Putin’s elite caught yawning and even sleeping during his marathon anti-Western state of the union tirade

Vladimir Putin may be upset to find that his highly anticipated state of the nation address delivered this morning in central Moscow did not have the impact he had hoped for.

Nearly a year to the day of his invasion of Ukraine, the despot took the stage in Moscow before both houses of Russia’s Parliament and a sea of ​​military commanders, where he launched a marathon tirade against the West.

He spoke with passion and venom, but even the cream of the Kremlin crop couldn’t help but show signs of fatigue when top officials were seen yawning in the middle of their president’s 115-minute spiel.

Clips from Russian state media’s live coverage of the speech even appeared to show several audience members nodding in their chairs as Putin continued to ramble on for an hour and 45 minutes.

Then, when his speech finally concluded and the Russian national anthem began blaring from the speakers, many in attendance were seen refusing to sing, their faces adorned with expressions of stone.

Several members of the audience in Moscow were seen bowing their heads with their eyes closed, apparently having slept as Putin continued to rant.

Many attendees covered their mouths to yawn, and none were very pleased with the content of Putin’s speech.

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives to deliver his annual state of the nation address at the Gostiny Dvor conference center in central Moscow on February 21, 2023.

Images of bored and disapproving officials watching their president rant harken back to similar scenes in September, when Putin made another lengthy speech to announce that Russia had annexed four territories in eastern and southern Ukraine, despite not being in control. total of none of them.

For much of his reign, Putin was long seen as a master of communication and an excellent and engaging speaker, but those days seem to be over.

The speech at the Gostiny Dvor conference center in the Russian capital this morning covered a lot of ground, though most of it focused on his ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine and condemnation of the West.

He He accused Western nations of starting the war in Ukraine and trying to turn it into a global conflict against Russia for “unlimited power.”

“We were doing everything possible to resolve this problem peacefully, negotiating a peaceful way out of this difficult conflict, but a very different scenario was being prepared behind our backs,” Putin told lawmakers and the military.

He said he was addressing them ‘at a time that we all know is a difficult and decisive moment for our country, a moment of cardinal and irreversible changes throughout the world, the most important historical events that will shape the future of our country and our people’, and promised to continue ‘systematically’ with the offensive in Ukraine.

Citing another justification he has used for the war, Putin said his forces are protecting civilians in regions of Ukraine that Moscow has since illegally annexed.

“We are defending people’s lives, our home,” he said. “And the West fights for unlimited domination.”

Putin framed the fighting in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region between kyiv forces and Russia-backed separatists as a fight for freedom. The fighting there has been ongoing since 2014, and Putin has used it as justification to launch a broader offensive.

Kremlin experts and senior Russian officials listen to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual state of the nation address in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, February 21, 2023.

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his annual state of the nation address at the Gostiny Dvor conference center in central Moscow on February 21, 2023.

‘Since 2014, the Donbas has been fighting [for the] right to live on their own land and speak their native language, fighting without giving up in the environment of constant threats and hatred coming from the Kiev regime,’ he said.

In the meantime, and you know this very well, we were doing everything possible, really everything possible, to solve this problem by peaceful means.

Changing tack, Putin went on to rail against perceived Western stupidity, saying the West was waging a culture war against Russian Orthodox Christian values.

‘The Anglican Church plans to entertain the idea of ​​a gender-neutral God… Millions of people in the West understand that they are being led into a true spiritual catastrophe,’ Putin declared.

He accused Western nations of changing historical facts to suit ‘awakened’ ideologies and strongly criticized recent Church discussions about allowing priests to ‘bless’ same-sex marriages.

They distort historical facts, constantly attack our culture, the Russian Orthodox Church and other traditional religions of our country. ‘Look what they do with their own people: they declare the destruction of the family, cultural and national identity, perversion and abuse of children as the norm. And priests are forced to bless same-sex marriages,” Putin said.

The despot’s armored motorcade was seen heading to the Kremlin around 1 a.m. local time, hours before the speech was due to begin this morning, with traffic halted in central Moscow to make way.

There was no official explanation for Putin’s nightly rush to the Kremlin ahead of the state of the nation address.

While the constitution requires the president to deliver the speech annually, Putin never delivered one in 2022 as his troops suffered repeated setbacks.

Underlining the anticipation ahead of time, some state TV channels broadcast a countdown to the event starting Monday, and Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti said Tuesday morning that the speech could be “historic.”

This year, the Kremlin has banned media from “unsympathetic” countries, the list of which includes the US, UK and EU.