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President Vladimir Putin: Comrade officers and generals,

Dear veterans,

Esteemed guests,

I congratulate you with all my heart on the Defender of the Fatherland holiday.

February 23 is rightly considered the Armed Forces’ professional holiday, the celebration of those who have made military service their vocation and life’s work. But throughout our history, defending our native land has always been the moral and civic duty of every citizen. Across Russia, the whole community, from young to old, always rose as one to defend its land and homes, and this holiday is therefore a celebration for the whole population, a truly national holiday.

Russia has gone through many cruel and bloody battles over its thousand-year history, but it has always succeeded in defending itself, in standing up for itself, and courageous soldiers have always been the first to come to its defence.

I offer my most sincere words of gratitude today to the Armed Forces veterans and heroes who fought for the great victory over Nazism. You defended your country’s right to be sovereign and free and you completed your noble liberating mission of freeing other peoples from enslavement and violence.

We honour the soldiers and officers who carry on the Russian military’s glorious traditions today. At a difficult time in the development of modern Russian statehood you bore upon your shoulders the responsibility for preserving our country’s territorial integrity. At a time when international terrorism attempted repeatedly to undermine the unity of our multiethnic homeland you stood firm in defending our state order and guaranteeing peaceful life for millions of our citizens.

We also offer our congratulations on this occasion to the students of military institutes, cadets corps and the Suvorov academies, to everyone who in the classroom and out on the training grounds is working hard to learn the art of victory and preparing to take their place in the ranks.

They are not lacking for role models, and I am sure that the young generation of defenders of the Fatherland will serve with honour their mission to defend Russia’s lawful national interests.

Recruitment and training issues have taken on new significance today in the Armed Forces. Compulsory military service has given many Russian men a good military grounding, but today’s military missions call for genuine professionals, and for this reason paramount attention must focus now on the quality of military education.

I am talking not just about high professional standards of training for servicemen. High standards of military discipline and commanders’ responsibility for carrying out their missions are just as important. There is a need for educational work, a need to raise the general cultural and moral level among the troops.

I particularly want to stress that we will continue work to provide military servicemen with better social conditions. A large part of the housing problems will be resolved over the next few years. Steady wage increases and increases in pensions for retired servicemen are also planned. We will also develop the military medical system.

Overall, the state will continue its efforts to provide decent working and living conditions for military servicemen, conditions that have a direct bearing on the Armed Forces’ combat preparedness and on the prestige of the military profession in general.

Dear friends, Russia today is an open, peace-loving and democratic country. We do not threaten anyone and have no intention of using force to achieve our aims. We have no need to impose our will on other peoples. But today’s world contains many worrying threats and challenges and a strong military capability and strong army therefore remain the guarantee of Russia’s national security and continued development, and on the global level, act as a factor in ensuring international stability.

The Armed Forces have many important and complex tasks before them today. Thorough modernisation of the Armed Forces is part of the country’s new long-term development strategy for the period through to 2020. The Armed Forces have to meet in full today’s demands, and this means they must be mobile and possess great strategic and tactical possibilities. We must work at the same time to develop new weapons based on the most advanced technology.

I want to stress that Russia has no intention of letting itself be dragged into an arms race, but the development of military infrastructure around our country and the potential threats to our security oblige us to take suitable steps in response.

In conclusion, I would like to congratulate once more the veterans and all Armed Forces servicemen and civilian personnel on the Defender of the Fatherland holiday.

I ask you to pass on my warmest words of congratulations to your families and to all who love you and wait for your return from military missions and distant journeys, all who preserve the warmth in your families. They deservedly share with you the joy of this holiday.

I wish you health and new success in your service for the good of our Motherland.