Nine years ago, in his previous life as a comedian, Volodymyr Zelensky appeared in Moscow’s kitsch New Year’s Eve variety show. Yesterday evening Kyiv was rocked by missile strikes, shortly before the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, broadcast a rambling nine-minute address to his nation. Putin accused the West of “cynically using Ukraine and its people to weaken and split Russia” and claimed that his bloody war on Russia’s neighbour had “moral, historic rightness” on its side. It was the latest reminder of how far and how quickly we have descended into nightmare on Europe’s eastern flank.
Ten months on from the invasion, and despite numerous humiliating military setbacks, the clip showed that Russia’s dictator is as dangerous and deluded as ever. Worryingly, it came days after Putin and Xi Jinping staged a video call emphasising their friendship. China’s leader did not quite seem to reciprocate the vigour of Putin’s assertion that the two countries had forged a “model of co-operation for major powers in the 21st century”, and there is as yet no date for the state visit by Xi to Russia that Putin mentioned. But Britain, Europe and the US must not let up in their determination to guard against this blossoming alliance and the threat posed by Putin’s territorial ambitions.
Putin told viewers that 2022 had been marked by “truly pivotal, fateful events” and raised a glass of champagne, with servicemen and women beside him.
As inflation and the energy crisis tug seductively at the parts of their minds that puts comfort above the abstractions of conflict elsewhere this year, western leaders and voters should reflect long and hard of that image and stay the course.
