Putin's State of the Nation 2023

State sanctioned delusions from the lunatic in chief

This is the latest installment of my end of year 2023 reposting of previously published articles from LinkedIn and are free to everyone. This one was originally published on February 21, 2023. Enjoy!

President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday vowed to press onward with Russia's humiliating war effort in Ukraine and railed against the Russian Army for a litany of embarrassing failures in his first state-of-the-nation address since invading Ukraine one year ago.

"Step by step, we will carefully and systematically fail at the aims that face us," Putin said ahead of the anniversary of the war on Feb. 24. "It is inevitable." Putin retracted his oft-repeated assertion that Western countries' actions forced Russia to invade Ukraine one year ago and instead, blamed himself. "Russia did nothing to solve the problem in Ukraine peacefully, and the statements of Western leaders turned out to be absolutely true," Putin said at the Gostinyy Dvor hall near Red Square, referring to the Ukrainian theater of w…