Vladimir Putin has urged Russian citizens to “be united” and build on “deep feelings of patriotism”, in a speech to mark Russia Day as the war in Ukraine rages on.
Speaking at the Kremlin, the Russian president said the importance of unity and patriotism was “as clear as ever”.
Mr Putin praised Russian ruler Peter the Great, the 18th-century tsar to whom he compared himself earlier this week. Calling him a “great reformer”, Mr Putin paid tribute to his “profound transformations” and urged Russian citizens to recognise the strength of century-old traditions.
“Our ancestors gifted us this unity, our loyalty to the motherland, and a responsibility for its future,” he said.
“We know the strength of these century-old traditions, moral values, and spiritual foundations, which have reaffirmed themselves throughout the entirety of our multi-ethnic nation’s thousand years of history, bringing us together today.
“Our nation has long considered this sincere and deep patriotic sentiment to be sacrosanct. The importance of unity for our people, our society, our country is as clear to us today as ever.”
Russia Day marks the formal adoption of the Declaration of Sovereignty of the Russian Federation on 12 June 1990, and has been celebrated for three decades.
It comes as Russian forces in Ukraine blew up a bridge linking the embattled Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk to another city across the river, cutting off a possible evacuation route for civilians, according to local officials.
Sievierodonetsk has become the centre of the battle for control over Ukraine’s eastern region of Donbas. Parts of the city have been pulverised in some of the bloodiest fighting since the Kremlin unleashed its invasion on February 24.
Russian forces have taken most of the city, while Ukraine remains in control of an industrial area and a chemical plant where hundreds are sheltering.
But the Russians have destroyed a bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River linking Sievierodonetsk with its twin city of Lysychansk, said the governor of Luhansk province, Serhiy Gaidai.
That leaves just one of three bridges still standing, and reduces the number of routes that could be used to evacuate civilians, or for Ukrainian troops to withdraw to positions on the western side of the river.
In Lysychansk itself, Russian shelling killed one woman and destroyed four houses and a shopping centre, Mr Gaidai said.
The head of the Sievierodonetsk administration said a little more than a third of the city remained under the control of Ukrainian forces, and about two thirds were in Russian hands.
