This year’s Russia Day celebration in Moscow had a distinctively different feel to it. Gone was the traditional grand concert on Red Square, presumably because the last time Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to hold an event there, he had to get permission from Ukraine first. This year, the immovable dictator held a series of stage-managed events inside the Kremlin itself, one of which was a square/round table meeting with approximately 20 military figures in fatigues bearing medals for their participation in the war against Ukraine.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Here follows a transcript of Putin’s remarks to his guests – a decoding of what the meaning of these words and, where necessary, a debunking of the lies he told. Remark 1 Putin: “Russia stands practically alone against the entire so-called collective west, in the form of the North Atlantic bloc, otherwise known as NATO. After all, all NATO countries, all of them without exception, are absolutely making every effort, doing everything possible to organize these hostile actions against Russia. To bring, they think, their victorious end to the war unleashed against Russia, when no one managed to achieve such a strategic final defeat of Russia.” That’s quite the opening. The first and biggest lie is that NATO is at war with Russia. In fact, no NATO members are involved in the war between Russia and Ukraine, even though a few of them signed up to the Budapest Memorandum that had been designed to prevent such a war, but I digress.