When Vladimir V. Putin announced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a televised address on Thursday, he articulated aims far beyond those of Russia’s prior assaults on its Ukrainian neighbor.
In a sweeping and angry address, Mr. Putin portrayed the conflict as one waged against the West as a whole. In a falsehood-filled narrative too detailed to be dismissed as mere nationalist fervor, Mr. Putin argued that the West aimed to use Ukraine as a springboard to invade and destroy Russia.
Unlike his speech earlier in the week, Mr. Putin spent relatively little time rehashing false stories of Ukrainian atrocities against the country’s Russian-speaking minority. Those claims had served as justification for his decision to recognize Russian-backed separatist forces, which have held parts of eastern Ukraine since 2014, as independent states that he was intervening to protect.
Rather, he portrayed the war as a pre-emptive strike against Western aggression and a decisive battle to protect Russia’s rightful imperial hold over Europe’s east.
What follows is a concise annotation of several key passages from his address.
It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand...
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