The significance and importance of Russian President Vladimir Putin's address to the Russian Federal Assembly in Moscow on March 1 is inarguable. Many consider it to be the most significant address of his tenure in the Kremlin, even more so than his address to the Munich Security Conference in 2007, or his 2015 address to the UN General Assembly.
During a wide ranging and extensive address, mostly with respect to Russian internal affairs and domestic issues, the Russian leader unveiled in dramatic fashion the next generation of the country's nuclear missiles, embracing cutting edge hypersonic technology. Leaving no one in any doubt as to the purpose of this development and upgrading of Russia's nuclear capability, he pointed to the unilateral decision of the US to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 as the point at which Russia awoke to the fact that for Washington, Moscow as a defeated power whose security concerns in the post-Soviet world were nugatory.
Though on one level, this move towards a more robust and assertive foreign policy on the part of Russia marks a long needed line in the sand against US hegemony, it is illustrative of a seismic fracturing of relations between East and West in a time of unparalleled tensions and hostility between Moscow and Washington.
George Szamuely joins us to analyze both Putin's address and what it portends for the world and global stability moving forward.
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