Read between the lines of Putin’s speech and attempted justification of his invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking to the nation from Red Square ahead of the traditional military parade here Monday, the Russian leader said the Kremlin had every indication that a clash with Ukraine, which he says is led by US-backed neo-Nazis, was inevitable, so Moscow took pre-emptive action.
“The danger was growing day by day, so Russia gave a pre-emptive response to the aggression. It was a forced, timely, and only correct decision, a decision made by the sovereign, strong, and independent country,” Mr Putin said. “We saw how the military infrastructure was being developed, how hundreds of foreign advisers began to work, regular deliveries of the most modern weapons from [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization] countries were occurring.”

And

The defense of the Motherland, when its fate was being decided, has always been sacred[.]

Ukraine, said Putin, with its population of 40 million and its military establishment of 197 thousand active and 900 thousand reserve personnel, was a threat to the existence of his Russia with its own population of more than 145 million and its own military establishment of 1 million active and 2 million reserve personnel—and all those nuclear weapons. Putin was forced, he said, to strike first before Ukraine could inflict its devastating and conquering blow.

What an amazing indictment by Putin of his nation’s military capability to protect the Motherland’s fate and defeat an invasion by a nation with barely a quarter of Russia’s population and whose total military barely matches the size of the Motherland’s active duty force.

What an amazing indictment by Putin of his own nation’s technological prowess and his own military’s most modern weapons already in being and still being produced as compared Ukraine’s military equipage and NATO’s.