Live broadcast at 11 | Is Putin talking about Transnistria? HS's Pekka Hakala follows and comments on the line talk moment by moment

Russian president Vladimir Putin gives his annual policy speech on Thursday, or officially an epistle to the Federal Council.

The event, which starts at 11 a.m. Finnish time, will be attended by an audience of a thousand people in the Gostinyi Dvor exhibition building in Moscow, a couple of hundred meters east of the Red Square.

HS's foreign editor Pekka Hakala follow and comment on the speech moment by moment in Finnish. You can also follow the live broadcast in Russian in this article.

To the place members of both houses of parliament, ministers, high officials and judges, clergy and invited diplomats arrive. The representatives of the armed forces probably also include soldiers who participated in the war of aggression against Ukraine.

Putin will give his speech more than two weeks before the presidential election, so the domestic political part of the speech will probably take up most of the time. There are promises to use budget funds for good purposes, such as supporting families with children. At the same time, Putin gets to talk about his passion, i.e. “traditional Russian values”.

In the foreign policy part, Putin is expected to say something about the separatist region of Transnistria, which is part of Moldova. The leadership of the area under the command of Moscow recently asked Russia for “protection” because of alleged pressure from Moldova. Russia has around 1,500 “peacekeepers” in the region and a large weapons depot in Cobasna on the Ukrainian border.

A year ago in his policy speech, Putin did not interfere at all with the situation on the Ukrainian front. Now he probably says something about the situation, because the capture of the industrial city of Avdijivka was a significant Russian military success in eastern Ukraine for a long time.

At the same time, Putin is likely to retell his story that Russia is a victim of Western aggression. Therefore, according to the president, the Russians must prepare for a long struggle “for their existence”, as he sees it.

Putin is not expected to mention To Alexei Navalny death in a word.

Line talk last year and under the previous presidential election in 2018, it took a record of almost two hours.

In his speech six years ago, Putin introduced new missile systems. This time too, the public will probably hear about technical and military achievements and excellent prospects for the Russian economy.

The practical novelty is the introduction of line speech to cinemas, a bit like the newsreels and propaganda films of the Second World War. It remains to be seen whether military film material will also be shown alongside the line speech. At least the theaters of the Sinema 5 chain are showing the speech in 17 cities across Russia, and the tickets are free.

In addition, Putin's speech is broadcast on state television channels and can be watched on video boards placed outdoors in numerous cities.