Russian President Vladimir Putin gives a speech at a concert marking the eighth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow on 18 March 2022. Photo: Sergei GUNEYEV / POOL / AFP
Russian state television cut President Vladimir Putin’s speech mid-sentence as he was addressing tens of thousands of supporters at Moscow’s main football stadium on Friday.
As the Russian leader was addressing crowds, state television switched to showing a clip of patriotic music from earlier in the event.
Putin was cut mid-sentence as he was saying: “It so happened that the beginning of the operation coincided by chance with the birthday of one of our outstanding military…”
Russian state television is tightly controlled and such interruptions are highly unusual.
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The Kremlin later said that the broadcast was “interrupted due to technical problems on the server”.
Around 10 minutes later, state television replayed Putin’s speech from the start to finish before he walked off stage.
Putin was speaking at an event in support of the Russian army in Ukraine and to mark the annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
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