Putin says Russia is going through ‘difficult times’
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Supreme Court chairman Vyacheslav Lebedev at the Kremlin in Moscow on May 22, 2023.
Mikhail Klimentyev | Afp | Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin told an audience Tuesday that Russia was going through “difficult times” as its invasion of Ukraine continues, but said national pride was growing.
“Yes, Russia is going through difficult times now; things have never been easy, but, still, today we are seeing a moment of our common consolidation, with our national pride being sharpened,” Putin told an awards ceremony Tuesday, according to comments reported by state news agency Tass.
Putin said Russia was “striving at all costs to strengthen the foundations of our spirituality, to create the conditions in the economy, manufacturing, and education of our young people in order to ensure the unconditional future of our country.”
Putin said Russia had become more self-sufficient in recent years, although he did not cite international sanctions as a reason for this.
“We have become much more self-sufficient. Without self-sufficiency, there can be no sovereignty, and self-sufficiency is being achieved in all areas: in art, in science, in industry and, of course, in the military,” he said.
Russian officials have frequently tried to look on the bright side of a raft of international sanctions, imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine as well as earlier misconduct, ranging from 2016 U.S. election interference to the nerve agent poisoning of a former spy in the U.K.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused mass destruction in the country and the deaths of thousands of civilians (the U.N. estimates the number at almost 9,000, although the real number is likely to be far higher) and possibly several hundred thousand deaths among soldiers from both sides.
— Holly Ellyatt
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