Where relations between U.S. and Russia stand a year after Putins invasion of Ukraine

Amna Nawaz:

Angela, what about the timing and the intent of all this? Why would President Putin be delivering this particular message at this particular point in time?

Angela Stent, Director, Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies, Georgetown University: Well, he skipped his address to the federal assembly last year. And so it was really timed to address the Russian nation and also foreign listeners.

They knew that the Munich Security Conference was happening when it happened. They didn't know that President Biden was going to visit Kyiv until a couple of hours before he did. But Putin wanted to, first of all, restate all of the myths about the origins of this war, that it's the West's fault, that we didn't negotiate seriously with Russia beforehand, and that the West threatens Russia.

And then he wanted to tell his own people again that this world will continue for a long time. He said: The Americans want a strategic defeat of Russia, but we cannot be defeated in the battlefield.

So, his message both to his own people and to the international audience is that this war will go on until Russia has achieved its objectives. But, of course, he hasn't spelled out what those objectives are. We think it's the — at least the annexation and full control of these four territories and to get the Ukrainians to recognize it.

But there may be other goals. He just said: We will continue until we achieve our goals.

And then I think there was also a slight element that would cause concern to the Ukrainians and the outside world, which are the veiled hints that Russia could develop some new nuclear weapons. There wasn't a direct threat of the use of nuclear weapons, but certainly that this war could escalate because of what the West were doing, so unsettling the outside world and trying to calm his own people, but to tell them, this war is going to go on, and you have to accept it.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7sa7SZ6arn1%2Bjsri%2Fx6isq2ejnby4e9ahnKudXaeyra3Toqanq12XsrXDxJ6lZq1dqHqiusNmqa6ro56ubr%2FTmqWdZZFixqat0WaYn6yVp3qxwdOipaxlmaPDor%2FIqKVmp5Ziwqy%2BwKKlnmVi