This is a reproduction of my live Twitter summary/translation of Vladimir Putin’s speech:
I wish every single person in the West would listen to Putin’s speech. Obviously, that won’t happen so let me summarise as a professional translator for 10+ years. He states, as he has done from the outset, what his intentions and complaints are in the plainest terms possible.
Setting aside his brief comments on the recent “referendums”, he spends most of his speech discussing the West. His primary complaint isn’t NATO expansion, which gets only a cursory mention. The West is greedy and seeks to enslave and colonise other nations, like Russia.
The West uses the power of finance and technology to enforce its will on other nations. To collect what he calls the “hegemon’s tax”. To this end the West destabilises countries, creates terrorist enclaves and most of all seeks to deprive other countries of sovereignty.
It is this “avarice” and desire to preserve its power that is the reason for the “hybrid war” the collective West is “waging on Russia”. They want us to be a “colony”. They do not want us to be free, they want Russians to be a mob of soulless slaves—direct quote.
The rules-based order the West goes on about is “nonsense”. Who made these rules? Who agreed to them? Russia is an ancient country and civilization and we will not play by these “rigged” rules. The West has no moral authority to challenge the referendums because it has violated the borders of other countries. Western elites are “totalitarian, despotic and apartheidistic”—direct quote. They are racist against Russia and other countries and nations. “Russophobia is racism”. They discriminate by calling themselves the “civilised world”.
They colonised, started the global slave trade, genocided native Americans, pillaged India and Africa, forced China to buy opium through war. We, on the other hand, are proud that we “led” the anti-colonial movement that helped countries develop to reduce poverty and inequality.
They are Russophobic (they hate us) because we didn’t allow our country to be pillaged by creating a strong CENTRALISED (emphasis his) state based on Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism. They have been trying to destabilise our country since the 17th century in the Times of Trouble. Eventually, they managed to “get their hands on our riches” at the end of the 20th century. They called us friends and partners while pumping out trillions of dollars (his irony game is strong today).
We remember this. We didn’t forget. The West claims to bring freedom and democracy to other countries but it’s the exact opposite of the truth. The unipolar world is anti-democratic by its very nature. It is a lie. They used nuclear weapons, creating a precedent. They flattened German cities without “any military need to do so”. There was no need for this except to scare us and the rest of the world. Korea, Vietnam. To this day they “occupy” Japan, South Korea and Germany and other countries while cynically calling them “allies”.
The West has surveillance over the leaders of these nations who “swallow these insults like the slaves they are”.
He then talks about bioweapon research (haven’t heard about them for a while) and human experiments “including in Ukraine”.
The US rules the world by the power of the fist. Any country which seeks to challenge Western hegemony becomes an enemy. Their neocolonialism is cloaked in lies like “containment” of Russia, China and Iran. The concept of truth has been destroyed with fakes and extreme propaganda (irony game still strong).
You cannot feed your people with printed dollars and social media. You need food and energy. But Western elites have no desire to find a solution to the food and energy crises *they* (emphasis his) created.
They solved the problems at the start of 20c with WW1 and the US established dominance of the world via the dollar as a result of WW2. In the 80s they had another crisis they solved by “plundering our country”. Now they want to solve their problems by “breaking Russia”.
Russia “understands its responsibility to the international community” and will “do everything to cool the heads of these neocolonials who are destined to fail”.
They’re crazy. I want to speak to all Russian citizens, do we want to replace mum and dad with parent 1 and 2?
They invented genders and claim you can “transition”. Do we want this for our children?
We have a different vision.
They have abandoned religion and embraced Satanism—direct quote.
The world is going through a revolutionary transformation. A multipolar world offers nations freedom to develop as they wish and they make up the majority of the world.
We have many like-minded friends in Western countries. We see and appreciate their support. They are forming liberation, anti-colonial movements as we speak—direct quote. These will only grow.
We are fighting for a fair world for our country. The idea of exceptionalism is criminal and we must turn this shameful page. The breaking of the West’s hegemony is INEVITABLE (emphasis his).
There is no going back. We are fighting for our “great (as in big), historic Russia”. Our values are (irony game crescendo): love of our fellow man, compassion and mercy.
Truth is with us, Russia is with us.
That’s the end of the speech. As I said from day 1, the purpose of what Putin is doing in Ukraine is to throw the West off its pedestal. This isn’t about NATO or Ukraine, this is the big play to replace the current world order.
What I think is striking about this speech, is the comprehensiveness with which it portrays the western civilization as different, evil, and intolerable. The West is a power-hungry, post-human Moloch that seeks to subvert and devour anything different. Ranged against it are all the traditional civilizations of the world, characterized by religion, sovereignty, and family values, and Russia volunteers to be the armory of the resistance.
What do you see as the significance of this? I think I would have been surprised if Putin talked mostly about Ukraine—it’s more respectable to be struggling vs the west than vs a smaller, poorer neighbour. Compare to “war on terror” vs “war on Afghanistan”.
Given the above, it doesn’t seem particularly notable that he insults the west.
I also don’t see escalation as more likely if he declares “the west” to be the prime enemy vs “NATO”; perhaps less, actually, because “the west” seems more of a rhetorical opponent while you could actually fight against NATO with bombs if you really wanted to.
We remember this. We didn’t forget. The West claims to bring freedom and democracy to other countries but it’s the exact opposite of the truth. The unipolar world is anti-democratic by its very nature. It is a lie. They used nuclear weapons, creating a precedent. They flattened German cities without “any military need to do so”. There was no need for this except to scare us and the rest of the world. Korea, Vietnam. To this day they “occupy” Japan, South Korea and Germany and other countries while cynically calling them “allies”.
Wait, does Putin not consider Germany part of “The West”? If not Germany, then who, beyond the US?
He’s not saying things to express some coherent worldview. Germany could be an enemy on May 9th or a victim of US colonialism another day. People’s right to self-determination is important when we want to occupy Crimea, but inside Russia separatism is a crime. Whichever argument best proves that Russia’s good and West is bad.
I wonder what he thinks an (ideologically) unoccupied Germany would be like? Surely he can’t be thinking of the Statsi DDR he was part of when he was working in Dresden?! Maybe he thinks that Germany is naturally nazistic, and he just forgot to pretend to be against nazism?
Or maybe he is just saying words that are good at getting people angry at the west, but don’t make much sense when you think more about them?
“don’t make much sense when you think more about them” seems like the only answer. Japan and Germany haven’t been occupied puppet states for a long time now. Most likely he is trying to reach out to left-wingers in Germany/other European countries (who tend to be vaguely anti-USA) and try and persuade them that they are somehow being muggs/US-puppets. What is weird is I think Putin lost several family members in the European theatre of WW2 and is often said to have a strong anti-German feeling.
I came across a bit more information about Putin’s relationship with Germany. In an interview with German media in 2001, Putin said that the first words of his daughter were in German (which is plausible given that Putin’s wife was a German teacher).
According to another article, the daughter frequently traveled to Germany because she has a German boyfriend. That information came out in August of this year and it’s quite interesting that it exists in it’s current form. iStories had the scoop. It’s interesting that someone decided to leak it. It’s someone saying to Putin “look your op-sec for your daughter isn’t as good as you thought”.
I was told it by someone who was halfway through reading a Putin biography (I believe the Philip Short one) - they presented it as a well known (“often said”) thing which I took it as. Looking now this seems to not be google-supported, although I have not read the book.
I think there is a discussion to be had about if a country that has countless military bases of another country in their land is occupied of just an “ally” It’s not clear to me there is a big difference in practical terms.
I don’t think US is occupying Japan, because US bases in Japan are there by mutual consent. Similarly for South Korea and Germany.
But yes, US is occupying Okinawa. US bases in Okinawa are not there by mutual consent. Japan consents, Okinawa doesn’t. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma is, like, the single biggest political issue in Okinawa. Just look at the aerial picture. It is absurd.
Similarly, US was occupying Seoul, Yongsan Garrison in particular. After a long negotiation, US bases relocated to Pyeongtaek, where they are welcome. Putin does have a point here. US should do more of Pyeongtaek.
Not every occupation is the same, but nations occupied by military force are often denied the ability to run their own affairs with regard to legal proceedings, defence, etc. In particular not being allowed to have final authority over legal matters on their own soil seems to historically be a great sticking point: see the Austro-Hungarian demands of Serbia leading to WW1.
This is one of the key domains which defines the authority of a sovereign nation, whereas it doesn’t seem that uncommon in history for there to be foreign military assets in a nation as a non-occupying force that does not damage the sovereignty of that nation. Auxiliary troops, mercenaries, allied soldiers.
From this perspective, U.S. bases look like occupation insofar as they damage the sovereignty of the occupied nation, and look like anything but occupation to the degree that they protect or abide by that sovereignty. Russian propaganda would of course claim, that the former dramatically outweighs the latter.
Interesting summary and interpretation of a speech outlining Putin’s intentions, “The End of Western Hegemony is INEVITABLE”:
What I think is striking about this speech, is the comprehensiveness with which it portrays the western civilization as different, evil, and intolerable. The West is a power-hungry, post-human Moloch that seeks to subvert and devour anything different. Ranged against it are all the traditional civilizations of the world, characterized by religion, sovereignty, and family values, and Russia volunteers to be the armory of the resistance.
What do you see as the significance of this? I think I would have been surprised if Putin talked mostly about Ukraine—it’s more respectable to be struggling vs the west than vs a smaller, poorer neighbour. Compare to “war on terror” vs “war on Afghanistan”.
Given the above, it doesn’t seem particularly notable that he insults the west.
I also don’t see escalation as more likely if he declares “the west” to be the prime enemy vs “NATO”; perhaps less, actually, because “the west” seems more of a rhetorical opponent while you could actually fight against NATO with bombs if you really wanted to.
Wait, does Putin not consider Germany part of “The West”? If not Germany, then who, beyond the US?
He’s not saying things to express some coherent worldview. Germany could be an enemy on May 9th or a victim of US colonialism another day. People’s right to self-determination is important when we want to occupy Crimea, but inside Russia separatism is a crime. Whichever argument best proves that Russia’s good and West is bad.
I wonder what he thinks an (ideologically) unoccupied Germany would be like? Surely he can’t be thinking of the Statsi DDR he was part of when he was working in Dresden?! Maybe he thinks that Germany is naturally nazistic, and he just forgot to pretend to be against nazism?
Or maybe he is just saying words that are good at getting people angry at the west, but don’t make much sense when you think more about them?
“don’t make much sense when you think more about them” seems like the only answer. Japan and Germany haven’t been occupied puppet states for a long time now. Most likely he is trying to reach out to left-wingers in Germany/other European countries (who tend to be vaguely anti-USA) and try and persuade them that they are somehow being muggs/US-puppets. What is weird is I think Putin lost several family members in the European theatre of WW2
and is often said to have a strong anti-German feeling.I came across a bit more information about Putin’s relationship with Germany. In an interview with German media in 2001, Putin said that the first words of his daughter were in German (which is plausible given that Putin’s wife was a German teacher).
According to another article, the daughter frequently traveled to Germany because she has a German boyfriend. That information came out in August of this year and it’s quite interesting that it exists in it’s current form. iStories had the scoop. It’s interesting that someone decided to leak it. It’s someone saying to Putin “look your op-sec for your daughter isn’t as good as you thought”.
Do you have a source for why we should believe that Putin has anti-German feelings?
I was told it by someone who was halfway through reading a Putin biography (I believe the Philip Short one) - they presented it as a well known (“often said”) thing which I took it as. Looking now this seems to not be google-supported, although I have not read the book.
I think there is a discussion to be had about if a country that has countless military bases of another country in their land is occupied of just an “ally” It’s not clear to me there is a big difference in practical terms.
I don’t think US is occupying Japan, because US bases in Japan are there by mutual consent. Similarly for South Korea and Germany.
But yes, US is occupying Okinawa. US bases in Okinawa are not there by mutual consent. Japan consents, Okinawa doesn’t. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma is, like, the single biggest political issue in Okinawa. Just look at the aerial picture. It is absurd.
Similarly, US was occupying Seoul, Yongsan Garrison in particular. After a long negotiation, US bases relocated to Pyeongtaek, where they are welcome. Putin does have a point here. US should do more of Pyeongtaek.
Not every occupation is the same, but nations occupied by military force are often denied the ability to run their own affairs with regard to legal proceedings, defence, etc. In particular not being allowed to have final authority over legal matters on their own soil seems to historically be a great sticking point: see the Austro-Hungarian demands of Serbia leading to WW1.
This is one of the key domains which defines the authority of a sovereign nation, whereas it doesn’t seem that uncommon in history for there to be foreign military assets in a nation as a non-occupying force that does not damage the sovereignty of that nation. Auxiliary troops, mercenaries, allied soldiers.
From this perspective, U.S. bases look like occupation insofar as they damage the sovereignty of the occupied nation, and look like anything but occupation to the degree that they protect or abide by that sovereignty. Russian propaganda would of course claim, that the former dramatically outweighs the latter.