The year of 2023 was a tense one for the Russian Armed Forces, and I want to say at once that our soldiers and officers, commanders at all levels courageously and professionally carried out tasks during special military operation, ensuring the country’s sovereignty at the global level, nuclear missile parity and Russia’s strategic security.
• The events of this year have confirmed that the West continues to wage hybrid warfare against Russia, actively providing the Kiev regime with real-time intelligence, sending military advisers, transferring modern weapons systems, including highly mobile multiple rocket launchers, long-range missile systems, cluster munitions and a large number of new UAVs. As we know, the West also planning to hand over F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine: pilots are being trained in the West.
📈 The activity of the NATO military bloc as a whole has also increased dramatically recently. Significant forces from the US, including aircraft, have been moved to our borders. The number of Alliance’s troops in Eastern and Central Europe has increased. Finland, as we know, has already been drawn into NATO, and Sweden is planning to join. In fact, this means another stage in the alliance’s approach to our borders.
❗️ The West is not abandoning its strategy to deter Russia and its aggressive goals in Ukraine. Well, we are not going to give up our goals of a special military operation either.
• Assessing the current situation on the ground, on the line of contact, we can say with confidence that our troops have the initiative. <...> The enemy is suffering heavy losses and has largely squandered its reserves. Incidentally, the myth of the invulnerability of Western military equipment has also collapsed.
☝️ All attempts, as they said in the West, to inflict on us a military defeat, a strategic defeat, crashed against the courage and fortitude of our soldiers.
