President Vladimir Putin addressed the Russian public in a national address which lasted for almost two hours.
In the speech, he made a series of claims about the war in Ukraine and was highly critical of Western countries.
Weβve looked into some of his statements.
βThe neo-Nazi regime that set up in Ukraine after 2014β
Mr Putin has repeatedly made baseless claims about a βneo-Nazi regimeβ in Ukraine as a justification for Russiaβs invasion of the country.
In Ukraineβs last parliamentary election in 2019, support for far-right candidates was 2%, far lower than in many other European countries.
It should also be noted that President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish and members of his family died in the Holocaust.
But there have been far-right groups in Ukraine β the most high-profile is the Azov regiment β elements of which have expressed support for Nazi ideology