The Valdai Discussion Club session ran for three and a half hours. Putin said Russia does not intend to attack European countries but is prepared to use nuclear weapons if a threat to Kaliningrad arises. He once again compared nuclear weapons to a gun hanging on the stage that must eventually fire.
Political analyst Natalia Shavshukova said on Radio Liberty that Putin is trying not only to intimidate the West but also to show that his intentions are serious. He repeated that Russia allegedly did not start the war in Ukraine and that the invasion was a response to the actions of NATO and Kyiv. He also said the Russian army is advancing and that Ukraine must hand over the entire Donbas.
Political analyst Alexander Morozov, in a comment to TV Rain, called the main point of the speech Putin's naming of a timeline for ending the war: 18 months to two years. Although Putin described them as critical, Morozov assessed that this reflects a readiness to wage war over the horizon of the next two years. The Russian budget confirms this.
According to Morozov, Putin was constructing an image of war as routine: it goes on every day, Ukrainians strike Russian refineries, Russia has lost one percent of GDP, but in response Ukraine has lost its steel industry. Western media saw a new nuclear warning in the speech, Verstka writes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with the Financial Times that Russian strikes this winter will focus on Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa and Lviv. According to him, Russian troops will try to isolate these cities from the rest of Ukraine.
Political analyst Georgy Chizhov believes Putin at Valdai is showing a readiness to "play the long game" and an unwillingness to negotiate. Putin's signals were discussed on the program "Face to the Event" with John Lough, a senior research fellow at the NEST Centre.