Vladimir Putin has today given a tub-thumping speech to tens of thousands of banner-waving Russians in an attempt to drum up support for his stalled invasion of Ukraine, as he peddled debunked claims about why the war started and shilled a false narrative of Russia’s battlefield ‘success’.
The despot took to the stage at Moscow’s Luzhniki World Cup stadium dressed in a £10,000 Loro Piana jacket – despite his country’s economy crumbling under the weight of Western sanctions – to address a crowd waving Russian national flags and banners marked with the letter ‘Z’, which has become a potent symbol of the invasion.
Putin, who called the rally to mark the anniversary of the last time he attacked Ukraine to annex the Crimea region, spoke of sharing a ‘common destiny’ with Crimeans, of ‘de-Nazifying’ the region in 2014, and of the ‘bravery’ of soldiers currently fighting in Ukraine. He was met with chants of ‘Russia, Russia, Russia.’
