By Mark Trevelyan
(Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin told Russians in a New Year address that the country would move forward with confidence in 2025, though he offered no specific promises on the economy or the war in Ukraine.
At a time when many ordinary people are worried about rising prices and the central bank's 21% interest rate is squeezing businesses and homebuyers, Putin reassured Russians that their wellbeing was his top priority.
He framed Russia's challenges as part of a wider historic mission, evoking past victories including its role in the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War Two.
Russia, he said, had overcome trials, achieved major goals and strengthened its unity in the first quarter of the 21st century - a period coinciding exactly with his time as its paramount leader.
"And now, on the threshold of the new year, we are thinking about the future. We are confident that everything will be fine, we will only move forward. We know for sure that the absolute value for us was, is and will be the fate of Russia, the well-being of its citizens," he said.
His three-and-a-half-minute seasonal message from the Kremlin was being broadcast at midnight in each of Russia's 11 time zones, starting with Kamchatka and Chukotka in the far east.
He was speaking exactly 25 years since he first addressed the nation as its acting president after Boris Yeltsin resigned unexpectedly on the last day of 1999.
Putin, 72, paid tribute to Russian soldiers fighting in the war in Ukraine, describing them as heroes. "We are proud of your courage and bravery. We believe in you," he said.
He made no specific reference to the situation on the battlefield or the prospects for an end to the conflict after Donald Trump returns as U.S. president on Jan. 20. Trump has said he will swiftly stop the war, without providing details.
LOSSES IN UKRAINE
Russian forces in 2024 advanced in Ukraine at the fastest rate since 2022, the war's first year, and control about a fifth of the country. But the gains have come at the cost of heavy, though undisclosed, losses in men and equipment.
In 2024, Russia was invaded for the first time since World War Two as Ukraine grabbed a slice of its western Kursk region in a surprise counter-attack on Aug. 6.
Russia has yet to eject Ukrainian forces from Kursk despite bringing in more than 10,000 troops from its ally North Korea, according to Ukrainian, South Korean and U.S. assessments. Russia has neither confirmed nor denied their presence.
"To sustain even the very slow advance in Ukraine, Russia has been forced to ignore the months-long occupation of part of its own territory by Ukrainian forces," British security expert Ruth Deyermond said.
"Taking a 'nothing to see here' attitude to the loss of its own land is not what great powers do, particularly one so preoccupied with the idea of state sovereignty."
Deyermond, in a long thread posted on X, suggested Putin's efforts to portray Russia as a leading world power were also undermined by the toppling of its chief Middle East ally, former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and its increasing dependence on China.
Putin, the longest-serving ruler of Russia since Josef Stalin, said on Dec. 19 that under his leadership the country had moved back from "the edge of the abyss" and rebuffed threats to its sovereignty.
With hindsight, he said, he should not have waited until February 2022 before launching his "special military operation" in Ukraine, the term he still uses for the full-scale invasion of Russia's neighbour.