Russian President Vladimir Putin defied Western fantasies about the Russian people being about to overthrow him by addressing a rally at a sports stadium in Moscow attended by a reported 200,000 people. Video of the event published by RT shows the stadium packed on the inside with many tens of thousands more on the outside, waving thousands of Russian flags. The occasion for the rally was the eightth anniversary of the return of Crimea to Russia.
“Over these years, Russia has done a great deal to help Crimea and Sevastopol grow. There were things that needed to be done that were not immediately obvious to the unaided eye. These were essential things such as gas and power supply, utility infrastructure, restoring the road network, and construction of new roads, motorways and bridges,” Putin said. “We needed to drag Crimea out of that humiliating position [imposed on it by Kiev] and state that Crimea and Sevastopol had been pushed into when they were part of another state that had only provided leftover financing to these territories.”
