Vladimir Putin heaped bizarre praise on Russia on Thursday, saying the nation deserved to be “worshipped at its feet”.
Speaking during a state awards presentation ceremony in the Kremlin, the Russian president expressed “the biggest words of gratitude” to the country.
He said: “The most heartfelt, the biggest words of gratitude we have to say to the huge collective called ‘the multinational people of Russia.’
“To say the words of gratitude and to worship it at its feet.
“There is no award to award an entire nation, but it is the heroism and the unity around the Homeland and its interests that is the foundation of all our victories – of the entire Russia and of each and every one of us.”
His comments come more than two years after he ordered the invasion of Ukraine and triggered a bloody war which is still going on.
More than 50,000 Russian troops are said to have died in Putin’s land grab so far, according to a BBC report from April.
The president has recently purged his top military officials in a move many see as a sign of his discontent with the war’s very slow progress.
Earlier this year, the authoritarian leader declared victory in Russia’s presidential election – meaning he entered his fifth term with a supposed 87% of the vote.
The international community widely wrote off the result as rigged, considering Putin has a reputation for suppressing any feasible opponents.
That includes Alexei Navalny, who died under mysterious circumstances in a Russian penal colony earlier this year.
There were also widespread reports that both Russians and Ukrainians who live in occupied areas were coerced into voting for Putin in March.
Meanwhile, claims that Russian troops are struggling on the frontline have been circulating since near the start of the war, with low morale and a depleted supply of weapons reportedly hitting the soldiers hard.
Last August, the UK’s ministry of defence alleged that thousands of Russian soldiers were refusing to fight in Ukraine due to “lack of training, motivation and high stress levels”.