Putin Gives New Year Address to Nation, Says 2022 Was Year of ‘Difficult but Necessary Decisions’

Putin Gives New Year Address to Nation, Says 2022 Was Year of ‘Difficult but Necessary Decisions’
Russian President Vladimir Putin makes his annual New Year address to the nation at the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, on Dec. 31, 2022. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via Reuters
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Russian President Vladimir Putin devoted his annual New Year’s address on Saturday to rallying the Russian people behind his troops fighting in Ukraine and pledging victory over Ukrainian “neo-Nazis” and a West supposedly intent on “destroying Russia.”

In a stern and combative recorded video message, broadcast on national television, Putin cast the war— which he calls a “special military operation”—as a near-existential fight for the future of Russia.