Press Release, based on Telegram channels, 21.02.2023

Photo by Dmitry Azarov / Kommersant

“Vladimir Putin’s message in short is: get ready that all this will take a long time. Our stance is: enough! Everyone has already said enough to each other – stop killing people, this is the main thing! And as long as there is an opportunity to talk about it on TV, I am doing it!”  Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov once again explained  on the NTV channel today why Yabloko insists on a ceasefire agreement.

However, the key news came in the final part of today’s speech by Vladimir Putin – the decision to suspend Russia’s participation in the START III Treaty on the reduction of strategic offensive arms.

“Essentially, this is an announcement about the start of the strategic nuclear arms race. The cost of this race is billions of dollars. But the main cost of suspending the treaty is not in money, but in moving towards nuclear war,” Lev Shlosberg, a member of the Yabloko Political Committee, comments on the President’s statement.

Lev Shlosberg’s colleague on the Yabloko Political Committee, Emilia Slabunova, notes that the calm tone of the presentation of the previous parts of the message, apparently, should have created a certain background in order to focus attention on the main thesis.

Slabunova also quotes Andrei Kartapolov, head of the State Duma Defence Committee, who said that the suspension of Russia’s participation in the START III Treaty would allow Russia to increase the number of warheads and carriers if necessary.

“The same old, old mixture of “we are great, but there are enemies all around,” Boris Vishnevsky, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko, summed up Vladimir Putin’s message. Vishnevsky concludes from today’s speech of the President, that Putin does not see any “successors” around and is not going to leave his post.