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Putin’s new arms race is all about his need to be taken seriously | Mark Galeotti

It may all have been bluff and braggadocio, but Russia’s president has little else left to motivate voters

Vladimir Putin gave his annual state of the nation address on Thursday. It began with promises of a bright future, in which life expectancy has risen, poverty levels are halved and GDP grows by 50% by 2025. Two-thirds of the way through, though, Putin turned it into a belligerent ode to Russian military technology and a challenge to the US. Putin was not so much seeking to start a new arms race abroad, as trying to keep alive an old myth at home about a Russia whose firepower was its only source of international traction and security.

Related: Putin threatens US arms race with new missiles declaration

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from The Guardian http://ift.tt/2FcT27F

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