Space Day was celebrated in Russia on Tuesday.

This provided an opportunity for a public appearance by President Vladimir Putin.

Together with the Belarusian ruler Alexandr Lukashenko, he visited the Vostochnyj cosmodrome, which has been under construction for a decade and a half with many cost increases, cases of corruption and delays around 8000 kilometers east of Moscow.

The two men allowed themselves to be shown around, filmed in front of workers and space rockets, and finally even appeared together in front of the press.

Recently, little had been heard from Putin himself about the progress of his war against Ukraine, which he called “special military operations”.

Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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The president, who before the attack and at the beginning of the war had made inflammatory speeches against Ukraine and the West almost every day, had made himself scarce in public.

An alleged meeting with flight attendants at the beginning of March was unmasked as a montage with convincing arguments, and at a celebration celebrating the anniversary of the annexation of Crimea in mid-March, the state television broadcast from a Moscow stadium failed at the crucial moment – ​​Putin's speech.

Now space travel, the national pride attribute of Soviet days, should set the stage for a show of strength and confidence.

Putin defends the war in Ukraine

The staged nature of such events was evidenced by the way a man in a beige overcoat from the Roscosmos space agency approached Putin in front of the cameras and pseudo-spontaneously assured him of the full support of the local workers for the “special military operation”.

With other blue-clad workers at his back, Putin used this template to reiterate that all of the mission's objectives in Ukraine would be met "without a doubt."

The goals are "absolutely understandable and noble," said Putin.

After all, he said at the beginning of the operation that its main goal was "to help the people of Donbass".

Putin reiterated that the pro-Russian "people's republics" had to be recognized as "states" because "the Western-spurred Kiev rulers" did not want to fulfill the Minsk agreements and it was "simply impossible" to continue the "genocide that lasted eight years". to "tolerate".

Putin shrugged his shoulders.

Even according to the "People's Republics" themselves, few people had died from shelling there in recent years, especially compared to the horrendous death toll now recorded daily.

Putin reminded the Russians of other justifications for the war: Ukraine had "unfortunately" been turned into an "anti-Russian staging area" and the West had promoted "nationalism and neo-Nazism" there.

"Clashing with these forces was inevitable for Russia," Putin said, "they were just looking for the timing of the attack."

"Neo-Nazism" had "unfortunately become a fact of life," said Putin, and shrugged his shoulders again, "in a fairly large country that is close to us."

He meant Ukraine.

Now "we are helping people, saving them from Nazis, and on the other hand we are taking measures to protect the security of Russia itself," Putin said.

"It's obvious we had no choice."