Free Republic

The Russian strongman began his invasion refusing to accept the legitimacy of Ukrainian nationhood and identity. The past year has proven how wrong he was. After a year’s wait and just hours before a speech by President Joe Biden in Poland, Vladimir Putin gave his first “State of the Nation” speech since the invasion of Ukraine. In the nearly two-hour address, the Russian autocrat promised to press on in Ukraine, calling the “existential” conflict a “war” for the first time and asserting that the West had started it. He attacked the leaders of the Ukrainian government as “neo-Nazis,” and addressed...