If much of President Vladimir V. Putin’s 100-minute state-of-the-nation speech on Tuesday sounded familiar, that was by design: Its purpose, it appeared, was to emphasize to Russians that war is the new normal.
Mr. Putin’s only major revelation was that Russia would suspend participation in New START, its last remaining nuclear arms control treaty with the United States — and one that the State Department had already declared Russia to be not compliant with. There was no major news.
