Russian President Vladimir Putin is attending the Extensive Meetings of the Interior Ministry on February 26, 2020 in Moscow, Russia.
Mikhail Svetlov | Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his annual speech on the state of the nation, warned on Wednesday not to provoke his country, promising quick retaliation against anyone who crossed the “red lines.”
Moscow will respond “harshly,” “quickly” and “asymmetrically” to foreign provocations, Putin told a hearing of Russia’s top officials and lawmakers, adding that he “expected” no foreign actors to cross the “lines.” reds “of Russia, according to Reuters. translation.
Putin also announced the country’s planned investment in expanded military education, hypersonal weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles, while insisting that Russia wants peace agreements and arms control.
The 68-year-old leader condemned what he described as the constant tendency of international actors to blame Russia for the fouls, saying it had become a sport.
The comments came in the last half hour of the 90-minute speech, which focused mainly on Russia’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic and national economic and social problems.
The speech came in the context of deteriorating tensions with the United States and the EU, and comes after the recent imposition of sanctions on Russia by the Biden administration for alleged cyber attacks, human rights violations and a Russian military buildup along the border with Ukraine.
When the address was made, there have been protests all over Russia in support of jailed Putin critic Alexei Navalny, who has become ill and has been taken to a prison hospital after a hunger strike. . The news sparked U.S. warnings that there would be “consequences” if Russia allows Navalny to die in prison.
More than 100 people have been detained in protests so far on Wednesday, according to OVD-Info, an independent Russian NGO that controls rallies.
In addition, Russia has been accused of orchestrating an attack on a Czech weapons depot in 2014, and the Czech Republic has expelled 18 Russian diplomats in recent days.
Russia denies that two of its military intelligence agents (the same men who are believed to have carried out a nerve agent attack on a former spy in Britain in 2018) carried out the Czech attack, but the news, however, has added to the negative news flow around Putin’s Russia.