Facing stiff resistance in Ukraine and with crippling economic sanctions at home, Russian President Vladimir Putin is using language that recalls the rhetoric from Josef Stalin's show trials of the 1930s.
FILE - In this photo taken from video released by the Russian Presidential Press Service, Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks via videoconference at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, March 16, 2022. – Facing stiff resistance in Ukraine and crippling economic sanctions at home, Russian President Vladimir Putin is using language that recalls the rhetoric from Josef Stalin’s show trials of the 1930s.
Meanwhile, Russia has been battered by devastating Western sanctions that cut the government's access to an estimated half of the country's hard currency reserves and dealt crippling blows to many sectors of the economy.With his hopes for a blitz in Ukraine shattered and economic costs mounting swiftly, Putin unleashed a venomous diatribe at those who oppose his course.
His voice strained by anger, Putin charged that Russians who oppose the war in Ukraine were a “fifth column" obsequiously serving Western interests and ready to “sell their own mother.”“I don't condemn those who have villas in Miami or the French Riviera, those who can't live without foie gras, oysters or so-called gender freedoms,” Putin said. “It's not a problem. The problem is that many of those people are mentally there and not here with our people, with Russia.
Putin and his lieutenants describe the war in Ukraine as a “special military operation” intended to uproot alleged “neo-Nazi nationalists” and remove a potential military threat against Russia— goals that most of the world has rejected as bogus. Asked about incidents in which the apartment doors of war critics were spray-painted with the letter “Z” — a sign used to mark Russian military vehicles in Ukraine that has been heavily promoted by the state — Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described it as an “emotional" move by Putin's supporters.
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