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RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR Putin has boasted the country has developed a new generation of “invincible” weapons in his state of the nation address today, warning global powers they must now reckon with Moscow’s military might.
Putin used the address to outline economic, and social policy ahead of his widely expected return to the Kremlin in the 18 March election, but nearly half the speech was dedicated to Russia’s top-notch weaponry.
The president usually delivers the annual speech in the Kremlin but this year spoke from a nearby exhibition centre – allowing him to show a series of high-tech video montages of missiles manoeuvring across mountains and oceans, and heading over the Atlantic.
Putin quoted a speech he gave back in 2004, saying that Russia would develop a new generation of weaponry, a promise that he said has now been fulfilled.
“No one really wanted to talk to us basically. No one listened to us then. Listen to us now,” Putin said, prompting a standing ovation from the audience of top officials, lawmakers and celebrities.
Putin showed tests of a new missile system that he said could fly at 20 times the speed of sound and manoeuvre up and down and is not owned by any other country.
“This makes it absolutely invincible for any forms of air and missile defence,” he boasted, calling it an “ideal weapon”.
In addition, Russia has developed unmanned underwater devices that move much faster than submarines and torpedoes and can carry nuclear warheads, Putin said, adding: “It’s just fantastic!”
He also praised a new generation of young scientists working on such weaponry, calling them “the heroes of our time”.
‘Destroy the world’
Putin, who has led Russia for almost two decades and is seeking a historic fourth Kremlin term that would extend his rule to 2024, also laid out a number of social, economic and environmental measures.
In the absence of any programme and with Putin having refused to take part in TV debates with other candidates, the address suggested cutting poverty and improving the environment would be top goals for his expected new six-year term.
The 65-year-old said he aimed to cut the country’s “unacceptable” poverty rate in half over the next six years, but said 22 million fewer Russians were now living below the poverty line than when he was first elected president in 2000.
“The well-being of Russia and the well-being of our citizens must be the foundation of everything, and it is in this area that we must make a breakthrough,” Putin said.
He also promised further regulations for businesses in order to reduce industrial emissions, as he spoke of millions of people forced to drink water “that does not meet standards” and “black snow” in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.
“People in industrial hubs can go for weeks without seeing the sun because of smog,” he said.
Putin was given an ecstatic reception in the hall during the televised address but some online comments were less enthusiastic.
“The old man only perked up when he was talking about how he can destroy the world. A moment of truth!” said political analyst and former Kremlin advisor Gleb Pavlovsky on social media.
Despite campaign promises when Putin returned to the Kremlin in 2012 after four years as prime minister, his last term was marked by a fall in living standards and Russia’s international isolation, critics say.
Boosted by a slavish domestic media and foreign interventions, including the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, his approval rating remains sky-high and official polls suggest he is likely to take 70% of the vote.
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so the Irish people that were trafficked weren’t trafficked…gotcha , I was beginning to wonder had that well known Leitrim to Donegal route kicked off again….
Keep allowing them in and soon enough it will be your daughters and granddaughters that Thell be grooming for sex. Not just yet, it’ll take more of them to live here before they get the courage, but it’s on its way, keep watching.
The people involved in this should be locked up for life ie 30 years plus
@Fjordie, the people involved in this will be out as soon as possible, this allows the legal industry to make more money off them the next time their caught, when again, they will be promptly released, and the legal industry continues to rake in the money, look at what happening now, people with up to 100 prior convictions being given suspended sentences, why, so the legal industry can make money from having their product in circulation.
Suspended sentences all round
change the record
Must have heard about the gravy train the you can go on after exploitation. #inbeforetheracists.
And the prize for most obnoxious troll goes to…
not to mention incoherent
What is conspicuously missing from this story is a very important question;
“How many of these children were in State “Care” when they were trafficked?”
We’ve had this conversation before, when it emerged that 500 went “Missing” from “Care”, but when the truth emerged it was found that the entire thing had been covered up by Gardai, the HSE and the government. The truth was that that we only found out because Wikileaks released diplomatic documents from the American Embassy in Dublin. While the government said they were “Missing”, the US State Dept. showed that most had been accounted for and were trafficked. Many of the children were found in brothels or enforced slavery.
You’ll have to pardon me for using quotation marks on the word “Care”. I wonder will Wikileaks have to step in again to find out how many of these children were in State “Care”?
So true.
Ireland is not known as the Hub of child trafficking for nothing.
Yes children in care are prostituted out- but the state never prosecutes itself.
No one in power wants to know and use excuses like – secret court rules, blahhhhhh,blahhhhh
The Immigrant Council yet again calling for ”the criminalisation of the purchase of sex”, completely ignoring the fact that coercive trafficking and commercial sex work are entirely different things. Amnesty, UNAIDS, The World Health Org and as of today the UK Home Office Select Committee all advocate decriminalisation but apparently the ‘experts’ of TORL, ICI & Ruhama know better.
Thanks lily ☺
Not a bother. Negative attention is still attention right? Lap it up pet.
your talking to me aren’t you? you realize you don’t have to? lol
@Lily, their beliefs and culture are not compatible. What would you say to anyone of the women who were abused/raped in Europe, or to the countless children, what you say to the mother of the young boy who was raped in a public swimming pool in Europe only to be told that the reason was the immigrant had a “sexual emergency”. And yes, our own countries have our own issues, but it’s committed by perverts, whereas it’s the accepted culture where these people come from.
Conri, Nowhere did I make any comment to suggest I condone violence or assault. You have done a marvellous job of reading subtext where there was none.
@Lily, As you have, no where did I say you did condone violence , you also have done a marvellous job of reading subtext where there was none, we’ve so much in common you and I. Actually I was just stating (as a comment in response to yours) that this is an incompatible culture and will lead us down a very dark path if something is not done to stem the flow, it’s been described as an invasion, I agree with this. Can you please respond to the following question: do you want to see some of our towns and cities end up like some of Britain’s, unrecognisable to English people, unsafe for them to venture into ?
have your say