Putin uses New Year address for wartime rallying cry to Russians

FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a news conference in Minsk, Belarus December 19, 2022. Sputnik/Pavel Bednyakov/Kremlin via REUTERS/

(Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin devoted his annual New Year's address on Saturday to rallying the Russian people behind his troops fighting in Ukraine and pledging victory over Ukrainian "neo-Nazis" and a West supposedly intent on "destroying Russia".

In a stern and combative recorded video message, broadcast on national television, Putin cast the war - which he calls a "special military operation" - as a near-existential fight for the future of Russia.