In remarks to the Federal Assembly Tuesday in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized Western powers, especially the US, for the “ongoing destruction of the family” and added that Russia would defend its children from “degradation and degeneration.” The speech came on the one year anniversary of the Ukraine war.
“Look at what they are doing to their own people,” President Putin told the vast crowd assembled at Moscows Gostiny Dvor. “It is about destroying the family, the cultural and national identity, perversions and the mistreatment of children, including paedophilia, which is declared to be a normal part of their lives.” Putin said that they are forcing clerics to bless gay weddings.
“Bless their hearts, and they can do whatever they want. Here is what I want to say on the subject. Adults are free to do as they wish. We have always seen this in Russia, and always will: nobody is going to meddle in the private lives of others, and neither are we,” he said. “But this is what I want to say to them: Look at the holy scriptures and major books from other world religions. They all say the fact that a family is a union between one man and one woman. But those holy texts are being challenged right now.”
He added: “There are reports that the Church of England is planning, only planning, to study the idea of gender-neutral God. What is that all about?. Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Putin continued. “Millions in the west have realized they are headed for spiritual catastrophe. Frankly, it seems the elite has gone crazy, and it seems that there is no treatment.”
The Russian President has also criticized the “Western elites” that are using the conflict in Ukraine to achieve a “strategic defeat for Russia.”
He asked the crowd rhetorically what that might mean for Russia. “It means that they are planning on ending us once and for all,” he said. “In other words, they plan to turn local conflicts into a global confrontation.”
It is the way Russia perceives the statement, and the way they are going to react. “We are going to react to this, because it is an existential threat to our country.”
