the European market – they understand everything, these elites are
European, they understand everything, but prefer to serve the interests of
others. This is no longer servility, but a direct betrayal of their peoples.
But God bless them, that’s their business.
But sanctions are not enough for
the Anglo-Saxons, they switched to sabotage – unbelievable, but true – having
organized explosions on the international gas pipelines of the Nord Stream, which
run along the bottom of the Baltic Sea, they actually began to destroy the
pan-European energy infrastructure. It is clear to everyone who benefits from
this. Who benefits, he did, of course.
The
US dictate is based on brute force, on fist law. Sometimes beautifully wrapped,
sometimes without any wrapper, but the essence is the same – fist law. Hence
the deployment and maintenance of hundreds of military bases in all corners of
the world, the expansion of NATO, attempts to put together new military alliances
such as AUKUS and the like. Active work is also underway to create a
military-political link between Washington-Seoul-Tokyo. All those states that
possess or seek to possess genuine strategic sovereignty and are capable of
challenging Western hegemony are automatically included in the category of
enemies.
It is on these principles that
the US and NATO military doctrines are built, requiring nothing less than total
domination. The Western elites present their neo-colonial plans in the same
hypocritical way, even with a pretense of peacefulness, they talk about some
kind of containment, and such a crafty word wanders from one strategy to
another, but, in fact, means only one thing: undermining any sovereign centers
of development.
We have already heard about the
containment of Russia, China, Iran. I believe that other countries of Asia,
Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, as well as current partners and allies
of the United States, are next in line. We know that whatever they don’t like,
they also impose sanctions against their allies – first against one bank, then
against another; now against one company, now against another. This is the same
practice, and will expand. They target everyone, including our closest
neighbors – the CIS countries.
At the same time, the West has
clearly and has long been wishful thinking. So, starting a sanctions blitzkrieg
against Russia, they believed that they would once again be able to build the
whole world on their command. But, as it turned out, such a rosy prospect
excites far from everyone – perhaps complete political masochists and admirers
of other non-traditional forms of international relations. Most states refuse
to salute, and choose a reasonable path of cooperation with Russia.
The West clearly did not expect
such disobedience from them. They just got used to acting according to a
template, to take everything impudently, blackmail, bribery, intimidation, and
convince themselves that these methods will work forever, as if they were
ossified and frozen in the past.
Such
self-confidence is a direct product not only of the notorious concept of one’s
own exclusivity – although this, of course, is simply surprising – but also of
a real hunger for information in the West. They drowned the truth in an ocean
of myths, illusions and fakes, using extremely aggressive propaganda, lying
recklessly, like Goebbels. The more incredible the lie, the faster they will
believe in it – that’s how they act, according to this principle.
But people cannot be fed with
printed dollars and euros. It is impossible to feed with these pieces of paper,
and it is impossible to heat a home with the virtual, inflated capitalization
of Western social networks. All this is important, what I’m talking about, but
what was just said is no less important: you can’t feed anyone with paper money
– you need food, and you won’t warm anyone with these inflated capitalizations
– you need energy.
Therefore, politicians in the
same Europe have to convince their fellow citizens to eat less, wash less
often, and dress warmer at home. And those who begin to ask fair questions
“actually, why is that so?” – are immediately declared enemies, extremists and
radicals. They switch arrows to Russia, they say: here, they say, who is the
source of all your troubles. They lie again.
What do I want to highlight in
particular? There is every reason to believe that the Western elites are not
going to look for constructive ways out of the global food and energy crisis,
which arose through their fault, precisely through their fault, as a result of
their many years of policy long before our special military operation in
Ukraine, in the Donbass. They do not intend to solve the problems of injustice
and inequality. There is a fear that they are ready to use other recipes that
are familiar to them.
And here it is worth recalling
that the West emerged from the contradictions of the early 20th century through
the First World War. The profits from World War II allowed the United States to
finally overcome the consequences of the Great Depression and become the
largest economy in the world, to impose on the planet the power of the dollar
as a global reserve currency. And the overdue crisis of the 80s – and in the
80s of the last century the crisis also aggravated – the West largely overcame
by appropriating the legacy and resources of the Soviet Union that was
collapsing and collapsed in the end. It is a fact.
Now,
in order to extricate themselves from yet another tangle of contradictions,
they need to break Russia and other states that choose the sovereign path of
development at all costs in order to plunder other people’s wealth even more
and at this expense close and plug their own holes. If this does not happen, I
do not rule out that they will try to completely bring the system to a collapse,
on which everything can be blamed, or, God forbid, they will decide to use the
well-known formula “the war will write everything off”.
Russia understands its
responsibility to the world community and will do everything to bring such
hotheads to their senses.
It is clear that the current
neo-colonial model is ultimately doomed. But I repeat that her real owners will
cling to her to the end. They simply have nothing to offer the world, except
for the preservation of the same system of robberies and racketeering.
In fact, they spit on the natural
right of billions of people, most of humanity, to freedom and justice, to
determine their own future on their own. Now they have completely moved to a
radical denial of moral norms, religion, and family.
Let’s answer some very simple
questions for ourselves. I now want to return to what I said, I want to address
all the citizens of the country – not only to those colleagues who are in the
hall – to all the citizens of Russia: do we want to have, here, in our country,
in Russia, parent number one, number two, number three instead of mom and dad –
have they gone made out there? Do we really want perversions that lead to
degradation and extinction to be imposed on children in our schools from the
primary grades? To be drummed into them that there are various supposed genders
besides women and men, and to be offered a sex change operation? Do we want all
this for our country and our children? For us, all this is unacceptable, we
have a different future, our own future
I
repeat, the dictatorship of the Western elites is directed against all
societies, including the peoples of the Western countries themselves. This is a
challenge for everyone. Such a complete denial of man, the overthrow of faith
and traditional values, the suppression of freedom acquiring the features of a
“reverse religion” [the opposite of what the religion is] – outright Satanism.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ, denouncing the false prophets, says:
By their fruits you shall know them. And these poisonous fruits are already
obvious to people – not only in our country, in all countries, including many
people in the West itself.
The world has entered a period of
revolutionary transformations, they are of a fundamental nature. New
development centers are being formed, they represent the majority – the
majority! – of the world community and are ready not only to declare their
interests, but also to protect them, and see multipolarity as an opportunity to
strengthen their sovereignty, which means to gain true freedom, a historical
perspective, their right to independent, creative, original development, to a
harmonious process.
All over the world, including in
Europe and the United States, as I said, we have many like-minded people, and
we feel, we see their support. A liberation, anti-colonial movement against
unipolar hegemony is already developing within the most diverse countries and
societies. His subjectivity will only grow. It is this force that will
determine the future geopolitical reality.
Dear friends!
Today we are fighting for a just
and free path, first of all for ourselves, for Russia, for diktat, despotism to
remain forever in the past. I am convinced that countries and peoples
understand that a policy based on the exclusivity of anyone, on the suppression
of other cultures and peoples, is inherently criminal, that we must turn this
shameful page. The collapse of Western hegemony that has begun is irreversible.
And I repeat again: it will not be the same as before.
The
battlefield to which fate and history have called us is the battlefield for our
people, for great historical Russia. (Applause)
For a great historical Russia,
for future generations, for our children, grandchildren and
great-grandchildren. We must protect them from enslavement, from monstrous
experiments that are aimed at crippling their minds and souls.
Today we are fighting so that it
would never occur to anyone that Russia, our people, our language, our culture
can be taken and erased from history. Today, we need the consolidation of the
entire society, and such cohesion can only be based on sovereignty, freedom,
creation, and justice. Our values are humanity, mercy and compassion.
And I want to end my speech with
the words of a true patriot Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin: “If I consider Russia my
Motherland, then this means that I love in Russian, contemplate and think, sing
and speak Russian; that I believe in the spiritual strength of the Russian
people. His spirit is my spirit; his fate is my fate; his suffering is my
grief; its flowering is my joy.”
Behind these words is a great
spiritual choice, which for more than a thousand years of Russian statehood was
followed by many generations of our ancestors. Today we are making this choice,
the citizens of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, the residents of
Zaporozhye and Kherson regions have made this choice. They made the choice to
be with their people, to be with the Motherland, to live its destiny, to win
together with it.
Behind us is the truth, behind us
is Russia!
(Applause)
Transcript of Putin’s
annexation speech in Russian
