Word motherland, i thought that was very significant. and, claire, he also pledged help for the families of russian soldiers killed in action as well as the volunteers who have been helping. what would be how do you see this message playing out inside russia? is this further signs of mobilization within the country, you think? reporter: i mean, i think it s hard to say. we haven t really heard him talk about losses on the battle field, so i was struck by that, that he addressed that head on. he said we re going to give particular emphasis to the children of those who have been killed in this war. he thanked the doctors in the field hospitals. he said, we bow our heads to you for taking these risks in the battle field. so he did address the fact this is affecting the russian armed forces. we know families of those have
Was talking, hinting at nato and the west, trying to almost justify his actions, claire, of what his actions in ukraine, by blaming nato really. that obviously shifts the propaganda at home. how do you think or give us a sense 70 days into this war, how has that propaganda machine, you know, how effective is it being in russia? reporter: very effective, isa. there is very tight control of the media at the moment. most of the western and independent process shutdown. they ve criminalized even calling this a war rather than a special military operation. the propaganda is certainly very effective. what we see from him in the speech is we ve seen throughout this a sort of direct flipping of the narrative, this unprovoked invasion of ukraine. it was not that, in his eyes. it was nato forcing them into this by sort of encroaching on
Been speaking out about this. that was interesting. it seems he s at a point where he perhaps can t avoid addressing that. i don t know whether it signals further mobilization, but i think as a whole, the speech, his appearance today, this sort of show of force doesn t signal he s backing away. no, he doesn t seem like he s backing away or doubling down in any sort of way. one thing really that he didn t address, perhaps obvious reasons, were sanctions. you and i have spoken at great length about the sanctions that have been applied from the west on russia. have they started from what you ve seen, claire, have they started to have an impact on russian economy? reporter: so, in some ways yes, in some ways not as much as you would expect. the russian central bankers put out a forecast that basically agrees with world institutions, the imf and world bank the economy is set to shrink 10% this year. it could have been worse than that 23 we get an energy embargo
Their borders and helping to arm ukraine. he even accused the west of cynically rewriting the history of world war ii. so there s a lot of areas where he takes the accusations that have been levelled against russia and he levels them back against the west. and i think that is somehow a very effective method of winning public opinion. his approval rating, by the way, in russia, is in the 80s at the moment according to the independent. wow. claire sebastian, very important context there. appreciate it, claire. thank you very much. i think we ll talk in the next hour or so. and we ve got much more, of course, ahead on russia s victory day celebrations and what this could mean, of course, for ukraine. that s just ahead. do stay right here with cnn. translator: b because the tank
Soviet union s triumph over nazis. not just moscow, right across the country. cnn s claire sebastian a long time viewer, joins us live from london. claire, i know you and i have witnessed, you reported out of moscow for many years. give me a sense of what you took away not just from the speech, but from the show of military power and military might here today. reporter: yeah, it s very similar to what we ve seen in past years. as i have said, the amount of military hardware that is on display has been accelerating throughout putin s sort of 22 years in power. it looked very similar to previous years. but i think what the speech really showed us, we ve seen this from president putin before, when the expectations are high for him to do something, to perhaps retaliate or make an announcement, there are occasions when he doesn t and that is perhaps on purpose to keep people guessing to fuel speculation, and turn around and do something again later.