President Vladimir Putin’s State of the Nation address to the Federal Assembly (FA), Russia’s national legislature, not only laid out details of the socio-economic challenges facing the country. In a not-so-subtle message, it significantly also unveiled a new generation of weapons and technology which could neutralise the global missile defence system of the United States.

It was to be expected that more attention was given to Russia’s socio-economic challenges in a speech that was dominated by domestic issues, coming just days before the presidential election on 18 March 2018. But when he did touch on foreign policy, Putin’s message was unsurprisingly tough.

… Chris Cheang is a Senior Fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. A retired diplomat, he served three tours in the Singapore Embassy in Moscow between 1994 and 2013.

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