What Did Putin Actually Say?

As is to be expected, the press is furiously typing the Victoria Nuland/State Department line about what Putin said during his announcement that re-unification will proceed apace.

You can get the Nuland/Neo-Con/Warmonger take anyplace; it's carbon-copied.

The real speech?

...There is no Soviet Union anymore; we cannot return to the past. Actually, Russia no longer needs it today; this isn’t our ambition. But there is nothing stronger than the determination of millions of people who, by their culture, religion, traditions, and language, consider themselves part of Russia, whose ancestors lived in a single country for centuries. There is nothing stronger than their determination to return to their true historical homeland.

For eight long years, people in Donbass were subjected to genocide, shelling and blockades; in Kherson and Zaporozhye, a criminal policy was pursued to cultivate hatred for Russia, for everything Russian. Now too, during the referendums, the Kiev regime threatened schoolteachers, women who worked in election commissions with reprisals and death. Kiev threatened millions of people who came to express their will with repression. But the people of Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson weren’t broken, and they had their say.

I want the Kiev authorities and their true handlers in the West to hear me now, and I want everyone to remember this: the people living in Lugansk and Donetsk, in Kherson and Zaporozhye have become our citizens, forever….

Here's excerpt two:

 ...The United States is the only country in the world that has used nuclear weapons twice, destroying the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. And they created a precedent. Recall that during WWII the United States and Britain reduced Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne and many other German cities to rubble, without the least military necessity. It was done ostentatiously and, to repeat, without any military necessity. They had only one goal, as with the nuclear bombing of Japanese cities: to intimidate our country and the rest of the world.

The United States left a deep scar in the memory of the people of Korea and Vietnam with their carpet bombings and use of napalm and chemical weapons. It actually continues to occupy Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea and other countries, which they cynically refer to as equals and allies. Look now, what kind of alliance is that? The whole world knows that the top officials in these countries are being spied on and that their offices and homes are bugged. It is a disgrace, a disgrace for those who do this and for those who, like slaves, silently and meekly swallow this arrogant behaviour.…. 

Interesting, no, that the Nuland Press entirely forgets about the material in red above, while screeching hysterically about "precedent," which--obviously--it was.

But our Congress will soon be sending $12 BILLION so that Zelenskiy can pay his government's bureaucrats and continue the pretense that he's winning this war.

After all, what's more important to US citizens than Ukrainian Government bureaucrats?  Your pish-posh whining about fentanyl, invasions, energy, and FBI scorched-earth tactics on pro-lifers?  Irrelevant and immaterial.  The NeoCon Warmonger crowd has important work to do, no matter how many of you (and the Ukrainians) are killed.

Have a nice day!