Closedown vs. No Closedown
Posted on April 22, 2020 by martyrashrakat
By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research, April 21, 2020
Every country with the exception of Sweden found it necessary to close down at least part of the economy in order to prevent the highly infectious virus from overwhelming their medical care systems. The exponential rate of infection together with a lack of sufficient health resources obviously meant an overwhelmed system that would be unable to provide care for those suffering from other illnesses and deadly conditions, such as heart attacks.
The need to reduce the caseload was also influenced by the uncertainty of treatment. It has been only through experimentation that health care professionals have found some successful treatments and learned that ventilators were causing deaths. Knowledge about the virus and its attack on vital organs is still emerging. The long incubation period and the fact that people can spread the virus without themselves having symptoms makes the virus far more challenging than flu, with which it is often mistakenly compared. The fact that people of all ages and health conditions have died from the virus, or from inappropriate treatment and prior conditions, and the impossibility of knowing in advance the severity of any person's case produces a situation that can easily explode out of control.
The policy of isolation and social distancing has worked. It has reduced the infection rate to a manageable one in most places. One consequence of this success is to increase the sense of safety and the belief that the virus is a hoax being used to take away civil liberties. There is no doubt that the deep state and other agendas will make use of the virus for their purposes. But the virus is definitely real and not a hoax.
The success of social isolation has produced a belief that the virus was over-hyped, causing some people to call the policy into question. Crowds in violation of the social distancing policy are protesting against the policy, with some marching around with weapons.
No doubt that the policy has costs that offset in part its benefits. But the question remains whether protest is an intelligent response or selfishness and a paranoia of its own.
In Chinese and Japanese cities where the spread of the virus was successfully controlled and the cities reopened, the result has been a second wave of infections (see this).
In contrast in North Florida, the closing of beaches and vacation rentals has resulted in the area being essentially free of virus cases. Based on the Chinese and Japanese experience, we should expect a reopening provoked by impatience to reignite the infection rate.
Possibly health care providers have learned better how to treat the disease and perhaps the supply of protective gear for health care providers has improved and masks have become available for a reopened work place. If not, impatience will stampede us again into crisis.
If we had been prepared with protective gear, with an adequate supply of tests that work, with an understanding of the virus and its treatment, closedowns, other than perhaps in congested cities heavily dependent on public transportation such as New York city, could have been avoided.
The protesters are wrong in thinking that a low death rate of the virus makes it a non-threat. It is certainly possible that many more people have the virus than is known (see this) and that many of the deaths attributed to the virus are results of other causes. The virus is nevertheless dangerous because it is highly contagious, because the severity of cases widely differs without the ability to know in advance the severity of any case, because treatments are uncertain, because people without symptoms spread the virus, and because some recovered people have insufficient antibodies to prevent reinfection.
Business and political interests want the economy reopened, but if we are careless about the process the outcome can be a worse economic and health crisis.
Belief that the best policy is to let the virus spread in order to develop "herd immunity" is undercut by reinfection. There is no herd immunity to common colds or flu. I know people whose winter colds are followed by summer colds and people who get flu every year, flu shot or not.
There are many lessons that we should learn from the virus challenge. One is that a profit-driven health care system results in inadequate structure to deal with a pandemic. We need to break the hold of Big Pharma on our health care and medical education and substitute public health motivated medical professionals in place of profit. Another is that we must prevent selfish agendas from using disease to the disadvantage of the health and rights of the public. Politically weaponizing the virus, as has been done, is irresponsible in the extreme.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog, PCR Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.The original source of this article is Global ResearchCopyright © Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Global Research, 2020
India's "Playing Hard to Get" with America by Letting the AIIB Fund China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)
Filed under: China, Corona virus, Japan, Japan, USA | Tagged: Big Pharma, COVID-19 pandemic, Lockdown, Paul Craig Roberts |	1 Comment »
"Global Coalition of the Willing," Ordinary Iranians' Style: Resistance multiplied by Ethics plus Justice minus Oppression divided by Aggression
Posted on August 3, 2019 by martyrashrakat
"Global Coalition of the Willing," Ordinary Iranians' Style: Resistance multiplied by Ethics plusJustice minus Oppression divided by Aggression
by Mansoureh Tajik for The Saker Blog
For a brief moment in human history, or what feels like only a fraction of a second now, the United States of America experienced a mirage of a position, dubbed a "superpower," self-appointed1. Those who lacked ethical and moral imagination went along with that coronation2. Or, perhaps they were just humoring it until a better replacement came along3.
Internally and externally, the United States maintained its illusion of superpower status through the application of diverse tools, some hard and harsh, some soft, and some gray in nature. On the economic front, it mass produced an industrial-scale fiat currency4 as a trading tool and adopted games of chance, fundamentals of speculation5 and gambling as its "genius" economic principles. It manufactured large bubbles of debt6, mimicking a toddler's birthday party, then divided and sold the airs within as investment bonds. The illusion of trust in an untrustworthy entity was the collateral. No worries though. Whenever the time got ripe and the bubbles burst, sophisticated air-capturing devices and adjustment tools were customized, nicely packaged, and were readied for retail. The hamster on the wheel of finance kept on running but never arriving; alas, the chicanery of economic progress was kept alive.
On the military front, the United States dropped two atomic bombs killing and genetically maiming hundreds of thousands of people for generations to come. In the Eyewitness Account of Hiroshima, August 6th, 1945, Father John A. Siemes, then a professor of modern philosophy at Tokyo's Catholic University, concluded his remarks by saying:
"We have discussed among ourselves the ethics of the use of the bomb. Some consider it in the same category as poison gas and were against its use on a civil population. Others were of the view that in total war, as carried on in Japan, there was no difference between civilians and soldiers, and that the bomb itself was an effective force tending to end the bloodshed, warning Japan to surrender and thus to avoid total destruction. It seems logical to me that he who supports total war in principle cannot complain of war against civilians. The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good that might result? When will our moralists give us a clear answer to this question?"7
While the "moralists" on whom Father Siemes pinned his hopes seventy four years ago were too busy theorizing about their own slumber, the United States of America stockpiled thousands of ready-to-be-deployed nuclear bombs, as fear-inducing threat tools. It deviated enormous amounts of world's precious resources into the development of military hardware and software gadgets, using "defense" and "American interest" as its rationale8. It then created chaos and mayhem all over the planet9 as its pressure lever to sell death toys to teeny-weeny boys10—expensive batteries not included and costly -900- numbers for instructions on operations and maintenance11.
On the public relations and propaganda front, it used industrial-scale colorful media forms12 as its tool to lie, to cheat, and to fool. It is useful to remember that the United States of America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, freely burnt alive and made melted charcoals13 of tens of its own defenseless and unarmed mothers, fathers, and children in Mt. Carmel, Waco, Texas14. It bravely broadcasted, live, the entire event on several television networks for days to nip it in the bud for its own agitated population exactly how low it is capable of sinking to maintain its clutch and subdue dissent. For sure, that trick alone silenced many for a few years, Timothy McVeigh15 and his disloyal company excluded, while it worked on another script for another terror-inducing spectacular performance. Too many tricks to remember and too many tools to recount in this short essay; but at last, the jig is up.
Internally, the house has fallen on moral, ethical, justice, and economic grounds, but has forgotten to collapse. Those who cannot see this need corrective lenses or the right standards to evaluate and measure things. Externally, and more relevant to our topic here, the structure of the world's power relations and alignments are changing rapidly in a tangible and measureable way away from the United States'16 autocratic clutch. While the self-absorbed and the infatuated speak of dangers of a power vacuum, others are quite busy realigning themselves. Let us remind ourselves of Saxon White Kissinger's poem about delusions of indispensability,
"Sometime when you feel that your going
Would leave an unfillable hole,
Just follow these simple instructions
And see how they humble your soul;
Take a bucket and fill it with water,
Put your hand in it up to the wrist,
Pull it out and the hole that's remaining
Is a measure of how you'll be missed."17
Coalitions, partnerships, and algebraically aligned groups of countries around the globe, some with hybrid letter-number titles of "this plus that minus the other," are emerging left, right, and center. Even multi-billioners, themselves cheerleaders and enablers of the Empire of Illusions, are busy, like rats, circling the globe door to door to release their poisonous capital in the hope of infesting another Titanic, another morality-free sinking ship into making. There is a buzz that George Soros is trying to establish his own anti-war 'Code Pink' group (should name it Code Navy Blue, perhaps). No doubt, the irony would not have been lost to George Orwell had he lived to see it.
Enough eulogizing. What do all these mean, or should mean, to ordinary people and local community groups around the world? That is, for what, where, when, why, and how should the very people who often shoulder the brunt of all the dregs that roll downhill prepare themselves? For the rest of us, too, no matter what positions we hold and what relationships we have with the rest of the world, the same questions apply. I and the local community groups with and within which I work are grappling with these questions on a daily basis. We are doing what we can to ensure that our short and borrowed lives on this earth is worth the breaths we take. Many of us find ourselves feeling increasingly fortunate to live in Iran where doing so many things in so many ways is possible. More fortunately for us, the general frameworks within which we ask questions, analyze situations, design solutions, and implement them are all intertwined and enmeshed in our culture and belief system: Quran, Our Prophet's and Imams' teachings, and an important element called "Al-Hekmah" or the Wisdom. So, how do we evaluate the current transformations in the world around us and how do we try to choose the correct position and make a difference? Here, I present a brief and simple snapshot of our local-universal eye-view.
Firstly, Quran's ethical teachings, as exemplified through the words and deeds of our Prophet, Imams, and pious scholars, tell us that there is no separation of religion and politics in Islam. As Allammeh Seyyed Hassan Modarres (1249 – 1316 HS, parallel in date with 1870-1937 AD), a religious sage and one of the champions of Iranian Constitutional movement, said in one of his most famous speeches, and Imam Khomeini, the Founder of the Revolution, quoted, "Siasat-e ma eyn_e dianat_e ma, va Dianat_e ma eyn_e Sia'sat_e mast." ("Our politics is exactly our religion and our religion is exactly our politics.") The paragraph from which the line is borrowed reads,
"The source of our politics is our religion. We are on friendly terms with the entire world so long as they have not aggressed against us. But, if anyone aggresses against us, we will respond. Our politics is exactly our religion and our religion is exactly our politics."18
Notwithstanding a particular religious belief and appealing simply to human logic, how would it even be possible for someone to have an authentic personal and private ethical and religious belief about, for instance, "thou shall not kill the innocent," and live, work, and play within the rules and regulations of countries and political systems that kill innocent people to generate revenues and to maintain their national economic lifestyles of choice? Or, appealing to a more rudimentary level of human thought, how could we possibly afford not to be political, when the concentration of the very oxygen in the air we breathe, the amount of poisons with which our waters and foods are laced, the diseases we suffer, the so-called cures we are allowed to access, our fertility, our sexuality, our freedom to move from point A to point B are all determined by politics? Are we living with our heads buried in the sand?
Given these realities, for our people and local community groups here, being political is not a matter of choice but a religious obligation, a human necessity, and a critical survival instinct. Since we cannot avoid this, we do our utmost and take great deal of care to be well informed in order to be able to choose the right (as in correct) politics. People here take the trouble of going that extra kilometer so that, God forbids, they do not end up assuming they are on the right side and the followers of Imam Ali (the first Imam of Shi'a belief) and Imam Hussein (the third Imam of Shi'a belief) but, in fact, do things that are tantamount to carrying water for the turbines of Mo'avieh and Yazeed (Father and Son corrupt tyrants in Ummayyad dynasty against whose policies the Shi'a imams stood, resisted, and eventually got martyred).
Secondly, our religion and our pious religious scholars teach us that we should neither oppress others nor submit to oppression by others. So, our resistance has at least three dimensions: one, we must resist our own urges to oppress others, while at the same time, resist being sucked into siding with oppressors. Two, we must resist oppression against ourselves by anyone. Three, whenever and wherever we hear the cry for help of the oppressed people (Muslim and/or non-Muslim), we are obligated to respond and help, within our means and capacity to do so, and in a sound and appropriate way. Standing silently on the sideline and keeping quiet out of fear or greed is not an option for us. People here commemorate Imam Ali as the epitome of excellence in justice and in "qist" (particular form of justice). They commemorate Imam Hussein as the epitome of resistance against oppression and injustice. When you hear the chants of "Kullu Yau'men Ashura, Kullu Arzen Karbala" -Every day is Ashura, Every place is Karbala, it is useful to remember that today's Karbala extends from Afghanistan to Yemen to Syria to Palestine to Nigeria to Sudan to Caracas and to any other place on the globe that people are fighting injustice, resisting oppression, and asking for help.
This stance is not just an isolated religious belief of some uninformed local community groups. It is written clearly into our constitution, the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran19. In Article 2, Section 6.c, and in Article 3, Section 5,6,15, and 16, it reads:
2:6.c – the negation of all kinds of oppression, authoritarianism, or the acceptance of domination, which secures justice, political and economic, social, and cultural independence and national unity.
3:5 – the complete rejection of colonialism and the prevention of foreign influence.
3:6 – the eradication of all kinds of tyranny, autocracy, and monopolization of power.
3:15 – the cultivation and strengthening of Islamic brotherhood and general cooperation among the people.
3:16 – the organization of the nation's foreign policy based on Islamic criteria, fraternal commitment to all Muslims, and unrestrained support for the impoverished people of the world.
Any of our elected and/or appointed officials who would tell you otherwise, is either ignorant of the very law he must uphold (in which case, shame on him) or he has gotten to his position by lying, cheating, and swearing to uphold the very laws he is deliberately breaking (in which case, he is a hypocrite and double shame on him). On a bright note though, the ordinary people in the trenches feel extremely blessed that the most senior person in their land, the Leader, is also the most steadfast champion and the flag bearer of the constitution. To put him on a sanction list means to put the Iranian constitution and millions of ordinary people in local communities on a sanction list. Of course, had the US done differently, we would have questioned our own authenticity.
More generally though, as the current situation in the world unfolds, it is useful to remember some basic facts. No imperialist, no arrogant power, no superpower wannabe operates in a vacuum. There are always cheerleaders, enablers, junior and senior accomplices, profiteers, and conspirators. Regardless of what their mouth says, their action speaks louder. Let's consider a simple example. The Unites States was able to spend trillions in military adventures killing millions of innocent people around the world and expropriating their resources in two fundamental ways: 1) It shortchanged its own tax-paying population, the young, the retired, and even the unborn in all sorts of social and public rights and amenities. 2) It kept on issuing treasury bonds on its accumulated debt, currently about 22.5 trillion dollars20, with People's Bank of China, Central Bank of Japan, and naïve citizens21 as its most devoted purchasers.
To speak inside a parenthesis and to be totally candid, the ordinary people here find Japan's "I've-fallen-and-I-can't-get-up!" attitude which has lasted nearly 74 years quite puzzling. Once upon a time, they lost a war. Who doesn't at one point or another? Now that it happened, shouldn't they stand up, dust off, and shake off this subdued and subservient house servant role and assume an independent position with dignity and self-respect? I am told. As Imam Hussein said, "If you do not have any religion and are not fearful of the Day of Judgment, at least be protective of your liberty and autonomy in your life in this world."22 People hope and pray to God that hardworking and noble people of Japan will rise up and will one day free themselves of the US occupation. Again, regular, ordinary people here are genuinely willing to provide support, if the Japanese themselves are willing to fight for their independence.
We will assume being under occupation by the US is Japan's excuse. But, what has been China's excuse? China has been buying the US debt as an export-led strategy to ensure its economic growth23. Therefore, to the extent that China, out of self-interest, has acted as an enabler of the United States aggressions and wars, it, too, is responsible. Its development, too, is contaminated with the crime and injustice against, and the blood of innocent people proportionate to the amount of advantage it had gained through its indirect support of those acts. We will not even address its voting record, until just a couple of years ago, as the UN's Security Council permanent member. Now that it, too, is a target, its change in behavior is not trustworthy enough because it does not appear to be based on ethical and moral principles. It would not be illogical to assume that the moment the direction of winds changes, it is likely that China's current stance would change, too.
Therefore, for ordinary people in local communities here, that is, the very same people who are active, and who willingly volunteer their own lives and their children and spouses to go and fight alongside those who resist oppressions and hegemony by the US and the West, these and other critical points and lessons will not go unchallenged and unlearned. Only those who have a proven record of being honest and trustworthy, of acting on principles, and steadfast in their resolve fighting against oppression are worthy of trust and long-term partnership, regardless of their race, nationality, and religious affiliation. Others must work much harder, regardless of what they profess to be.
As the entire world is moving on, and as partnerships and coalitions are constantly dissolving and forming, and as the nuclear strike buzzes & hypes are being heard again, I would like link back to the beginning of the essay and re-insert, again, the quoted parts of Father Siemes' remark, but this time, I complement the segment with a new twist in interpretation and prediction. He recounted,
I can guarantee anyone who reads these lines that ordinary people in local communities here in Iran are fully aware that what is currently going on is, in fact, a total war against their very existence. They also know there is no difference between civilians, soldiers, and [they add] our Commander in Chief (Seyyed Ali Khamenei). Should one, two, or more nuclear bombs be added to the United States' repertoire of its pressure levers in its ongoing total war against Iran, unlike the Japanese, the ordinary devout Shi'as in Iran (who are quite significant in number), from all levels of the society, are not going to be sitting around philosophizing, musing, and theorizing about whether or not the total war against them was justified, where all the moralists have gone, or play the role of an obedient house servant. Furthermore, they are not going to enter into a shock & awe state, not knowing what to do. Bihawl'lallah wa Quwwatah (By God's Power and Might), they will, however, make sure that will not end the bloodshed; rather, it will begin a very effective and exact bloodshed. From my reading of the population here, I can bet my life on that. Can the US, holding tight and fast to its nuclear Trump card, be equally sure of its own bet? If yes, Bismillah.
Mansoureh Tajik lives in Alborz Province in Iran. She has a background in teaching and research in the areas of community and environmental health, environmental justice, and media literacy. She collaborates with various local community members, groups, and organizations to provide support in addressing health and environmental problems, sustainable agriculture, and in design, implementation, and evaluation of relevant improvement projects.
1. Thomas Donnelly, Donald Kagan, and Gary Schmitt (2000). "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New American Century," A Report of The Project for the New American Century, September 2000. Accessed on 7/9/2019; Available online at: https://archive.org/details/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.
2. Fotios Moustakis & Rudra Chaudhuri (2006). "Counting the Cost of an American Unilateralist Policy: a Superpower at Risk?" Published By: Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Conflict Studies Research Centre, Special Series, 06/43. ISBN 1-905058-88-8, August 2006, UK.
3. Jan Nijman (1992). "The Limits of Superpower: The United States and the Soviet Union since World War II." Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 82, No. 4 (Dec., 1992), Pages 681-695. Published by Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of American Geographers.
4. Steven Russell (1991). "The US Currency System: A Historical Perspective." Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, September/October 1991. Accessed on 7/9/2019; Available Online at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c909/a844511a78720c5d2800170c06109d797fde.pdf
5. Ricardo J. Caballero, Emmanuel Farhi, and Mohamad L. Hammour (2006). "Speculative Growth: Hints from the U.S. Economy." The American Economic Review," Vol. 96, No. 4, Pages 1159-1192.
6. Nathan Perry (2014). Debt and Deficits: Economic and Political Issues. A GDAE Teaching Module on Social and Environmental Issues in Economics. Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University, Medford, MA.
7. The Manhattan Engineer District Report (1946). The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Manhattan Engineer District of the United States Army under the direction of Major General Leslie R. Groves on June 29, 1946. Accessed on 7/25/2019; Available Online at: https://www.abomb1.org/hiroshim/hiro_med.pdf
8. Office of Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller) Chief Financial Officer (Feb. 2018). Defense Budget Overview, Fiscal Year 2019 Budget Request. Generated on 2018Feb02. Ref. ID: A-6E677F4. Accessed on 7/25/2019; Available Online at: https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/FY2019-Budget-Request-Overview-Book.pdf
9. Sarah N Pedigo (2016). "United States Interventions: Power Vacuums and the Rise of Extremist Groups." Master of Arts (MA) Thesis, Sociology/Criminal Justice, Old Dominion University, DOI: 10.25777/86pc-ex82 Available Online at: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/sociology_criminaljustice_etds/6
10. Zahra Aghamohammadi1 and Ali Omidi (2018). The Prospect of the United States and Saudi Arabia's Relations In Light of the Khashoggi Murder. Journal of World Sociopolitical Studies, Vol. 2, No. 4, October 2018, Pages 605-632.
11. Congressional Research Service (2019). "The U.S. Export Control System and the Export Control Reform Initiative," Updated April 5, 2019. R41916· VERSION 49.
12. Sebastian Kaempf (2019). "A relationship of mutual exploitation': the evolving ties between the Pentagon, Hollywood, and the commercial gaming sector." Journal of Social Identities, Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 25:4, 542-558, DOI: 10.1080/13504630.2018.1514151.
13. Official Death Reports, Autopsies and Other Reports of the Davidian Dead. Accessed on 7/26/2019; Available Online at: http://www.holocausts.org/waco/death/reports/county-list.html
14. Timoty Lynch (2001). "No Confidence: An Unofficial Account of the Waco Incident". Policy Analysis, No. 395, April 9, 2001, Pages 1-18.
15. Linder, Douglas (2007). The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Trial of Timothy McVeigh, University of Missouri at Kansas City – School of Law, Posted on Nov. 17, 2007. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1030565 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1030565.
16. Robbert Kappel (2015). "Global Power Shifts and Challenges for the Global Order." German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, Policy Paper 2/2015.
17. Saxon White Kessinger (1959). "Indispensable Man." Available Online at: http://www.appleseeds.org/indispen-man_saxon.htm.
18. Hossein Razmjoo (1366 H.S.). "Modarres and His Principle Non-Equilibrium in Politics." Meshkaat, The Center for Computerized Research in Islamic Sciences, Dr. Shariati College of Literature and Humanities. Original in Farsi, Translated by the author.
19. The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (English Version). Available Online at: https://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/ir/ir001en.pdf
20. US Debt Clock. Accessed on 7/26/2019; Available Online at: https://www.usdebtclock.org/
21. Kimberly Amadeo (2019). "Who Owns the US National Debt? The Biggest Owner is You!" The Balance. Accessed 7/26/2019; Available Online at: https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124
22. Muhammad Baqer Majlisi (1403 HQ). Translation, by the author, of a portion of Narration (Hadith):
ان لَم یَکُن لَکُم دینٌ و کُنتُم لاتَخافونَ المَعادَ فَکونوا اَحراراً فِی دُنیاکُم
from Bihar ul-Anwar, 2nd Edition, Vol. 45, Page 51.
23. Ingvild Borgen Gjerde, DNB Markets (2019). "Why China will not sell its US Treasuries." The Note, Market Matters, 15.05.2019. DNB Markets, a division of DNB Bank ASA. DNB Bank ASA is a part of the DNB Group.
Filed under: American Aggression, China, Colonialism, Imam Ali, Japan, Justice, Quran, Quranic Islam, Religion, USA | Tagged: America's War on Iran, American Aggression, American Imperialism, AngloZionist Empire, "illusion of freedom.", Capitalism, Global MSM, Iran Islamic Revolution, Karbala, Liberalism, Soros |	Comments Off on "Global Coalition of the Willing," Ordinary Iranians' Style: Resistance multiplied by Ethics plus Justice minus Oppression divided by Aggression
Russia and China Scare American Vassal States
by Ruslan Ostashko
Translated and captioned by Leo.
A series of high-profile statements broke out in Seoul after Russian and Chinese aircraft conducted joint patrols over the Sea of Japan. South Koreans, licking American boots, tried to pretend to be "tough guys," but it didn't work out very well.
As the self-styled world hegemon weakens, the attempts of its vassals in depicting their geopolitical significance cause more and more ridicule. A typical example is South Korea.
At the end of 2013, when the Maidan was already raging in Kiev, and the impudence of the United States seemed to have no limits, Seoul unilaterally expanded the so-called "air defense identification zone" to include islands in the Sea of Japan.
"Having recalled their initial plans to expand the air defense identification zone, Seoul again decided that it was time to firmly defend their interests. Of course the true courage of Korea had added support from the United States." https://rg.ru/2013/12/07/pvo-site.html
More than five years passed, the next crisis around the DPRK was over, which showed that the hegemon was, in general, naked, and then something happened on July 23rd this year.
"South Korea blames Russia for violating its airspace. According to Seoul, the Russian A-50 aircraft twice entered the airspace over the Sea of Japan in the area of the Dokdo Islands (the Japanese name is Takeshima). The F-15K and F-16K fighters flew out to intercept it, and after radio messages, they fired 20 flares and gave 360 warning shots from a machine gun. In addition, South Korea said that several hours before that, two Chinese aircraft had flown in its air defense identification zone, and then returned with two Russian Tu-95s. This flight lasted about 25 minutes, the South Korean military says."
That is, Russian and Chinese bombers made joint patrols in the zone, which South Korea unilaterally declared its airspace. Seoul jumped out of indignation and expelled the fighters.
And at the same time they raised the hype in the media through its news agency "Yonhap". The answer came immediately: https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20190723005456325?section=national/defense#none
"The military attache of the Republic of Korea was given a note because of the illegal and dangerous actions of the crews of South Korean aircraft, said Commander of Long-Range Aviation of the Russian Air Force, Lieutenant-General Sergei Kobylash. 'According to our info, violating the objective control of the airspace of South Korea and Japan is not allowed. The aircraft group's closest to them were more than 25 kilometers from the islands. This can be clearly seen on the data presented on the screen. Therefore, the actions of South Korean crews should be regarded as air hooliganism.'"
That is, Seoul is culturally sent in a certain direction. Moreover, speaking synchronously with the Chinese.
"Military aircraft of the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China did not violate the airspace of other countries during joint patrols over the Sea of Japan, spokesman for the Ministry of Defense of the People's Republic of China Wu Qian told a news conference on Wednesday. Commenting on the incident, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, said that the identification zone South Korean air defense is not the airspace of this country, everyone has the right to freedom of flying there." https://ria.ru/20190724/1556820048.html
That is, Moscow and Beijing are nightmares for an American vassal together through agreements. And this is happening against the background of the preparations for the conclusion of a agreement between the Ministry of Defense of Russia and the Ministry of Defense of the PRC on military cooperation.
The fact that the negotiations will still be ongoing, is already known officially. http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/0001201907220004
The idea of the Russian-Chinese military alliance acquires specifics. And from these specifics, the nervous systems of the Washington oinkers in Southeast Asia are already beginning to fail.
Washington itself, by the way, will soon not be thinking about hegemony. The reasons are trivial: The Pentagon is having difficulty recruiting personnel.
"The strongest personnel crisis of the American Army in recent years has sparked a debate in the US about a possible reduction in the draft age to 16 years," The Washington Times reports. "Critics argue that such a measure will lead to a decrease in the combat capability and cohesion of the armed forces. Meanwhile, 13 countries of the world have already reduced the draft age to 16 years – among them, for example, the United Kingdom."
https://russian.rt.com/inotv/2019-07-20/Washington-Times-dyadya-Sem-zovyot
Do you know why 16 year olds want to be allowed to enter into contracts? The reason is just beautiful.
"According to Sandboxx's marketing director, Shane McCarthy, unsuitability factors for service (for example, criminal records) are much less common among adolescents aged 15 to 17 years. According to the US Department of Justice, the number of arrests among teenagers between 18 and 20 years old is twice as high as among teenagers between 15 and 17 years old."
That is, the American youth is rapidly marginalized and slipping into crime. AUE in full growth, and it is necessary to quickly recruit the jerks into the army, until they had time to get convictions. Otherwise – the case of seams.
"According to The Washington Times, last year for the first time in the last ten years, the American Army failed to fulfill the draft plan: less than 70,000 recruits instead of the planned 76,500 joined the armed forces. This year the army command intends to achieve its goals, but acknowledges that the situation with the call is harder than ever."
The ragged hegemon has problems, South Korea has the highest suicide rate in the world and a demographic catastrophe, but out of habit they puff out their cheeks, believing that they can still afford it. They can't.
Another 10 years, and no war is needed. The United States will simply abandon its Asian vassals, rolling back to the stupidly annexed Hawaii in 1898.
And then they will go further into their hole, while Russia and China will become the guarantors of stability, first in strategically important regions, and then on the planet as a whole.
As they say, remember this tweet.
Pentagon Wants 16-year Old Kids to Fight the Empire's Wars
Filed under: China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, USA | Tagged: Russian and Chinese Alliance |	Comments Off on Russia and China Scare American Vassal States
America Tries to Solve Everything With Money! Will Fail at Bribing the Entire World!
Posted on June 30, 2019 by indigoblue76
Filed under: Afghanistan, Deal of the Century, Japan, North Korea, Russia, USA, Vietnam, War on Iraq, War on Syria, Yugoslavia | Tagged: America's Lost Wars, America's War on Iran, Idlib, sanctions, Shah of Iran, Trump |	Comments Off on America Tries to Solve Everything With Money! Will Fail at Bribing the Entire World!
The Trump-Bolton Duo Is Just Like the Bush-Cheney Duo: Warmongers Using Lies to Start Illegal Wars
Posted on June 19, 2019 by martyrashrakat
By Prof Rodrigue Tremblay
Global Research, June 18, 2019
[False flag operations:] "The powers-that-be understand that to create the appropriate atmosphere for war, it's necessary to create within the general populace a hatred, fear or mistrust of others regardless of whether those others belong to a certain group of people or to a religion or a nation." James Morcan (1978- ), New Zealander-born Australian writer.
[Definition: A 'false flag operation' is a horrific, staged event—blamed on a political enemy—and used as pretext to start a war or to enact draconian laws in the name of national security].
"Almost all wars begin with false flag operations." Larry Chin (d. of b. unknown), North American author, (in 'False Flagging the World towards War. The CIA Weaponizes Hollywood', Dec. 27, 2014).
"Definition of reverse projection: attributing to others what you are doing yourself as the reason for attacking them." John McMurtry (1939- ), Canadian philosopher, (in 'The Moral Decoding of 9-11: Beyond the U.S. Criminal State', Journal of 9/11 Studies, Feb.2013).
"That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of nations, is as shocking as it is true; but when those who are concerned in the government of a country, make it their study to sow discord, and cultivate prejudices between nations, it becomes the more unpardonable." Thomas Paine (1737-1809), American Founding father, pamphleteer, (in 'The Rights of Man', c. 1792).
"I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, and we stole. It was like — we had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment." Mike Pompeo (1963- ), former CIA director and now Secretary of State in the Trump administration, (in April 2019, while speaking at Texas A&M University.)
History repeats itself. Indeed, those who live by war are at it again. Their crime: starting illegal wars by committing false flag attacks and blaming other countries for their own criminal acts. On this, the Donald Trump-John Bolton duo is just like the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney duo. It is amazing that in an era of 24-hour news, this could still going on.
We recall that in 2002-2003, the latter duo, with the help of U.K.'s Tony Blair, lied their way into a war of aggression against Iraq, by pretending that Saddam Hussein had a massive stockpile of "weapons of mass destruction"and that he was ready to attack the United States proper. On October 6, 2002, George W. Bush scared Americans with his big Mushroom Cloud analogy. —It was all bogus. —It was a pure fabrication that the gullible (!) U.S. Congress, the corporate media, and most of the American public, swallowed hook, line and sinker.
John Pilger: On the Dangers of Nuclear War
Now, in 2019, a short sixteen years later, the same stratagem seems to being used to start another illegal war of aggression, this time against the country of Iran. The masters of deception are at it again. Their secret agents and those of their Israeli and Saudi allies, in the Middle East, seem to have just launched an unprovoked attack, in international waters, against a Japanese tanker, and they have rushed to the cameras to accuse Iran. They claim that the latter country used mines to attack the tanker.
This time, they were unlucky. —The owner of the Japanese tanker, the Kokuka Courageous, immediately rebuked that "official" version. Yutaka Katada, president of the Kokuka Sangyo shipping company, declared that the attack came from a bombing from above the water. Indeed, Mr. Katada told reporters:
Source: The Washington Post
"The crew are saying it was hit with a flying object. They say something came flying toward them, then there was an explosion, then there was a hole in the vessel."
His company issued a statement saying that "the hull (of the ship) has been breached above the waterline on the starboard side", and it was not hit by a mine below the waterline, as the Trump administration has insinuated. —[N. B.: There was also a less serious attack on a Norwegian ship, the Front Altair.]
Thus, this time the false flag makers have not succeeded. But, you can be sure that they will be back at it, sooner or later, just as they, and their well financed al-Qaeda allies, launched a few false flag "chemical" attacks in Syria, and blamed them on the Syrian Assad government.
Donald Trump has too much to gain personally from a nice little war to distract the media and the public from the Mueller report and from all his mounting political problems. In his case, he surely would benefit from a "wag-the-dog" scenario that John Bolton and his friends in the Middle East could easily invent. As a matter of fact, two weeks ago, warmonger John Bolton was coincidently in the Middle East, in the United Arab Emirates, just before the attacks!
Besides the Japanese ship owner's denial, it is important to point out that at the moment of the attack on the Japanese tanker, the Japanese Prime Minister, Mr. Shinzo Abe, was in Iran, having talks with the Iranian government about economic cooperation between the two countries about oil shipments. Since Iran is the victim of unilateral U. S. economic sanctions, to derail such an economic cooperation between Japan and Iran could have been the triggered motivation to launch a false flag operation. It did not work. But you can be sure that the responsible party will not be prosecuted.
We live in an era when people with low morals, sponsored by people with tons of money, can gain power and do a lot of damage. How our democracies can survive in such a context remains an open question.
Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
This article was originally published on the author's blog site: Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay.
International economist Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay is the author of the book "The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles", of the book "The New American Empire", and the recent book, in French "La régression tranquille du Québec, 1980-2018". He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
Copyright © Prof Rodrigue Tremblay, Global Research, 2019
Filed under: Al Qaeda, Economic war, False Flags, Japan, USA, War on Iraq, War on Syria | Tagged: Chemical Weapons, Economic war, John Bolton, Pompeo, Trump, US Lies |	1 Comment »
CENTCOM Video Not Enough to Blame Iran for Tanker Attacks
The alleged video footage released by the US military to blame Iran for the recent attacks on two oil tankers in the Sea of Oman was disputed even by Washington's allies and Western analysts.
Less than a day after the US Central Command [CENTCOM] released the video late Thursday purportedly showing "Iranian sailors" removing a mine from the Japanese-owned Kokura Courageous' hull earlier in the day, European governments — except for Britain — have so far refused to accept the US' narrative that Tehran was to blame for the "suspicious" attacks.
They are reluctant to accept the White House's claims at face value, and do not want to provide Washington with any pretext for war.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Friday the video is not sufficient to prove the US claim that Iran was behind the attacks.
"The video is not enough. We can understand what is being shown, sure, but to make a final assessment, this is not enough for me," Maas, who was in Iran earlier this week on an official two-day visit, told reporters in Oslo.
Nathalie Tocci, a senior adviser to European foreign policy Chief Federica Mogherini also rejected the US allegations, saying, "Before we blame someone, we need credible evidence."
Iranians are deeply rational actors, she said. And for Iran to have attacked a Japanese ship when the Japanese prime minister was in Tehran "is not an especially rational thing to do."
In the released video, a small boat is shown coming up to the side of the Japanese-owned tanker. An individual stands up on the bow of the boat and can be seen removing an object from the tanker's hull. The US claims that the object is likely an unexploded mine.
"At 4:10 p.m. local time an IRGC Gashti Class patrol boat approached the M/T Kokuka Courageous and was observed and recorded removing the unexploded limpet mine from the M/T Kokuka Courageous," the CENTCOM said in a statement.
The claim, however, was soon rejected by the Japanese ship's operator, whose president said on Friday its sailors on board the Kokuka Courageous saw "flying objects" just before the attack, suggesting the tanker wasn't damaged by mines.
"The crew told us something came flying at the ship, and they found a hole," President Yutaka Katada of Kokuka Sangyo told a press conference in Tokyo. "Then some crew witnessed the second shot."
The video was also disputed by Western investigative journalists and defense analysts.
Investigative historian and journalist Gareth Porter said he had "written to the CENTCOM media desk to ask why the video the command has released does not show what happened before the moment something is removed from the side of the boat."
The investigative journalism website Bellingcat also wrote that "there's currently no evidence to verify what was removed from the side of the vessel was a mine, and there's no evidence at the moment about who placed it there, so claiming it was a mine placed by the Iranians is pure conjecture at this point in time."
Some analysts and observers even questioned the authenticity of the video, arguing that the US military has edited the video to make it misleading.
US Sends New Destroyer to Gulf, Pentagon Says 'No interest' in New War
Rouhani, Putin Discuss Energy Investment in Iran
Rouhani Tells SCO Summit: US Poses «Serious Threat» to World
Filed under: Europe, GCC, Germany, Iran, Japan, USA | Tagged: AngloZionist Empire, Attacks on Oil Tankers, IRGC, Trump, US Lies |	Comments Off on CENTCOM Video Not Enough to Blame Iran for Tanker Attacks
من يقف وراء استهداف ناقلتي النفط… وما هي الآفاق؟
حسن حردان
في لحظة اجتماع رئيس الوزراء الياباني شينزو آبي مع مرشد الثورة الإسلامية في إيران الإمام علي الخامنئي ناقلاً رسالة من الرئيس الأميركي دونالد ترامب في محاولة لإقناع طهران بالتفاوض مع واشنطن لإنهاء التوتر الحاصل، والذي افتعلته إدارة ترامب بانسحابها من الاتفاق النووي والتنكّر لتوقيع واشنطن عليه، دوّت انفجارات قوية متتالية في بحر عُمان بعد استهداف ناقلتي نفط عملاقتين محمّلتين بالخام، وشبّت حرائق هائلة على متن الناقلتين المستهدفتين، وهما من الناقلات العملاقة التي تحمل النفط الخام من الخليج…
وقد طرح ذلك التساؤلات حول الجهة التي تقف وراء استهداف الناقلتين، والأهداف التي تسعى إليها، هل هي لإحباط الوساطات الدولية الجارية من أكثر من طرف غربي بين طهران وواشنطن، لا سيما أنّ هذه الوساطات تأتي بناء على رغبة وطلب ترامب…
من الواضح أنّ إيران ليس لها مصلحة في القيام بمثل هذا الهجوم ضدّ ناقلات النفط، لا سيما أنها في وضع مريح في الصراع الدائر بينها وبين الولايات المتحدة، فهي متيقنة من أنّ واشنطن لا تجرؤ على شنّ الحرب عليها، ولهذا تراجع مناخ التهديد بالحرب، وقد عكست ذلك مواقف ترامب التي وضعت حداً لخطاب الحرب الذي كان يروّج له مستشاره للأمن القومي جون بولتون، وفي نفس الوقت تبيّن عدم قدرة واشنطن على تصفير صادرات إيران النفطية.. في ظلّ قرار صيني روسي حازم بالاستمرار في شراء النفط الإيراني، وإعلان اليابان عبر مسؤول في شركة كوزمو اليابانية يوم الاثنين الماضي أنها بدأت باستيراد أول شحنة من النفط الإيراني وشحن 850 ألف برميل من النفط الخام بما فيه 200 ألف برميل من النفط الخفيف و650 ألف برميل من النفط الثقيل…
وقد أعلنت شركة «إس آند بي غلوبال» الأميركية مؤخراً انّ البنوك اليابانية حصلت علي التراخيص اللازمة لاستئناف صفقات شراء النفط الإيراني.. والمعلومات تشير إلى أنّ الناقلتين اللتين استهدفتا تحملان شحنات نفط متجهة إلى اليابان… ما يؤكد أنّ استهداف الناقلتين إنما هو لإحباط جهود اليابان ومعاقبتها على استئناف شراء النفط الإيراني ودورها في التوسط بين واشنطن وطهران.. لهذا فإنّ الجهة التي تقف وراء ضرب الناقلتين متضرّرة من هذه التطورات التي تصبّ في مصلحة موقف إيران الذي يرفض تقديم التنازلات لواشنطن وتصرّ على رفض أيّ تفاوض مع الولايات المتحدة بعد أن خرجت على الاتفاق النووي ولم يعد بالإمكان الوثوق بها، فيما المطلوب أولاً ان تعود واشنطن إلى الالتزام بالاتفاق والتراجع عن فرض العقوبات الاقتصادية ضدّ إيران قبل الحديث عن أيّ تفاوض..
وإذا ما دققنا بالجهات المتضرّرة من التطورات الجارية في مصلحة إيران وتراجع خطاب الحرب في واشنطن، يأتي في المقدّمة كيان العدو الصهيوني الذي يقف بالأصل ضدّ الاتفاق النووي وعمل في ما بعد عبر اللوبي الصهيوني في واشنطن والمحافظين الجدد على ممارسة الضغوط على إدارة ترامب للانسحاب من الاتفاق وهو ما حصل…
كما يأتي في المرتبة التالية دعاة الحرب في واشنطن الذين يعارضون سياسة ترامب في التفاوض مع إيران… وقد تكون السعودية أيضاً لها مصلحة في استهداف الناقلتين، فهي منخرطة في السياسة الإسرائيلية لتوجيه البوصلة من العداء ضدّ كيان العدو الصهيوني إلى العداء ضدّ الجمهورية الإسلامية الايرانية، لا سيما أنّ المسؤولين في الرياض يشعرون بالخيبة من توجهات ترامب بعد تفجيرات ناقلات النفط في ميناء الفجيرة، بعدم الذهاب إلى التصعيد ضدّ ايران وتهيئة المناخ لشنّ الحرب ضدّها..
غير أنّ الاستهداف الجديد لناقلات النفط أكد مجدّداً الحاجة الغربية الأميركية للتهدئة مع إيران وقطع الطريق على الجهات التي تسعى إلى التصعيد لما لذلك من مخاطر تهدّد إمدادات النفط من الخليج وباب المندب إلى دول العالم التي تستورد نحو 20 بالمئة من احتياجاتها النفطية من المنطقة.. ومثل هذا الأمر يصبّ بالتأكيد في مصلحة إيران التي أكدت أكثر من مرة أنه لا يمكن السماح بوقف تصدير نفطها وبقاء الآخرين يصدّرون نفطهم..
لكن إلى أين تتجه الأمور؟
كلّ المعطيات تؤشر إلى عدم ترجيح خيار الحرب لأن لا واشنطن تريد الإقدام عليها بسبب كلفتها الباهظة وتداعياتها على المصالح والنفوذ الأميركي في المنطقة إلى جانب أنها ستؤدّي إلى وقف إمدادات النفط واشتعال أسعاره بشكل جنوني.. وفي المقابل فإنّ خيار التفاوض بين طهران وواشنطن احتمالاته ضعيفة جداً اذا لم يكن مستبعداً لأنّ طهران لن تقبل العودة إلى التفاوض أقله قبل أن تعود واشنطن إلى الالتزام بالاتفاق النووي وما يتضمّنه من التزامات، فيما إدارة ترامب ترفض ذلك وتسعى إلى التفاوض لتعديل الاتفاق عدا أنّ ترامب ليس له مصلحة في التراجع عن هذا الموقف لأنه سيعتبر فشلاً كبيراً لسياساته وهزيمة أمام إيران ويؤدّي إلى خسارته دعم وتأييد اللوبي الصهيوني في الانتخابات الرئاسية المقبلة التي يطمح فيها للفوز بولاية ثانية… ولهذا فإنّ المرجح أن يبقى الصراع بين إيران والولايات المتحدة تحت سقف لا حرب ولا تفاوض… وبالتالي بقاء التوتر والصراع بوسائل غير مباشرة وعبر الضغوط الاقتصادية التي تمارسها واشنطن ضدّ طهران على الرغم من أنها لن تفلح في دفع القيادة الإيرانية إلى التراجع قيد أنملة عن مواقفها الرفضة لأيّ شروط وإملاءات أميركية…
كاتب وإعلامي
Filed under: Bloody Oil, GCC, House of Saud, Iran, Japan, Khamenei, UAE, USA | Tagged: America's War on Iran, AngloZionist Empire, Attacks on Oil Tankers, Axis of Resistance, Trade War, Trump |	Comments Off on من يقف وراء استهداف ناقلتي النفط… وما هي الآفاق؟
Imam Khamenei Receives Japan PM: Trump Not Worthy Of Exchanging Messages With
Leader of the Islamic Revolution His Eminence Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei dismissed US President Donald Trump as a person not worthy of exchanging messages with.
Ayatollah Khamenei made the remarks in a Thursday meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who told the Leader he was carrying a message from the US president.
"We have no doubt in Abe's goodwill and seriousness; but regarding what you mentioned from US president, I don't consider Trump as a person deserving to exchange messages with; I have no response for him & will not answer him," Imam Khamenei said.
The Islamic Republic has no trust in the US and the previous bitter experience we had in negotiating with the US within JCPOA will never be repeated again, because no free & wise nation would accept negotiations under pressure, Imam Khamenei stressed.
His Eminence further noted that "Our problem with the US is not the issue of regime change; because even if they pursue such a thing, they won't be able to achieve it, just as previous US presidents tried in vain to destroy the Islamic Republic over the past 40 years."
The Supreme Leader further voiced opposition to nuclear weapons, "our religious verdicts prohibit building nuclear weapons. But know that if we ever intended to produce nuclear weapons, the US wouldn't be able to do anything against that, & US's prohibition would never make an obstacle."
"The US doesn't have, by any means, the competency to say which country should or shouldn't possess nuclear weapons; because the US has thousands of nuclear warheads in its arsenals," His Eminence added.
Imam Khamenei further told Abe that "US president met and talked with you a few days ago, including about Iran. But after returning from Japan, he immediately imposed sanctions on Iran's petrochemical industry."
Is this a message of honesty? Does that show he is willing to hold genuine negotiations? Imam Khamenei asked.
"After the nuclear deal, the first one to immediately breach the JCPOA was Obama; the same person who had requested negotiations with Iran & had sent a mediator. This is our experience, and Mr. Abe, know that we won't repeat the same experience."
You said Mr. Abe that Trump has said negotiations with the US would lead to Iran's progress. By the Grace of God, without negotiations & despite sanctions, we will progress.
Imam Khamenei also said that it's good that you acknowledge the fact that the Americans have always wanted to impose their own thoughts and beliefs on other nations; and it's also good to know that the Americans observe no limit in imposing their views on others.
"I welcome your suggestion to expand relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Japan is an important country in Asia and if they are willing to expand relations with Iran, they should demonstrate their firm determination, just as some important countries have done so."
Abe is the first Japanese head of state who visits Iran over the past four decades. He is heading a high-ranking delegation, and has met with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani and the country's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.
Abe and his Foreign Minister Taro Kono arrived in Tehran on Wednesday.
No Negotiations with Terrorists, Zarif Says On Talking With US
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif conditioned any talk with the Americans to Washington's giving up its policy of using 'economic terrorism' against Iranian people.
Zarif in an interview with the London-based al-Araby TV said the US waged an economic war against Iranian people which amounts to economic terrorism.
It means that the US is exerting illegal pressure on the people to reach its political goals, he said.
Nobody negotiates with terrorists, Zarif stressed.
There is no difference between military and economic wars, the top diplomat said, adding that the main damage will be on the region as in a tense situation anything might occur.
We have good relations with most of the countries in the region, Zarif added, commenting on Iran's ties with the region, arguing that a couple of countries in the region mistakenly believe in the security provided by the US.
What "we want from the US is to avoid intervening in Iran's relations with other countries or pressing them to breaching their obligations", the Iranian top diplomat said in the interview released on Wednesday evening.
The Americans are facing myriads of problems caused by their past wrong decisions, he said.
The problems, however, will not be solved by pressuring Iran, the foreign minister said.
He also urged the US to stop supporting the occupation of the Palestine territories, the holy city of Quds and Golan Heights by the Zionist regime, and putting an end to their efforts in advancing the so-called 'Deal of the Century'.
Iran to Give Harsh Answer to Enemies' Foolishness: Top Commander Warns
Rouhani: US Losing Capacity for Pressure on Iran
Iran to German FM: All Signatories, Not Just Iran, Must Comply With Nuke Deal
Zarif: US 'Cannot Expect To Stay Safe' After Launching Economic War
Filed under: American Aggression, Deal of the Century, Iran, Japan, Khamenei, Syria Golan Heights, USA, War on Iran | Tagged: American Aggression, Javad Zarif, JCPOA, Wars for Israel |	Comments Off on Imam Khamenei Receives Japan PM: Trump Not Worthy Of Exchanging Messages With
معادلات الصراع والتفاوض بين طهران وواشنطن
Posted on June 3, 2019 by martyrashrakat
– التسوية صعبة بين أميركا وإيران إلى حد الاستحالة، ليس بسبب السقوف العالية للخطابات المتبادلة، أو الشروط المتقابلة، بل لأن القضايا الحقيقيّة للصراع يصعب إيجاد تسويات فيها تمنح الفريقين المتقابلين صفة رابح ورابح، وفي قلب هذه القضايا مستقبل «إسرائيل» وأمنها، وقد بلغ المأزق الذي تعيشه «إسرائيل» مدىً يجعلها عاجزة عن تحمل تبعات أي تسوية بالمطلق تضم طهران وواشنطن لا تلتزم فيها إيران بوقف دعمها لحركات المقاومة، وتمنح «إسرائيل» عناصر أمن واطمئنان تفتقدها، وهو ما قصده وزير خارجية عمان بعد لقائه برئيس حكومة الاحتلال بأن «إسرائيل» تحتاج أن نطمئنها إلى أمنها ومستقبلها. والقصد بالـ «نحن» ليس حكام الخليج، بل طهران، وفي هذا الشأن المسألة أكبر من التسوية مع إيران فقوى المقاومة في المنطقة نمت وكبرت وتعاظمت قدراتها وثقتها بنفسها وباتت تفرض معادلات قوة وردع يصعب بل يستحيل كسرها. وبنسبة لا تقل عن «إسرائيل» يعاني حكام الخليج من تداعيات سقوط مهابتهم أمام قوى محلية يتقدمها أنصار الله في اليمن، في معادلة تتصاعد وتكبر ويصعب فيها التراجع إلى الخلف.
– الحرب بالمقابل بين أميركا وإيران أكثر من صعبة بل هي مستحيلة، لأن القدرة الأميركية على إلحاق الأذى بإيران لا نقاش فيها، وبالمقابل القدرة التي تمتلكها إيران وقوى المقاومة على إلحاق الأذى بالقوات والمصالح الأميركية في المنطقة، وبـ«إسرائيل» وبدول الخليج أكبر من قدرة واشنطن وحلفائها في الخليج و«إسرائيل» على التحمل، ونتائج الحرب انفجار مؤشرات أسعار النفط، وإقفال الأبواب أمام إمكانية قطاف سياسي للحرب، التي تعلن إيران أنها لا تسعى إليها، وباتت واشنطن تعلم أن شروط خوضها غير متاحة، ويصعب توفيرها، سواء بحجم ما تحتاج من قوى عسكرية وقدرات مالية وتحضيرات لوجستية وسياسية، وزمن وخريطة طريق، وضمان عدم التوسّع والإصابة القاتلة من الضربة الأولى، ومنع استيلاد إيران لأول قنبلة نووية في ظل الحرب، ولذلك يتصدر المشهد بعد أول اختبار لأمن النفط، التمهيد للتراجع عن التهديد.
– بالتوازي فإن الحدّ الأدنى لأي تفاهم تقدر واشنطن على المجاهرة به، ولو لم يتضمّن ما يفيد «إسرائيل» وحكومات الخليج، يتّصل بالتفاهم النووي والبرنامج الصاروخي الإيراني، وهما أمران لا تستطيع إيران التراجع فيهما، لأن القبول بإعادة وضع التفاهم النووي على الطاولة يعني الاستعداد لإلغاء التفاهم الجديد من أي رئيس جديد للتفاوض من جديد على تفاهم جديد جديد، وتمسك إيران بالتفاهم سقفاً يعني سواها من دول كبرى وقعت على التفاهم ولا يسعها القبول برسالة واشنطن التي تقول إن لا قيمة لأي قوة في العالم ولا أي توقيع ولا أي قرار، وأن الرئيس الأميركي إمبراطور العالم الجديد يملك بشطحة قلمه العريض أن يحلّ مجلس الأمن والدول الدائمة العضوية، ويجعل القرارات الدولية أقل من قيمة الحبر الذي وقعت فيه، والقبول بوضع البرنامج الصاروخي الإيراني على طاولة التفاوض يعني أن إيران ستتقبل التفاوض والتفتيش على منشآتها العسكرية كأمر واقع يلغي كل قيمة لقدراتها العسكرية ومكانتها ومهابتها وصفتها الرادعة.
– بالمقابل لا تستطيع واشنطن العودة للتفاهم النووي كما كان واعتباره إطاراً صالحاً للتفاوض، من ضمن صيغة الخمسة زائداً واحداً، التي أنتجته، كما لا تستطيع واشنطن التراجع عن العقوبات تمهيداً للتفاوض. وهذه شروط الحد الأدنى التي يمكن لإيران قبولها، لذلك تتمّ الوساطات الجدية بكل جدية لمنع التصعيد أكثر مما تأمل هذه الوساطات فتح قنوات التفاوض للتمهيد للتفاهم، والتفاوض غير المباشر الذي تقوم به سويسرا واليابان، ويمكن أن تنضم إليهما روسيا، هو تمهيد لربط النزاع وليس لصناعة الاتفاقات، وبناء عليه وضع صيغة آمنة للتساكن تحت سقف النزاع، ووضع قواعد اشتباك سياسية ومالية وعسكرية تظلل هذا التساكن الطويل، ربما حتى نهاية ولاية الرئيس الأميركي العام المقبل، بل ربما حتى نهاية عمر التفاهم النووي العام 2025، وربط النزاع وقواعد الاشتباك لا بد أن تتضمنا تفاهمات تتصل بتدفق النفط والحد المقبول من الضغط لتطبيق العقوبات، ومحاولات تسويات في اليمن وفي سورية، على قاعدة اعتماد التغاضي حيث يصعب الحصول على التراضي.
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Filed under: Europe, Iran, Japan, USA, War on Iran | Tagged: America's War on Iran, AngloZionist Empire, JCPOA, Nasser Kandil, P5+1, sanctions, Switzerland, The axis of defeated, Trump |	Comments Off on معادلات الصراع والتفاوض بين طهران وواشنطن
FULL PRICE PLUS 50% OR MORE: TRUMP SEEKS FINANCIAL COMPENSATIONS FROM FROM NATIONS HOSTING U.S. TROOPS
The Trump administration is drawing up demands that Germany, Japan and eventually any other nation hosting US troops pay the full price of US soldiers deployed on their soil – plus 50% or more for the privilege of hosting them, according to multiple reports in US media citin various anonymous officials and 'informed sources'.
According to repots, in some cases, nations hosting US troops could be asked to pay 5 to 6 times as much as they do now under the "Cost Plus 50" formula.
Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, just stated that because of me NATO has been able to raise far more money than ever before from its members after many years of decline. It's called burden sharing. Also, more united. Dems & Fake News like to portray the opposite!
7:11 PM – Jan 27, 2019
41.5K people are talking about this
"Trump has championed the idea for months. His insistence on it almost derailed recent talks with South Korea over the status of 28,000 US troops in the country when he overruled his negotiators with a note to National Security Advisor John Bolton saying, "We want cost plus 50."
The president's team sees the move as one way to prod Nato partners into accelerating increases in defence spending – an issue Trump has hammered allies about since taking office. While Trump claims his pressure has led to billions of dollars more in allied defence spending, he's chafed at what he sees as the slow pace of increases.
"Wealthy, wealthy countries that we're protecting are all under notice," Trump said in a speech at the Pentagon on Jan 17. "We cannot be the fools for others."
Officials caution that the idea is one of many under consideration as the US presses allies to pay more, and it may be toned down. Yet even at this early stage, it has sent shock waves through the departments of Defence and State, where officials fear it will be an especially large affront to stalwart US allies in Asia and Europe already questioning the depth of Trump's commitment to them," The Straits Times reported on the issue.
So far, Trump's idea to raise funds from US allies have faced a large wave of criticism in the mainstream media. The common argument is that this move would demonstrate a lack of "commitment" to US allies in Europe and Asia. On the other hand, this move seems logical in the framework of the Trump-delcared strategy to strengthen the US national industry, including the military industrial complex. The Trump administration is not going to abandon US military infrastructure around the world, but it does not want to pay for it as much as it does.
From the European perspective, all EU nations, which have been for a long time exploiting the US military presence as a political tool to justiy a low-scale military spending, this could be seen as an "unfriendly" move. They get used to the fact that the US takes a military spending burden off their back thus buying their loyality.
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Filed under: EU, Europe, Japan, NATO, South Korea, US Foreign Policy, USA | Tagged: John Bolton, Military Industrial Complex, Trump |	Comments Off on FULL PRICE PLUS 50% OR MORE: TRUMP SEEKS FINANCIAL COMPENSATIONS FROM FROM NATIONS HOSTING U.S. TROOPS
President Vladimir Putin's annual news conference December 20, 2018
President Vladimir Putin's annual news conference
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues, friends.
Let us begin our traditional end-of-year meeting that we call a news conference.
As always, I will spend just a few brief seconds to sum up the results of the outgoing year. A lot has been said already, but I have the latest data reflecting the most recent results, some just a couple of days old.
In the first nine months of 2018, GDP increased by 1.7 percent, while the Economic Development Ministry expects the annual increase to total 1.8 percent. Industrial output was growing at a faster pace, totalling 2.9 percent in the first ten months of 2018, with the annual results expected at 3 percent, up from a 2.1 percent growth in 2017. In addition, processing industries have been growing at a somewhat faster pace of 3.2 percent.
In the first three quarters fixed capital investment increased by 4.1 percent. Cargo shipments and retail trade are on the rise, having increased by 2.6 percent. Consumer demand growth has been apparent. This is a positive factor. After a lengthy interval, the population's real income has shown some, albeit very moderate, growth. According to the latest statistics, real incomes will increase by 0.5 percent. I hope that this momentum will be maintained, since real pay levels are on the rise, having grown by 7.4 percent in the first nine months, which is expected to give us 6.9 or 7 percent by the end of the year.
Inflation remains at an acceptable level, although it has increased a little in the past week, by 0.5 percent, I think. Therefore, we will be able to reach the Central Bank's reference rate of 4 percent and will have an inflation rate of 4.1 percent to 4.2 percent – somewhere just over 4 percent.
The unemployment rate is going down, which is good news. If last year it hit a historical low of 5.2 percent, this year it will be even lower – 4.8 percent.
The trade balance surplus is growing. In 2017, if you remember, it was around $115 billion. Over the three quarters of this year we already achieved $157 million. As of the end of the year, we expect it to reach $190 billion.
Our finances are growing stronger. Our gold and foreign currency reserves have grown by over 7 percent. In the early 2018, they amounted to $432 billion while now they stand at almost $464 billion.
For the first time since 2011, we will have a budget surplus. We are about to reach the federal budget surplus of 2.1 percent of the GDP. The National Welfare Fund has grown by around 22 percent.
The average annual insurance component of the retirement pension stood at 13,677 rubles in 2017. By the end of this year, it will be 14,163 rubles.
Life expectancy has also increased slightly compared to 2017, from 72.7 to 72.9 years.
These are the general results that I wanted to mention in the beginning. Let's not waste our time and proceed to your questions and my attempts to answer them.
Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov: Let us begin by giving some priority to the Kremlin pool. Its members worked with us throughout the year, following the President both in Russia and abroad.
ITAR-TASS, the state news agency.
Veronika Romanenkova: Thank you.
The year 2018 arguably went by under the sign of new national projects that you launched with the May Executive Order. They are expected to cost an enormous amount of money. However, some experts, members of the State Council, as was mentioned in Yalta only recently, have questioned the feasibility of these national projects and whether they are needed. How well thought out are the performance assessment criteria for the national projects? For example, the Accounts Chamber Chairman said that there is no way to assess their effectiveness. What can you say to counter this?
Vladimir Putin: I will have to begin by saying a few words on whether these projects are needed, since you said that some question this.
I have said it on numerous occasions, and I will repeat it today. We need a breakthrough. We need to transition to a new technological paradigm. Without it, the country has no future. This is a matter of principle, and we have to be clear on this.
How can this be done? We need to focus the available resources, find and channel them to the essential development initiatives. How can these efforts be organised? By simply distributing money, and that's it?
First, we had to find this money. It took us the entire year 2017 to articulate the objectives and find the resources. Both the Government and the Presidential Executive Office contributed to this effort. By the way, when some call for more changes within the Cabinet, we have to understand that it was the Government's financial and economic block that developed the national development programme to 2024. For this reason, they are the ones who must take responsibility for the plans they made. There is no way around it.
So how should this effort be organised? By simply distributing money? After all, as much as 20.8 trillion rubles are expected to go into the national projects alone, and another 6.5 trillion will be invested in a separate infrastructure development plan. Of course, the allocation of these resources has to be set forth in documents of some kind on achieving breakthroughs. You can refer to these development plans any way you wish. We call them national projects. After all, it makes it clear that there are goals that have to be achieved. If there are no objectives, you will never achieve the final outcome, no matter how you manage these investments. It is for this reason that the 12 national projects were developed alongside an infrastructure development plan. Let me remind you of the main vectors.
Healthcare, education, research and human capital come first, since without them there is no way a breakthrough can be achieved. The second vector deals with manufacturing and the economy. Of course, everything is related to the economy, including the first part. But the second part is directly linked to the economy, since it deals with the digital economy, robotics, etc. I have already mentioned infrastructure.
Why did we have this meeting in Yalta, Crimea, to discuss with our colleagues from the Government and the regions how we will proceed in these efforts? Because there are questions on how to assess performance under these projects. We need effective controls, while making sure that all efforts by the federal centre to monitor what is happening in the regions are effective. It is true that there are challenges in this regard, but we are working on them. So what is the tricky part? The tricky part is that funding mostly comes from the federal centre, and this applies to all programmes, while most of the efforts are undertaken in the regions. The regions must be ready to work constructively. Instead of simply hiking up prices in response to an increase in the available funds, they must focus on achieving concrete results that will be clearly visible. This is the first point I wanted to make.
Second, we need to understand whether they will be able to succeed. This is a real question. Some argue that this would be impossible. But this is what we hear from those who must deliver. Instead of having these thoughts they need to work on delivering on these objectives, and if they feel that they are unable to do so, they have to clear the way for those who are positive about their ability to deliver and are ready to work. To tell you the truth, I have not seen anyone who did not want to do it or said that it was impossible. These messages come from outside observers.
Without ambitious goals we will never achieve anything. For this reason, I do hope that the federal centre and the regions will be able to work together in a consolidated and positive manner. Yes, some indicators have to be adjusted. Our colleagues from the regions have submitted their proposals to this effect, and I have high hopes that the Government will take them into consideration and adjust specific indicators so that we can move forward effectively.
Pavel Zarubin: Rossiya TV channel.
I would like to expand on a topic that has already been raised. Many economics experts, including Alexei Kudrin, assert that in reality, the Russian economy has been growing just by one percent on average over the past ten years, and if so, this is essentially marking time, or stagnation. You set the goal of making a breakthrough, a leap, but for this, even if we take the lowest estimate, the growth rate should be at least four to five times higher. The Government promises to achieve the goal, but that same Government acknowledges that in the next few years, GDP growth rates will not exceed even 2 percent. In this regard, here are my questions: what does the Government rely on in its forecasts, in the planning of its work? Is a breakthrough possible at all, in this context, or will the economy continue operating like this: we make some money on oil surplus, put it aside, then spend it when there is a need for it? In general, are you satisfied with the Medvedev team?
Dmitry Peskov: Friends, I would ask you please to respect each other – ask only one question each.
Vladimir Putin: Look, economic growth has been one percent per year for a certain period of time. But, first of all, it was while Mr Kudrin was Deputy Prime Minister, so you must not blame the mirror for showing a crooked face, as they say. This is the first point.
The second is, one should not just count mechanically. I have great respect for Mr Kudrin, he is my friend and a good professional, and as a rule, I listen to his recommendations. He is a reliable specialist, a good one. But look, from 2008 to 2018, the economy grew by about 7.4 percent. In simple maths – yes, it equals one percent, a little more. However, let us not forget how the economy developed. There were higher growth rates, alternating with recessions associated with the global crisis. In 2009, after the crisis in the global economy, not in ours – Russia was not the cause of the global financial crisis of 2008–2009, it came to us from the outside – the decline was about 7.8 percent. Then little by little, we were crawling out of it for many years.
Then, in 2014–2015, another meltdown occurred – a collapse in the oil prices, our main exports. That is why I am saying we should not simply count mechanically.
However, of course, the country's GDP, the GDP growth rate is one of the main indicators. But we will not be able to achieve the GDP growth rates necessary for this breakthrough unless the structure of the economy is changed. This is what the national projects are aimed at, and why such enormous funds will be invested, which I have already said – to change the structure and build an innovation-based economy. The Government is counting on this, because if this happens, and we should all work towards this, then the growth rates will increase and there will be other opportunities for development.
By the way, you mentioned the projected 2 percent growth for the next two years. Yes, in the next years, 2019–2020, two percent each, but from 2021, the Government is already planning 3 percent, and then more. Therefore, I strongly hope that we will manage to do all this. Some fluctuations are probably possible, but, I repeat, the most important thing is that we need… Do you see what we need to do? We need to join another league of economies, and not only in terms of volumes. I think that taking the fifth place in terms of volume is quite possible. We used to rank fifth in terms of the economy, in purchasing power parity, and we will do it again, I think. However, we need to ascend to another league in terms of the quality of the economy. This is what our national projects are aimed at.
Pavel Zarubin: Are you satisfied with the Medvedev team?
Vladimir Putin: Overall, yes.
Question: Good afternoon.
Mr President, in my city of Volgograd we had a wonderful year. We celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad. You made it a federal holiday and we really appreciate it. You also paid us a visit.
We successfully hosted the World Cup and our region indeed began to breathe and develop.
There is a lot that still needs to be done. I think the economy will be extensively discussed. But Volgograd residents have a big wish and a great favour to ask. In 1998, the Kacha Higher Military Aviation School of Pilots, which had a very long history, was shut down.
It was established at the Tsar's decree in 1910 and we were truly proud of it and want to be proud of it further. We want the military traditions to live on. Please consider re-opening it.
Vladimir Putin: In which year was it shut down?
Remark: In 1998, unfortunately. It had the Order of the Red Banner and a long history.
Vladimir Putin: You see, it is already 2018. It happened 20 years ago and I do not quite know what is left of this legendary school.
You are right, it was indeed a legendary school. But the Russian Defence Ministry plans personnel training resources based on whether there is a demand for specific types of personnel in the Armed Forces.
Therefore, we need to look at what can be done not only to remember it but perhaps to preserve the remaining traditions. I will make sure to look into this and consult with the Defence Ministry.
Maria Balyuk: Mr President, good afternoon. My name is Maria Balyuk, I represent the Prime news agency.
Mr President, the budget in the current year and the next year will have a surplus. However, starting January 1, a number of decisions are coming into effect that may cause a significant increase in prices of a wide range of goods and services.
For example, the VAT will increase to 20 percent, which has already triggered a two-stage increase in the housing and utilities rates next year. There is also the new tax for self-employed persons in pilot regions. Please tell us how these measures agree with the state's economic policy.
Vladimir Putin: Housing and utilities rates in two stages, and what else?
Maria Balyuk: And, for example, a tax on self-employed people in pilot regions.
Isn't this amount of new measures too much of a burden on Russians and the economy?
Vladimir Putin: You said about the surplus.
Yes, this is indeed a good indicator of the Government's economic block performance. As I said in my opening remarks, for the first time since 2011 we will have a budget surplus of 2.1 percent. And this is good.
Let us not forget that as an oil producing country and a country that derives much of its revenue from selling oil and gas, we also have what is called a non-oil-and-gas deficit. This is what the country earns from selling products and services other than oil and gas.
Let me remind you that this non-oil-and-gas deficit was 13 percent in 2009, which is a lot. In the early 2000s, it was at about 3 percent, but the global economic crisis forced us to use our oil revenues to meet our social commitments and finance the Armed Forces, so we had to tap into the oil revenues.
In this situation, the non-oil-and-gas deficit surged into the double digits almost reaching13 percent, I believe. This was a very serious challenge for the Russian economy. We have now reduced it to 6.6 percent, and next year it is expected to decline to 6 percent and remain at this level for the next few years.
This is a very important indicator of economic resilience for the Russian Federation. Therefore, the increase in the VAT rate, among other things, is due to the need to maintain the non-oil-and-gas deficit at a certain level.
Second, in many countries VAT is 20 percent or even higher. It used to be higher in Russia as well, but we reduced it at a certain point. Now we have returned to a 20-percent tax rate.
However, the effective VAT rate for the overall economy will be below 20 percent since almost all benefits remain in place: for pharmaceuticals, children's goods, and so on, including for IT companies. Many benefits have been preserved. With this in mind, the effective rate will be actually lower.
Finally, I do hope that the rate hike will be only a one-off measure with a possible slight increase in prices and inflation in the beginning of the year, after which the inflation will go down.
The Central Bank also seeks to prevent inflation from picking up. Only recently, the interest rate was increased by 0.25 percentage points.
While there are definitely both benefits and disadvantages to this decision, all this is done in order to prevent inflation and prices from growing. For this reason, I believe that the overall decision was correct and balanced, creating additional budget revenue and the possibility to deliver on our development plans as part of the national projects.
As for increases in housing and utilities tariffs, over the past years they grew by about 4 percent per year. It is true that next year there will be two hikes: the first one will be at about 1.7 percent, and the second one I think will be about 2.4 percent, but in total this still makes up 4.1 percent.
Why will the increase be spread out in two stages? The reason is that with a higher VAT, prices of some goods and services are expected to increase, and we need to make sure that the utilities sector does not come under stress.
For this reason, in order to shield companies in this sector from these developments and ultimately in the interests of the people, we decided to proceed in two stages. That said, the overall increase should not exceed 4.1 percent.
In some regions, where the utilities infrastructure requires major upgrades and bigger hikes are required, this can be done as an exception, and subject to federal Government approval.
Yekaterina Gagarina: Good afternoon, Mr President. My name is Yekaterina Gagarina. I represent the Rossiya TV channel in Novosibirsk.
The importance of the Akademgorodok 2.0 [Academic Town] project that you supported during your visit to Novosibirsk is obvious not only to Siberian scientists. This project is unique for the entire country.
But behind the technological component of this project there are a number of tasks of a similarly large scale. They include building housing, roads, kindergartens and schools. My question is what if our scientific ambitions crash at daily living problems? Will the scientists have somewhere to live?
Vladimir Putin: I would not want them to crash.
I understand that it is a very important part of the entire process. Of course, we will be working on this with the regional officials. When I visited Novosibirsk, I also spoke about this with my colleagues.
The first objective of the federal government is to honour its obligations related to the facilities which trigger the development of Akademgorodok – which, by the way, is the opportunity to earn money on these high technologies. The social component will definitely be carried out after this.
But if any additional action is required to resolve the scientists' social issues, of course, we will try to do it. By the way, the mortgage sector has been growing lately. We will support it as well. It is growing very fast for everybody. The growth of the mortgage sector stands at over 20 percent.
But, of course, we will try to address these issues for Akademgorodok. If there is a critical need for a response from the federal government, we will discuss it.
Sergei Marov: Hello, Mr President. My name is Sergei Marov, Zvezda newspaper, Volgograd Region. I will start with small details and bring you to the bigger question.
I will give you a simple example. Next to our editorial office, there is a company which for nine years…
Vladimir Putin: A company?
Sergei Marov: Yes.
For nine years, it has been putting gigantic efforts into building a technological chain for full-cycle flax processing. Imagine…
Vladimir Putin: Excuse me, for the full cycle of processing…
Sergei Marov: Flax.
Vladimir Putin: I see.
Sergei Marov: From planting a seed to finished clothing. This is what they did.
It appears that the message from these industrial workers is clear. At the same time, when I was going to this conference, I had serious consultations with the company's workers, and they said: "The last research institute dealing with flax is in the process of liquidation."
The last training institute for executive personnel in the fibre flax cultivation is in the process of liquidation. We are receiving completely different messages from the industrial companies working on the product and from the government that is supposed to support these industries.
Therefore, I have a question. How do you assess the state of industrial production and its growth rate? Do you believe that at this stage the government provides sufficient support to Russian producers?
Vladimir Putin: Frankly speaking, I am not aware of the problems of this flax research institute. But in general, flax is one of Russia's traditional industries. It has always been our signature product, our pride. I will look into this situation.
Usually the problem is worse than it appears from the outside. I just do not know the details of what is going on with that institute – although, of course, flax production, once again, has always been Russia's pride. If the industry needs this institute, it may be preserved, but we need to understand how this can be done. I promise you to look into this.
Now over to industrial production. As I said, industrial growth in general is ahead of GDP growth at 3 percent. The processing industry has grown by 3.2 percent. This is a good performance indicator.
As concerns light industry, it is developing even faster. Over the ten months of this year, food production has grown by 13 percent, which is, by the way, confirmed by the consumption figures that are generally growing. Clothing and footwear industries posted a growth of 9 percent, a very good result.
Now, is government support sufficient or not? It is not. This is why we have mapped out a number of programmes to support specific production sectors. Overall, by 2024, this support will amount to 1.376 trillion rubles and will extend to the light industry, aviation, the defence industry and some other sectors.
We have individual programmes for major industries. Next year, they will receive 450 billion rubles in support. The year after, it will be 450 to 470 billion rubles. These are the indicators, the figures. The total funding stands at 1.376 trillion rubles.
Anton Vernitsky: Mr President, as Soviet-era children, all of us feared a nuclear war very much. As you remember, various songs dealt with this issue. One of them had the following lyrics: "Sunny world: Yes, yes, yes; nuclear explosion: No, no, no."
Vladimir Putin: Are you not afraid today?
Anton Vernitsky: Forty years have passed, and major media outlets on both sides of the ocean are beginning to publish a scenario for a nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States. The word "war" is sounding more and more often at household level, in kitchens.
Mr President, how can you calm down my little son who, just like me, also fears a nuclear war today? What words and actions can calm us all down?
Vladimir Putin: You know, I think you are right.
I just thought that all this, including the danger of such developments in the world, is now being hushed up and played down to some extent. It seems impossible or something that is not so important. At the same time, if, God forbid, something like this happens, it might destroy the whole of civilisation or perhaps the entire planet.
These issues are therefore serious, and it is a great pity that there is such a tendency to underestimate the problem, and that this tendency is probably becoming more pronounced. What are the current distinguishing features and dangers?
First, all of us are now witnessing the disintegration of the international system for arms control and for deterring the arms race. This process is taking place after the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty that, as I have already noted a thousand times, was the cornerstone in the sphere of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and deterring the arms race.
After that, we were forced to respond by developing new weapons systems that could breach these ABM systems. Now, we hear that Russia has gained an advantage. Yes, this is true. So far, the world has no such weapons systems. Leading powers will develop them, but, as yet they do not exist.
In this sense, there are certain advantages. But, speaking of the entire strategic balance, this is just an element of deterrence and for equalising parities. This is just the preservation of parity, and nothing more.
They are now about to take another step and withdraw from the INF Treaty. What will happen? It is very difficult to imagine how the situation will unfold. What if these missiles show up in Europe? What are we supposed to do then?
Of course, we will need to take some steps to ensure our safety. And they should not whine later that we are allegedly trying to gain certain advantages. We are not. We are simply trying to maintain the balance and ensure our security.
The same goes for the START III Treaty, which expires in 2021. There are no talks on this issue. Is it because no one is interested, or believes it is necessary? Fine, we can live with that.
We will ensure our security. We know how to do it. But in general, for humanity, this is very bad, because this takes us to a very dangerous line.
Finally, there is another circumstance I cannot ignore. There is a trend to lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. There are plans to create low-impact nuclear charges, which translates to tactical rather than global use. Such ideas are coming from Western analysts who say it is okay to use such weapons. However, lowering the threshold can lead to a global nuclear disaster. This is one danger we are facing today.
The second is the use of non-nuclear ballistic missiles. True, our US partners seem to have dropped this idea, but it still exists. What does it mean?
Suppose, a ballistic missile is launched, nuclear or non-nuclear. The missile attack warning system identifies the launch and the launch site, and, seconds later, determines the flight path and the possible warhead landing area. This is all on the verge of a possible error. It is terrible, and we cannot take it that far. Nevertheless, such an idea of using non-nuclear ballistic missiles exists.
Suppose, a submarine fired a ballistic missile from the World Ocean, but who the hell knows if it is nuclear or not, go figure. This is very dangerous. All of that is being widely discussed, which is dangerous.
However, I believe humanity has enough common sense and enough of a sense of self-preservation not to take these things to the extreme.
Dmitry Peskov: Let us go to this sector. I see the Ukrainian flag in the second row.
Vladimir Putin: You attend all our news conferences, correct? You are from Ukraine?
Dmitry Peskov: Yes, he is our colleague from Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin: Right, my colleagues told me it was better not to let him speak, because he would cause a scandal. Are you going to cause a scandal now?
Please go ahead.
Yegor Sozayev-Guryev: Yegor Sozayev-Guryev, Izvestia. My question is about the incident in the Kerch Strait.
Vladimir Putin: But Izvestia is not from Ukraine, is it?
Yegor Sozayev-Guryev: Well, my question is about Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin: Well, go ahead.
Yegor Sozayev-Guryev: I have a question about the precedent in the Kerch Strait, I wonder about the future of the captured Ukrainian military. What will happen to them? Do you think this provocation was a success?
I cannot help asking about the citizens of Russia imprisoned in the United States. I mean Butina and Yaroshenko. How can Russia protect their rights? Perhaps, we should look at our Chinese partners? A Chinese citizen representing Huawei was detained in Canada. In response, they detained several Canadian citizens. Perhaps, we could learn from that experience?
Vladimir Putin: With regard to your first question, you said: "Do you think this provocation was a success?" First, let us state that it was a provocation, and you agree with that. This is already a good start.
Now, whether it was a success or not, I believe provocations are a bad thing whatever way you look at them. Provocations seek to aggravate things. Why do our Ukrainian partners need things to go that way? Clearly, they are in the middle of an election campaign right now, and they want to aggravate the situation in order to raise the ratings of one of the contenders, I mean the incumbent president and the current government. Well, this is bad, it is ultimately bad for the interests of the Ukrainian people and state. However, it is possible to move forward without any provocations and do so calmly, as before.
Whether it was a success or not, I mean in terms of improving popularity ratings, maybe it was, as Mr Poroshenko's ratings seem to have increased a little and he has moved from the fifth position to the second or third, where the figure fluctuates around 12 percent. Ms Tymoshenko, I believe, has 20 percent or even more, whereas Zelinsky, Boyko and Poroshenko have around 12 percent each. In this sense, yes, he probably achieved the goal. At the expense of the country's interests, I believe. This is a bad way to boost ratings.
With regard to the future of the Ukrainian servicemen, they were sent on this mission and some of them were expected to die in the process. I can see that the leadership is very upset by the fact that no one died. They expected some of them to die. Thank God, this did not happen. An investigation is underway. Once it is over, we will know what to do with them.
Still, I will ask you to give the microphone to our colleague from Ukraine.
Roman Tsymbalyuk: Thank you. There will be no scandal. There never was a scandal actually.
Vladimir Putin: Thank God.That already is good news.
Roman Tsymbalyuk: Mr President, I would like to ask you how much money you are spending on the occupied Donbass? Under your leadership, people there are living in poverty. Let us face it, they have become slaves to Russia. You are concerned about the threat of a nuclear war and at the same time, you are preparing for a war against NATO, and, in fact, you are shooting at Ukrainian citizens. It was you as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief who issued the order to open fire at seamen. My question is what are the terms of the exchange?
And a question about the elections, if I may. You say that you analyse the approval ratings.
Vladimir Putin: Just a second. Terms of exchange?
Roman Tsymbalyuk: The terms of exchange of Ukrainian political prisoners and Ukrainian servicemen. You do need your Russian citizens back, don't you?
And about the elections, if I may. You constantly analyse the ratings and one gets the impression that…
Vladimir Putin: I do not analyse them, I look at them inasmuch as you print them.
Roman Tsymbalyuk: … in this way you are meddling in the electoral process like you did in the United States. Doesn't it seem to you that a direct dialogue between the presidents of Ukraine and Russia will never take place until you change your job?
Vladimir Putin: Regarding the suffering of the people who live in Donbass. You are a Ukrainian citizen, aren't you? And you consider the people who live on this territory to be the citizens of your country. Can you tell me who established the blockade between Donbass and the rest of Ukraine? Did Russia do it? The Ukrainian authorities did it: they imposed a total economic blockade of the territory they consider to be their own. They shoot at the people they consider to be their own citizens. People are killed there almost every day, peaceful civilians, by the way.
We do render humanitarian and other assistance and support to the people who live on that territory. But we do it only to prevent them from being finally crushed, devoured and torn to pieces, and we will continue doing it. Because attempts to solve these political issues by force – and we have seen this being done by the current Kiev authorities for several years – are doomed to failure. This has to be kept in mind.
Now concerning how to settle these relations and who will and will not remain in power. It is not about personalities, it is about the attitude towards people. We want to see peace and prosperity on the entire territory of Ukraine, including Donbass. We are interested in it because Ukraine remains one of our biggest trade and economic partners.
Trade between Ukraine and Russia, in spite of all the efforts of the current Kiev authorities, is growing, it has grown in the outgoing year, it has grown during the current year. Is it strange? No, it is not strange because these are natural ties. These natural ties will sooner or later make themselves felt. But as long as the Kiev corridors of power are peopled by Russophobes who do not understand the interests of their own people this abnormal situation will persist. Regardless of who is in power at the Kremlin.
We have attended to the issue of exchange all along. Mr Medvedchuk, on instructions from Poroshenko, by the way, has been constantly engaged in this. He came to Moscow just recently and raised the issue of the release of Ukrainian servicemen detained in the Kerch Strait, in the Black Sea to be more precise. Yes, Medvedchuk raised this issue. However, as I have said, these issues could only be tackled after the criminal case is closed.
Margarita Baulina: Good afternoon, colleagues, Mr President. My name is Margarita Baulina, I am from the Family, Society, Traditions publication.
Two years ago, a group of activists from my paper decided to take part in a social project to build a covered football pitch for disadvantaged children, as well as for kids from children's homes.
For two years, we have been knocking on the doors of various committees, writing letters, holding meetings and still everybody is totally indifferent to our cause. I do not want to speak ill of my colleagues from other professional fields, but we are treated like we want to open a flower shop or a gas station, and nobody pays attention to the fact that we want to help the state perform its functions and carry out an important mission.
Vladimir Putin: Sorry, I did not understand you: what are you trying to do?
Margarita Baulina: We are trying to open a covered football pitch for disadvantaged children and children from children's homes, to give them an opportunity to fulfil themselves for free, to find their true identity not in the streets through some harmful activities.
Vladimir Putin: Do you have a non-governmental non-profit organisation established, or what?
Margarita Baulina: We are registered as a limited liability company on the base of our publication.
Vladimir Putin: So it means this is a business?
Margarita Baulina: Currently, yes, because we cannot find other ways to implement our project.
Vladimir Putin: Who have you addressed?
Margarita Baulina: We are trying to address this issue with several committees in out city, such as the Property Committee, Sports Committee and the Committee for Youth and Social Policy. And each time we go from one committee to another, and exchange letters with them, etc.
Vladimir Putin: How much does your project cost?
Margarita Baulina: At the moment we need 11 million rubles.
Vladimir Putin: What was your city again?
Margarita Baulina: St Petersburg.
Vladimir Putin: I will speak with the Acting Governor. I am sure we can solve this problem.
Margarita Baulina: Thank you very much.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, I am sure.
Kseniya Golovanova: Congratulations on Counterintelligence Day, Mr President. This is observed today.
Vladimir Putin: Thank you and the same to you. I feel that you are quite closely connected to this sphere…
Intelligence, counterintelligence and information work are all the same. At the end of the day, they are all about information: you work with information, and so do the special services.
Kseniya Golovanova: Russian society, especially its younger part, have recently witnessed strange actions by the authorities that I believe can cause unnecessary conflict. One example is the case of the rappers – I think you are already familiar with this word. They come under pressure, with crackdowns on their concerts.
Vladimir Putin: Are you questioning my competency?
Kseniya Golovanova: Not at all.
Vladimir Putin: You said, "I think you are already familiar with this word." Well, I knew it even before.
Kseniya Golovanova: Well, you tend to use it more often now.
Vladimir Putin: There were rappers among my authorised representatives. Take Timati, for example. Just look at this spectacular guy. By the way, he is a wonderful person and a brilliant artist.
Kseniya Golovanova: During the meeting of the Council for Culture, you said that if you cannot rein in a movement, you have to become its leader. Could you tell me why the state has to have a role in all this? Why not just leave it alone? Why did the people have to be dispersed? Who needed it? So they use obscene language in their songs – let them be.
There is a second question I wanted to ask that also deals with young people. A lot of people have recently voiced their misgivings over a legislative initiative on introducing tighter responsibility for negative statements regarding the state and authorities. This will also primarily target young people on social media. Aren't you afraid that these initiatives could cost you their support?
Vladimir Putin: Let me start with the question on alienating young people or attracting them.
You know, in any discussion about the youth, I always remember ceratin tragic and heroic chapters from our recent past. Do you remember the airborne squadron of 96 young lads, 19 or 20 years old, who found themselves in the Armed Forces almost immediately after graduating from school? These 96 soldiers fought against 2,000. Only six survived. They fought for almost three days, at times fighting at close quarters, with shovels and knives. They are heroes, and they were young, 19 or 20 years old (Applause).
Take volunteers, for example. There are thousands and thousands of them. I think that as many as 35,000 worked at the World Cup. And what about those involved in battlefield archaeology? There are thousands of them as well. They are all young people.
People of this kind form a very substantial social stratum, a large social group. They are all young, they are the foundation of Russia's present and future. There are also young researchers, talented artists and musicians, including rappers.
As for responsibility for desecration of the flag or other state symbols, it exists in almost every country. People must respect their country. There are rules that must be respected everywhere. If there is responsibility offline, it must also exist online.
In what way does online behaviour differ from offline activity? After all, these are still social interactions, especially since the internet has penetrated all areas of our lives. For this reason, there is nothing extraordinary about it.
As for these rappers being detained, I agree with you. This does not make any sense and brings about the opposite effect to what was intended, leading nowhere. That being said, there is nothing good in what you said about letting people use obscene language and not paying attention to it.
Recently, as you must have seen, I attended Yury Temirkanov's birthday celebration; he turned 80. He said something very common and still absolutely correct: "Art does not exist to indulge base motives, base interests and low cultural profile. Culture is there to raise the level of those things."
Of course, this is not something people should be caught, restricted or punished for. This would be wrong. But there are other things. For example, remember, I did not know it was broadcast live, where I told my interlocutor: "Let us all use foul language here at the Council on Culture meeting." Everyone laughed. Why? It never occurs to anyone to do this. Why should we condone it? No, we should not do this.
But there are other elements. For example, drug propaganda. Do we want our young people to use drugs? Why should we condone the promotion of drug use? This is a degradation of society, a degradation of young people, and a degradation of the nation.
Do we want to degenerate? Someone wants to promote drugs – so let them. But we should not do this, and in no way should we encourage it, and we should not turn a blind eye either. Only, we need a different way of dealing with these trends.
Another example: it has become trendy to promote suicide among young people. So what do you say, let's go now and hang ourselves, or what? Then you go first, not me. You do not want to, right? This cannot be allowed in the youth environment. That is what I said – you take the lead.
This is different from catching, restricting or telling someone to "do as I do." No, this is not aviation. Here you have to act differently. Are there any different methods? Of course there are. We need to carefully and calmly build our case, convince people of the greater appeal of other values. But you cannot ban it outright, I agree with you.
Dmitry Peskov: Are there, in addition to the Ukrainian media, media representatives from other countries as well? Our Japanese colleagues from Kyodo Tsushin in the middle of this centre section, please, take the floor. Please, pass the microphone there.
Hirofumi Sugizaki: Good afternoon, Mr President.
Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon.
Hirofumi Sugizaki: Hirofumi Sugizaki,Kyodo Tsushin, Japan.
It is natural that my question is, unfortunately, about the peace treaty that, as I understand, our countries are seeking to sign. After your meeting with Mr Shinzo Abe in Singapore, where you agreed to push the negotiating process forward on the basis of the Soviet-Japanese Declaration of 1956, our public's only concern is about how many islands we are going to get: nil, two, three or four – we do not know. On the other hand, as I understand, the Russians are also puzzled, as they mainly ask questions like, "Why should we return them?" Some people even approach us with a threat: "We will not yield an inch of our land." And so on. The question is about the delimitation that we must carry out. But if our new treaty – a peace treaty – is confined to the delimitation of borders, this will not be enough and will not be interesting to our nations, and people will not understand this. What new idea do you think should be embedded in a treaty to bring our relations to a new level?
There is another question that I cannot fail to ask in connection with the above. Russia – and you yourself – has brought up security issues recently, I mean the deployment of the US missile defence system in Japan and the possibility of deploying American troops and military infrastructure on the islands should they be transferred to Japan. We are holding negotiations at an expert level, but in military matters Japan almost fully depends on the US. Do you think these issues can be resolved on a bilateral basis, or will you have to deal directly with the US? Thank you very much.
Vladimir Putin: Let us talk about the final part of your question so that we do not forget what you said. The issues of security are crucially important, including when signing a peace treaty. You spoke about the deployment of the US military infrastructure in Japan, but it is already there, the largest US base is in Okinawa, it has been there for decades, as we know.
Now, about Japan's ability to take part in this decision-making. To us, this is an unclear, closed issue. We do not understand the level of Japan's sovereignty in making such decisions. You know better than all other colleagues, and I know too that the Okinawa Governor is opposed to some decisions related to improving and expanding the base. He is against it, but he cannot do anything about it. People who live there are also against it.
There is a lot of evidence of that; there have been opinion polls and protests demanding the withdrawal of this base. And, in any case, they are opposed to strengthening the US Air Force part of the base that is there. There are plans to improve and expand it, and it is happening despite the fact that everybody is against it.
We do not know what will happen after the peace treaty is concluded, but without an answer to this question it will be very difficult to make any crucial decisions. And, of course, we are concerned about the plans to place ABM systems there. I told the United States this many times and I will repeat again that we do not consider this to be defensive weapons; this is part of the US strategic nuclear potential placed outside. And these systems, they are synchronised with the missile strike systems.
So there are no illusions and we understand everything. But nevertheless we are sincerely striving and will strive to sign a peace treaty with Japan. It is because I am confident, and Prime Minister Abe shares my confidence, that the current state of affairs is not normal. Both Japan and Russia are interested in a complete settlement of our relations, and it is not only because we need something from Japan in terms of the economy. Our economy is more or less developing.
Just this morning, Economic Development Minister Maxim Oreshkin reported on his trip to Japan. There is some progress, including an agreement on deliveries, on opening the Japanese market to Russian meat and poultry products. There are other improvements as well. Therefore, we are moving forward, and will continue to move forward, as it will be necessary. But the normalisation is important to us, both for Russia and Japan. It is a difficult process, but we are ready to move forward together with our colleagues.
Dmitry Peskov: Thank you. As you may know, British media regulator Ofcom has just found RT guilty of violating broadcasting regulations and is looking into the possibility of introducing sanctions against it. I saw an RT correspondent somewhere here. Let us give him the floor, as he is the main source of such information.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, please.
Ilya Petrenko: Thank you, Mr Peskov.
Good afternoon. My name isIlya Petrenko from the Russia Today television channel.
But I have a different question. First, I would like to inquire about a recent decision to simplify procedures for the people of Ukraine to obtain Russian citizenship. Our channel often dealt with this issue, as well as with bureaucracy. It goes without saying that this is an important step, but I would like to ask you to explain the logic of this from a purely political standpoint. If this is so essential, and if this is needed to help people in eastern Ukraine, why didn't we do it earlier? Are you not afraid that bureaucracy will persist, and that papers will, from now on, be placed to the left, rather than the right?
I would also like to come back to the question from my Izvestia colleague. There is the Skripal scandal and the Western response to it. Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian journalist, was murdered, and this incident caused an entirely different response. Kirill Vyshinsky and Maria Butina, as well as Huawei Chief Financial Officer were arrested. And Donald Trump is saying openly that sheis a bargaining chip in a trade war. My colleague wanted to know if we would ever see this happening in Russia, when foreign citizens would be arrested under far-fetched pretexts and exchanged for someone else. Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: Let us start with the last part of your question. I do not want to comment on US-Chinese relations, who arrested whom and for what actions, etc. This is a very sensitive area, and we will not act according to the laws of the Code of Hammurabi here. The law of retaliation states, "An eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth." We need to act very cautiously here, and we need to be real. We will respond if certain people violate Russian legislation, regardless of their national and state affiliation. But we will not arrest innocent people simply to exchange them for someone else later on.
As for the fate of Russian nationals, we do care about them, including the fact that Butina is being forced to admit something over there. I cannot understand what she could possibly have admitted, since she was not following any instructions from the Russian Government or its agencies. I am saying this because I mean it, no matter what she says under the threat of being sentenced to 12 or 15 years in prison. It is understandable that together with her lawyer she is fighting to get out of prison. I do not quite understand why they put her there in the first place. There were simply no grounds for it. But now this is a question of saving face for them and finding a way out. I am primarily referring to the US justice system. We will see how it plays out. We do care, and we will keep an eye on this case and provide our support accordingly.
As for the Skripals and Khashoggi, no comment is required. Khashoggi was obviously murdered, and everyone acknowledged it. Skripal is alive, thank Heaven. Nevertheless, Russia was slapped with a salvo of sanctions in this connection, with no end in sight, which contrasts with complete silence in the second case. This is a politically-driven, Rusophobic approach. It serves as a pretext for attacking Russia once more. Without the Skripal case, they would have come up with something else. This is quite obvious to me. Their only goal is to contain Russia and prevent it from emerging as a potential competitor. I do not see any other end to it.
Regarding red tape on citizenship matters. You said "red tape." How so? Red tape is perennial. You cannot defeat it. At the same time, you cannot live without it either, and this has to be said as well. It is true that there must be rules for this bureaucracy and governance mechanisms, etc.
Regarding naturalisation, this does not have to do only with what is taking place in southeastern Ukraine. Our initiatives do not target exclusively people living in these territories. The Government is currently working on amendments to the relevant law on citizenship and naturalisation. What for? These efforts are designed to show that we do not seek and will not support policies of division or the ones designed to alienate the peoples of Russia and Ukraine. What are the current [Ukrainian] authorities doing? What is their mission? What are they trying to achieve on the back of Russophobia they are promoting? They are practically admitting that they are pursuing a historic task of separating the peoples of Russia and Ukraine. This is what they are up to. And for that, they can get away with anything.
Your colleague from the Ukrainian media talked about the challenges faced by people living in Donbass and the Lugansk Region, and their poor living standards. But is it any better in Ukraine? The situation is quite similar compared to Donbass, and it is getting worse all the time. Anything can be forgiven within the country, and even more so outside it against the backdrop of war, hostilities and tensions. And they are getting paid for this. They are about to receive another IMF tranche. We do understand what this is all about: just enough to pay out pensions and salaries to social sector employees, and the future generations will have to foot the bill. For this reason the overall situation is quite unfavourable. I believe this to be the case for the economy, society and domestic political processes. But our nations are very close and share the same history, so we will do everything to move in this direction.
The law on citizenship is currently being amended, and it will be adopted in early 2019.
Yury Abumov: Yury Abumov, Khakassia newspaper.
Mr President, I would like to ask about the latest regional elections. It is no secret that in some regions, they were quite turbulent and tense, and sometimes even long, like in Primorye, where they have just ended, and Khakassia actually set a record of holding elections that went on for two whole months.
But the most important thing is that, as a result of the protest vote, opposition parties' candidates won. In particular, a candidate from the Communist Party won in Khakassia, and candidates from LDPR won in Khabarovsk and in Vladimir Region. This raises some questions.
First, why do you think this happened? Second, why, contrary to the tradition you established, have you not met with the elected regional heads yet? And most importantly, how do you intend to build relations with the regions where the opposition parties won? Because there are concerns that the federal Government may cut their funding and support – there are such fears.
Vladimir Putin: Do not worry about it. It is strange that this question even occurred.
About the meetings. The elections in Vladivostok were held just last Sunday, and that is why there were no meetings. They will be, and they are scheduled for next week, I believe. We will have the State Council meeting, and, I have already instructed the Executive Office to schedule a separate meeting with the newly elected heads of the regions you have just mentioned. We had to wait for the voting results in Vladivostok. This is the first point.
Second. This is not the first time that representatives of opposition parties win elections, is it? For several years now, an LDPR representative has been heading Smolensk; in Omsk, there is someone from United Russia, I think, and in other regions, there are representatives of the Communist Party. So what? They are working; everything is fine.
I am not a member of any party. True, I created the United Russia, but the President is not a member of any party. And the main thing for me is that people in the cities and regions of the Russian Federation feel that life is changing for the better.
In fact, if they cast their vote for a specific person who does not represent the United Russia party, that is their choice. I will help in every way any elected leader of the region.
The only question is that the newly elected heads of regions themselves should rise to the challenge, should be able to fulfil the electoral promises they made to the people.
Yelena Glushakova: My name is Yelena Glushakova, and I am from RIA Novosti.
Yelena Glushakova: I have also brought a picture, Masha and the Bear, that relates to the topic of my question. As my colleagues have said, Russia has been living under a huge amount of the most varied sanctions for the past few years. It can be hard to keep track at times, and, in some cases, they are vowing to introduce sanctions against cartoon characters.
But this is beside the point. My question is more serious. They are planning to introduce even more serious sanctions; for example, US lawmakers are preparing for this. And is Russia prepared for a new round of sanctions escalation? Does the Government have any plan for minimising their impact on the Russian economy? And what do you think the impact is, all the more so given the widely differing views expressed on it?
Vladimir Putin: Well, we have discussed sanctions many times. If you want to discuss this issue once again, that is okay with me.
Throughout virtually its entire history, Russia has faced various restrictions and sanctions. Really its entire history.
If you look at the history of the 19th and 20th centuries, you will see that the situation is always the same. You can read diplomatic correspondence dating to the 19th century and the early 20th century. Everything is the same. They urged Russian diplomats to quickly establish order in the Caucasus and to do many other things. Nothing changes.
How can this be explained? I have already discussed this, and I hope that an overwhelming majority of today's audience also realises that it is related to Russia's growing might and its greater competitiveness. A mighty and powerful player is emerging, one that has to be reckoned with, even if others would rather not.
Quite recently, they believed that a country like that no longer existed, but it turns out it does and it must be reckoned with. Our country has a population of 160 million. This is not just some wishful thinking on the part of its leaders, it represents the interests of the people that we are defending. By the way, we are carefully defending these interests with calm and restraint, nothing boorish. But we are going about our business, and we will continue to move in this direction.
Speaking of present-day sanctions, they have just mentioned the Skripals and Khashoggi incidents. So, is there any logic here? No, there is none. This is just a pretext for taking additional action to contain Russia.
Our economy, as it has been said many times, has adapted to these external restrictions. Look, in the beginning of this meeting I mentioned that after the 2008−2009 global crisis, our GDP dropped by 7.8 percent. There were no sanctions at the time. After the sanctions were imposed in 2014, the drop was 2.5 percent.
You asked how we assess this situation? We always assess it in our favour. But let us look at how our opponents see it – those who impose the sanctions. For example, the US Treasury Department believes that this 2.5-percent drop in 2015 was one-third due to the sanctions and two-thirds due to the collapsed prices on energy sources, mainly, oil. In fact, I think that one-third is too much. But all, right, they did affect our GDP.
The sanctions also affect those who introduced them. According to the European Parliament, the European economy lost around 500 billion euros due to the sanctions against Russia because they lost our market, they under-export and they under-import certain goods from us. The number of jobs has dropped.
It is significant for them because many EU countries suffer from a very high unemployment rate. In Spain, if I am not mistaken, it is still around 15 percent. We have 4.8 percent and they have 15 percent, you know. And the development of global trade, which lost over 400 billion, is also a result of such an unpredictable policy, including sanctions. This policy is harmful to everybody.
I will repeat once again, our economy has adapted to this. Yes, there are some adverse effects but look, there are also positive sides to these sanctions. What are they? The sanctions made us switch on our brains in many areas and Western experts also acknowledge this. The share of Russian transport machine building was 98 percent in 2017. Automobile production accounted for 85 percent. Several other industries, also key areas, accounted for around 80 percent.
This year, we spent 600 billion rubles on import substitution, including 125 to 128 billion from the federal budget. I will not even mention agriculture. We had to compensate for the imports in the market. Yes, unfortunately, this resulted in a short-term price increase in the domestic food market but right now, the prices have stabilised to a large extent in this sector of the economy and agriculture has made a breakthrough that we could not have ever imagined.
Since 2000, the amount of exports has increased 16-fold, which is just unbelievable except it is actually happening. There are negative and positive sides but in any case, we would like the world economy to develop without any shocks, unlawful measures or external restrictions, to develop naturally, for its own benefit.
Dmitry Peskov: Now, to our respected regional media. Chelyabinsk, please.
Vladimir Putin: Wait a second. I see a poster saying 'KGB and children.' Today is December 20, the day of the Cheka. What do you mean, there are children in the KGB? What is it? Please, hand them a microphone.
Remark: As my good friend said once, "We all are the children of the KGB, but life has taught us different things."
Vladimir Putin: If you are the children of the KGB, why does life teach you? The KGB should do that.
Question: Mr President, society strongly demands social justice. According to Levada Centre, 66 percent of respondents feel nostalgic about the Soviet Union. And here is my question: do you think that a restoration of socialism is possible in Russia?
Vladimir Putin: I think this is impossible.
I believe that the deep changes that have taken place in our society make restoring socialism in the sense you mean impossible.
There can be social elements in the economy and the social sector, but expenses will always exceed profits, and as a result, the economy would be at a dead end.
But the just distribution of resources, the fair treatment of people who live below the poverty line, and a state policy aimed to lower the number of people who have to live like that, to provide the majority of people with healthcare services and education in acceptable conditions, if this is the socialism we are talking about, we are holding to the very same policy. Our national programmes that we talked about in the beginning of this meeting, are mostly aimed at all this.
Dmitry Peskov: If it is not about the KGB then please go ahead. You are from Chelyabinsk, aren't you?
Yana Skonechnaya: Thank you.
My name is Yana Skonechnaya, I represent the Southern Urals State Television and Radio Company, the city of Chelyabinsk.
I have a question that concerns not only Chelyabinsk, but all of Russia. I am talking about waste management, waste sorting, in particular. Not a single city in our country has either the industry for separate trash collection, or a culture of waste sorting. I have a colleague who does separate trash collection, but her entire apartment is filled with trash bags, because she needs to collect a certain amount of it, then load it into her car, take it to the other end of the city and only then dispose of it. Of course, some regions have already begun building the appropriate infrastructure, but this is all a drop in the ocean. You raised this issue on many occasions. So why is it so hard to make it happen? Why can we not use international experience and have our waste properly recycled?
Vladimir Putin: You know, the answer is fairly simple. The situation is complicated, but the answer is simple – we have never dealt with it. For decades, since Soviet times, we have been dumping garbage in pits, to put it colorfully. No one has ever engaged in its processing, unless minimally in certain areas, while we produce, I believe, 70 million tonnes of trash annually, and there is no place to dispose of it. The amount of waste tends to increase with the development of industry, including the development of the consumer goods industry. As chemistry progresses, the amount of plastic trash increases. In the Pacific, there are entire islands of it the size of France and several metres thick. Plastic tends to accumulate in these spots and there is nothing you can do about it. However, this is the Pacific, while we dump it all in landfills.
We need to address several key and top priorities. First, we need to eliminate illegal landfills. Second, we should create a waste treatment industry. What your colleague is doing is great, and is highly commendable, but this is a problem for environmentally conscious people. The state, first of all the regions, and then the municipalities, should create conditions for separate trash collection and subsequent recycling. I understand the people who oppose the construction of waste disposal plants. You have just mentioned international best practices. It is necessary to use them in our country. We often manage to do so. Here, we need to do the same. Some environmentalists and even some citizens object to building even waste incineration plants in the regions. These plants need to be of high quality and efficient, so as not to have to scrimp on the filters for them. They are the most expensive part of the processing and incineration plants. Everything has be done according to the corresponding technology and methodology.
In Tokyo (as our colleague will confirm, I think), waste incineration plants are located in central parts of the city. There is no smell, no problems whatsoever, because the process is adhered to. We need to do the same. We must build 200 waste treatment plants before 2024. I am not sure this will be enough, but we must have at least 200 such plants in our country.
Alexander Ilyin: Alexander Ilyin, Yakutia newspaper.
Mr President, my question is this. The Crimean Bridge has become a symbol of Crimea's return to its homeland. The bridge over the Lena River can become a symbol of the development of Russia's Asian part. I would like to ask you, should we expect this bridge to be built? If so, when? Because the Yakut people really need it. Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: I see. A symbol is always good; it is always a landmark of some stage of work that has been completed and a springboard for further progress. In this sense, the Crimean Bridge is both. I agree with you: it is both a symbol of Crimea's reunification with Russia, and an opportunity for the peninsula's development. It opens opportunities for development. It is very important.
The same applies to the bridge across the Lena River. You said it has to spur development. This needs to be calculated carefully. The cost of this project – and we have been talking about it for a long time, for several years – is very high. It is an expensive project. We need to look if it will simply stop at the city and that is it, or if there is a possibility of developing the region as a whole, the area on the other side of the Lena River: the local economy, infrastructure, access to mineral deposits. Here is what we need to decide. We need to match the costs against the end result for the economy of the region as a whole. If our colleagues at the Transport Ministry and the Economic Development Ministry agree, then of course we will implement this project.
Vladimir Putin: Let us go on. Nature, Motherland, people.
Remark: (From the audience.) We will soon run out of gas.
Vladimir Putin: We will talk about gas in a moment. We will not run out of gas. We have more gas than the rest of the world. We have 67 trillion cubic metres in Yamal alone.
Go ahead, please.
Sergei Lisovsky: Mr President,
Thank you for the opportunity to ask you a question. Sergei Lisovsky, editor-in-chief of Society and the Environmentnewspaper. I have been publishing it in St Petersburg for 19 years now. Next year it will turn 20 – the oldest environmental newspaper in Russia, steadily published. Small but steady.
Vladimir Putin: We will celebrate.
Sergei Lisovsky: That is what I wanted to say, before asking a serious question, I would like to invite you to St Petersburg to attend a roundtable discussion on Russia's development strategy, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Society and the Environment.
My question is as follows. We are working on the protection of the Neva River, the protection of forests, water resources, the protection of the Don River… And thank you so much for issuing instructions at the Russian Popular Front's media forum on April 23 to report to you on the construction of the Bagayevsky hydroelectric dam, this dangerous facility the local residents are opposing.
Mr Kiriyenko at the RPF congress told me that your instructions remain in force. But local officials are reluctant to comply with them. Therefore, I would like to ask you to pay attention to the Don River – this is as great a Russian river as the Volga and the Neva. This is my first point.
And second, Mr President.
On December 15, you chaired a meeting of the Council for Culture [and Art] at the Constantine Palace. All the questions asked there were very good and correct, including about drug addiction. But Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky asked one of the key questions, and I would like to follow up on this issue after thinking it over.
He said that Russia now lacks an ambitious national development idea. The Russian Empire had the following triad: Orthodox Christianity, autocracy and nationality. The Soviet Union had the moral code of the builder of communism. Today, it is unclear what kind of society we are building, but it looks more like the amoral code of the builder of capitalism.
I came up with a triad of my own, and I would like to ask you to get our federal television channels, including Channel One, NTV and Rossiya, to hold a nationwide discussion of what kind of country and society we are building, after all. So, I suggest the following triad: nature, motherland and the people. Its three component – nature, motherland and the people – cannot exist without one another. And that is why we now watch shows about who left whom and who cheated on whom. That is, there is a kind of media lawlessness. And if we raise the issue of all television shows …
Dmitry Peskov: What is your question, please?
Sergey Lisovsky: Yes, is it possible to create a television show on strategically important issues related to Russia's long-term development?
Vladimir Putin: It is always very interesting to speak with Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky. He is very insightful. He has his own opinions, which he is not afraid to express, whether you agree or not. He is not a conformist, and he speaks his mind. He is an insightful person.
I have repeatedly discussed whether we have an idea for building the state, the country – the foundation on which to build. I believe that patriotism in the best sense of the word, rather than the basest, simply has to be the foundation for strengthening our state in the broadest and noblest sense of this word.
As for our many channels on television and online that probably are not worth the air time they take up, you know, Daniil Granin (I believe that I mentioned this some time ago) discussed the matter at our last meeting.
We had a long private conversation, and I never saw him again, he passed away some time later. He said: "Look, you have to do something about this." I asked: "What are you talking about?" "We are all tired of it," he replied. "What do you mean?" I asked. "All the television channels are telling us about people who stole money, how much, how they did it. I am really sick and tired of it. Are there really no happy and positive events in life here?" I said: "Well, that is their programming choice."
As I see it, things are actually gradually changing for the better, to some extent, the information is becoming more balanced perhaps, although I don't go online or watch television very often just because I don't have enough time.
I try to keep an eye on the media environment, and I get the impression that there has been some improvement. But there would certainly be no harm in discussing what you have suggested. I will need to speak with my colleagues.
They can hear you now, and I hope that they will respond.
The Chicago Tribune's correspondent over there, you have the floor, please.
Rachel Marsden: President Putin, Rachel Marsden with the Tribune Publishing out of Chicago, United States.
Yesterday, President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of the American troops from Syria. He also announced that, in his opinion, the United States defeated ISIS in Syria, he made that very clear.
What is your position with respect to his statements, both on the withdrawal of the American troops from Syria and also with his statement regarding the defeat of ISIS by the United States?
And, secondly, do you have concern that the American troops will remain in some form? There has been much discussion, for example, around the presence, potentially, of contractors in other jurisdictions where the United States is either out of militarily or might want to be out of militarily but in a more discreet way.
Vladimir Putin: As concerns the defeat of ISIS, overall I agree with the President of the United States. I already said that we achieved significant progress in the fight against terrorism in that territory and delivered major strikes on ISIS in Syria.
There is a risk of these and similar groups migrating to neighbouring regions and Afghanistan, to other countries, to their home countries, and they are partly returning.
It is a great danger for all of us, including Russia, the United States, Europe, Asian countries, including Central Asia. We know that, we understand the risk fully. Donald is right about that, and I agree with him.
As concerns the withdrawal of American troops, I do not know what that is. The United States have been present in, say, Afghanistan, for how long? Seventeen years, and every year they talk about withdrawing the troops. But they are still there. This is my second point.
Third. So far, we have not seen any evidence of their withdrawal but I suppose it is possible, the more so because we are progressing towards a political settlement. The current issue on the agenda is building a constitutional committee.
By the way, when we met in Istanbul – I mean Russia, Turkey, France and Germany – we agreed to make every possible effort to create this constitutional committee and Russia, for its part, has done everything in its power for this to happen.
As strange as it may seem, we fully agreed on the list of members with President al-Assad, who designated 50 people and was involved in selecting 50 more from civil society. Despite the fact that he is not happy with everything, he agreed with this.
Turkey, which represents the interests of the opposition, also agreed. Iran agreed. We submitted the list to the UN and, as Minister Lavrov reported to me just yesterday, unexpectedly, prompted by our partners – Germany, France and the United States – UN representatives (Mr de Mistura) decided to wait and see.
I do not understand what is going on there but at any rate, I want to believe that this work is in its final stage. Maybe not by the end of this year but in the beginning of the next the list will be agreed and this will open the next stage of the settlement, which will be political settlement.
Is the presence of American troops required there? I do not think it is. However, let us not forget that their presence, the presence of your troops, is illegitimate as it was not approved by a UN Security Council resolution. The military contingent can only be there under a resolution of the UN Security Council or at the invitation of the legitimate Syrian Government. Russian troops were invited by the Syrian Government. The United States did not get either of these so if they decide to withdraw their troops, it is the right decision.
There is another very important component in this process. Despite all the disagreements, our specialists, our military personnel, security services and foreign ministries have established a rather constructive dialogue to address acute issues in combating terrorism in Syria. Overall, we are satisfied with our cooperation.
Remark: (From the audience) You will not forget about Gazprom, will you?
Vladimir Putin: How can I forget about Gazprom? Just a second.
Olga Ivanova: Good afternoon. My name is Olga, I represent the Selskaya Zhisn (Rural Life) newspaper. It marked its 100th anniversary last March. You congratulated our editorial board, and we are very thankful for that.
Here is my question. Judging by the current statistics, the growth rate of the agricultural sector has slowed down despite the absence of competition because of the sanctions and the terrific environment. How can you explain that? And does that bother you?
And another one: there are no national projects for agriculture, why is that?
Vladimir Putin: As for national projects and agriculture, agriculture has long been a national project in Russia. It receives state support worth hundreds of billions of rubles, and it will keep receiving it, both large and small farms, all segments of the sector.
As for the low growth rate. Yes, it is true. Are we worried? No. And the environment is far from being terrific, our agricultural producers work in difficult conditions.
First, there is still competition. Thank God, competition is developing inside the country, and this is very important for the development of this sector of the economy. There is also foreign competition. Not all countries imposed sanctions, which means we did not take counter-measures against them. We introduced such measures against the EU countries, the US and other countries that imposed sanctions against Russia at the instruction of the US. But the majority of countries in the world did not, and there are many of them. They supply us with their products and therefore there is competition.
Speaking of what is going on in agriculture, these are statistics and they relate to grain production. As you know, last year we had a record-breaking grain harvest of 135.5 million tonnes. This is the main factor influencing the statistics. This year, due to unfavourable weather conditions – and in 27 regions a state of emergency was declared – the harvest was smaller: 110.5 million tonnes. Therefore, as compared to last year, there is a decline. However, these 110 million tonnes rank third in terms of production volume in the past 25 years. It is a very good result. Combined with the reserves from last year, potential exports grew to 52.5 million tonnes. We will fulfil all obligations and contracts. So we are not worried at all.
In the agricultural sector, there are areas where we need to act and maintain our efforts. What are these areas? We need to improve our competitiveness, and expand the infrastructure, in order to boost exports, among other things. Incidentally, last year exports totalled 20 billion, and this year they will reach 25 billion. There was a time when these figures were hard to imagine. Russia exports 16 billion worth of arms, while agricultural exports are at 25 billion. We will continue to support agricultural and export infrastructure development; about 400 billion rubles will go toward these ends over the next few years. This includes developing ports, roads and so forth, and supporting exports with financial instruments. This is how we can enhance our competitiveness. Of course, professional training, selection breeding, etc. are also important. You know this better than I do.
Second, we need to promote high value-added production, including meat and meat processing.
For course, we also need to address matters related to the social development of rural areas. This programme will remain in place.
Artyom Artemenko: Good afternoon, Artyom Artemenko, Crimea 24 television network.
Artyom Artemenko: Mr President, you recently said that the restrictions Russia is facing from some countries have a direct bearing on the people living in Crimea who voted for reunification with Russia in 2014. Can you explain what you meant? How do we deal with this? Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: I did say this, even though I can hardly recall where I was at the time, but I can explain it. This is an interesting situation. What we hear from the outside is that Russia annexed Crimea. But what does annexation mean? It means a forcible takeover. If this had been an annexation and a takeover by force, the people in Crimea would have had nothing to do with it and would not be to blame. But if they came out and voted, this was not an annexation. So what is going on? After all, sanctions were imposed against them, against you. What are these sanctions? Restriction on mobility, restrictions on border crossings, visas, financial transactions, insurance companies, marine infrastructure use and the use of other facilities. These measures affect almost everyone living there. They were the ones targeted by these sanctions, and this is not just about singling out specific individuals like the government leaders in the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, but about targeting everyone. If they had had nothing to do with it, if it had been annexation, why were the people sanctioned? But if you were sanctioned for taking part in a specific vote, then they would have to admit that it actually took place. This is what this is about, and this is what I meant.
Alexander Yunashev: Good afternoon. Alexander Yunashev, Life online publication.
Mr President, there is a state programme for supporting positive content in cinema and television, which is, in fact, funded with our taxes. Are such support measures possible and necessary for the Russian segment of the internet?
And the state channels will not ask: when are you getting married? And to whom? (Laughter.)
Vladimir Putin: These are two completely different questions.
Are you married?
Alexander Yunashev: Yes, I am, and I have no regrets about it. I can recommend it.
Vladimir Putin: He is married, and wants me to be in the same boat. (Laughter.) Well, all right. Let us assume that I answered your second question, although as a gentleman I will probably have to do so at some point. (Laughter.)
Now, with regard to supporting the Russian segment of the internet. Yes, it is the right thing to do, and we are already doing so. We have grants, I am not sure about the exact amounts, but they are measured in hundreds of millions of rubles. These grants are related to content, and we are allocating, I believe, 144 billion rubles to this end. Overall, we officially allocate about 400 million rubles for this type of activity, so we are doing this and will continue to do so.
Let us continue with the Eurasian Women's Community. It is an important follow-up to the question of marriage. Please go ahead.
Marina Volynkina: Eurasian Women's Community, Marina Volynkina.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank you for attending the Second Eurasian Women's Forum. It was important for the women of the world.
Vladimir Putin: Thank you.
Marina Volynkina: There was a panel dedicated to the media at that forum. After we conducted this panel, 15 memorandums on peace were signed by the participants about responsible media which joined our campaign and which support the idea that information in the world should be positive.
In this regard, I have a question for you: how important is it for you, as President, that all the journalists present here not just tell the truth, but also do their job objectively and responsibly, so that they act as a serious soft power, and not just as a medium to resolve certain business problems.
Today, for us, women, it is very important, amid aggression and tensions – and we are really afraid of war – for the soft power to work. Is there soft power in Russia and what is the role of responsible journalism?
Vladimir Putin: You know, the truth is not in power …
Marina Volynkina: The power is in the truth.
Vladimir Putin: The power is in the truth, that's right. This formula includes what the media are all about. The power is in the truth, and this is the only way that the media can win the trust of millions of people.
Unfortunately, let us face it – our life is very much commercialised just as in the past in the Soviet era everything was politicised, which undermines media credibility with many people.
People are dividing everything they see or read by 100 or 1,000. Still, we must strive for this. Clearly, we must strive to be as objective as possible in matters that are vital for our country and the rest of the world.
This is important not just for me, but for all of us. I hope that this trend is still there, and I think it will continue.
Let us have the question about Afghanistan, as I promised.
Question: On December 6, Russia refused to support a UN General Assembly resolution on Afghanistan because of its disagreement with the position of some Western countries.
Vladimir Putin: Because of what?
Remark: Because of its disagreement with the position of some Western countries.
Vladimir Putin: What was that resolution about? Can you remind me, please?
Remark: Western countries.
They said the situation in Afghanistan was good, while Russia believed that…
Vladimir Putin: We believe that it is not good. What do you think about this?
Remark: I would like to know what you think.
Vladimir Putin: Do you want my opinion?
Question: At the same time, the US is conducting separate talks with the Taliban. In light of this, what will be the future of the Moscow format of consultations on Afghanistan, which were attended by delegates from 11 countries?
Vladimir Putin: The Moscow format?
Remark: Yes.
Vladimir Putin: To be honest, I do not recall the details of that draft resolution. But I think you will agree with me, and I am sure that the majority of those who live in Afghanistan will agree with me.
I do not know what our Western partners wanted to achieve with that resolution. If they wanted to declare that everything is fine there, this has little to do with reality.
What part of the country does the Kabul government control officially? Not more than one third, to be perfectly frank; do you agree? When elections are held, it takes months to add up the results. Is this how it should be? So what is there to approve of?
Talks are underway with the Taliban. This is probably unavoidable. But we must understand the subject of these talks and their possible outcome. If there is a force that controls the bulk of Afghanistan's territory, its opinion must be taken into account, but this should be done openly and publicly, so it is clear what we are talking about.
I believe that this is probably the essence of our Foreign Ministry's position at the talks. We are not against a settlement. Overall, we believe that the problem can be settled exclusively through an agreement between all parties to the political process in Afghanistan.
Until then, we will need to reinforce our military base in Tajikistan. We believe that the people of Afghanistan will eventually reach an agreement, and that all political forces and ethnic groups will reach a consensus.
We will facilitate this process as much as we can, including by promoting economic cooperation with Afghanistan and by taking part in various international projects, such as the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline [gas trunk line], TAPI.
Dmitry Peskov: Mr President, let's give the floor to Andrei Kolesnikov.
Vladimir Putin: You have not been called on for four years in a row. How can this be? Go ahead. It is [Dmitry] Peskov's fault. We will punish him.
(Addressing Andrei Kolesnikov.) Andrei, please, let the young lady speak first. She has not been called on for four years in a row.
Remark: It is seven years for us.
Anna Vavilova-Dollezhal: Thank you very much for sparing me having to wait another year.
After the law on foreign agents was passed, there was an enormous uproar over human rights being violated and so on.
Vladimir Putin: One of my colleagues – I will not give his name – was asked during talks: "What is the situation with human rights in your country?" [Allusion to a Soviet-era joke.] He looked at his interlocutor and asked: "Who is the human being you are talking about?" I would like to ask you: who is the human being you are referring to?
Anna Vavilova-Dollezhal: In our country this primarily applies to legal entities, while Maria Butina was arrested in the United States as a private individual. This law [on foreign agents] has been in effect in the US since 1938. I would like to ask you if it makes sense to borrow from the experience of our Western partners here.
I have another question that is very important to us. I represent Tsargrad TV channel and we want to know what you think about the situation developing around Orthodoxy globally, given recent sectarian activities by the Patriarchate of Constantinople and Kiev. Perhaps, everyone is now beginning to realise that the United States is the main player here. So it turns out that religion is heavily dominated by geopolitics. Is that the case?
Vladimir Putin: Regarding the first part of your question, we have relied on international experience when we passed the law on foreign agents. This is not about bans. This law requires that any entity receiving funding from abroad to carry out its public political activities must be registered as a foreign agent. That is it. Incidentally, this type of activity is banned in the United States and here you have the result: under this law Butina was arrested and taken into custody and might be sentenced to 12 years in prison. We do nothing of the sort here. Our law only requires registration for entities receiving funding from abroad. There is nothing here to fear. Frankly speaking, I do not see any problems here, as far as law enforcement is concerned. However, we, of course, need to look into the matter.
When I meet with human rights activists, they point out certain drawbacks in this law, aspects actually related to charity rather than politics. And I think they are right. We need to pay close attention to what is happening in life and make adjustments where necessary. This must not interfere with our normal life and must not hinder the activity of honest and decent people who want to solve problems, including with the support of like-minded people abroad. There is nothing wrong with this. But political activity must, of course, be prohibited. Well, not prohibited but at least subject to law.
Second, the Orthodox church. The situation with the Orthodox church defies comprehension. This is direct interference of the state in religious life. This has not happened since the Soviet Union. But, unfortunately, it is happening in Ukraine now. They created this breakaway church of the Istanbul curacy. They did not like the Moscow curacy so let it be the Istanbul curacy.
Note that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchy was completely independent. Perhaps few people know this but it was actually a completely independent church. They did everything independently, including the election of bishops. The only connection was spiritual as they mentioned the name of Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia during sermons. That was all. Now look at how dependent they are becoming on Turkey, on the Turkish Patriarchy. Many appointments and, most importantly, a lot of money. I think this is Bartholomew's main impelling motive, to bring this territory into subjection and make money on it. I believe this is the main underlying motive – except for a tip from Washington, of course. The fact that the State Secretary called Kiev about this matter and discussed it is an outrage. Absolutely unacceptable. However, it is happening.
Of course, this is another indication of the fact that the measure is also related to the election campaign and is meant to further widen the gap between Russian and Ukrainian people. The rationale behind it is, without doubt, political, and it is not good news for religious freedom in general. This is a clear and flagrant violation of the freedom of religion. I am mostly concerned about the likelihood that property redistribution will follow. This is already happening. This redistribution could turn into a heavy dispute, if not bloodshed, God forbid. I am sorry for the people who are defending their interests. They are usually helpless and unarmed. They are usually seniors and women. But there is, of course, the risk of property redistribution.
Dmitry Peskov: You promised a word to Kolesnikov, Mr President. We have been on for two hours now.
Andrei Kolesnikov: Good afternoon. Andrei Kolesnikov, Kommersant newspaper.
Mr President, the French protests against the fuel hike have, as everyone knows, morphed into a general protest against everything. President Macron has had to impose emergency social and economic measures. What is your take on the events in France? Are there any plans to raise fuel prices in Russia? There has been much talk about it recently. How likely do you believe it is that Russians would take to the streets, and what should the Government prioritise in that case? Its responsibility to protect the rights of the protesters or the need to uphold the rule of law?
Vladimir Putin: One does not exclude the other. Let's begin with the final part of your question. We certainly must ensure our citizens' freedom of expression, their right to voice their opinions including by holding public events. But such events, including public gatherings, must always remain legal. Activities that violate the law are unacceptable, and warrant the government's response.
Let's now turn to the events in France and to how they are seen from our shores. I believe that of course they have to do with the rise in fuel prices. But the hike was a trigger that sparked the unrest involving a large part of French society, and generally native French people. Recent data suggest that a significant proportion of the French, over 7 percent, support this. However, I do not believe it would be right to judge the French authorities' response to this.
What is the difference between what we see in Russia and the situation in France with regard to fuel prices and the rest? The French Government was deliberate in its decision to increase the price of petrochemicals and fuel, which means that the Government did it. It was a policy move. This initiative was intended to redistribute resources, in this case, the resources of the population, and to use them to address other matters related to the energy policy. The funds that the Government expected to raise from gasoline, diesel fuel and motor oil sales were to go towards developing alternative energy sources such as solar energy, wind power, and so on. This was a deliberate move. The people did not like it, because they did not want to be the ones to pay for these changes.
What is happening in Russia? Gasoline prices have been growing since mid-2018 as the price of oil went up on the global markets. However, the Russian Government was prompt to take action in order to contain and even lower prices, and an agreement to this effect was reached with the main oil companies and refineries. That is the difference: over there the price hike was a conscious move, they were the ones who did it, while the Russian Government is fighting to ensure that prices do not go up.
Of course, no one likes it when prices go up, but the fact that the Government is acting this way is obvious. Whether it is for the better or for worse is another question, but this is what is going on. An agreement has been reached, and it covers a period until March 2019. Yes, an adjustment is possible when VAT goes up in early January, but I do not expect it to be substantial. This should be an adjustment in the order of 1–1.5 percent, not more, after which the Government will carefully monitor developments on the Russian and international markets.
I can share more details on this subject later on, but generally speaking this worked, even if we had to micromanage the situation, and I hope that it will also work in the future, so that the Government will be able to prevent any sharp surges in fuel prices next year.
Remark: (From the audience)
Vladimir Putin: What did you say? I cannot hear you.
Dmitry Peskov: This is about the potential for protest in Russia.
Vladimir Putin: I have already answered this question. I said that people have the right to express their point of view and to defend it, including in public, at rallies, but only within the limits of the law.
Alexandra Tinyayeva: Alexandra Tinyayeva, Ryazansky Krai TV company.
Mr President, digital television is fast approaching, and our region will be one of the first to get it. Analog television will be turned off as soon as February 11.
In this regard, the question is how do you assess the level of preparedness of all the regions for the transition to digital television? Will small towns and villages not be left out?
How to ensure the interests of those for whom buying even the cheapest console or any kind of equipment, for that matter, is a major expense? Of course, digital television of excellent quality and 20 free channels are a good thing. But what about regional media?
I think many colleagues will support me, because for us it means we should pack up and grab the want ads, as we will not be able to survive in analog television, and they will not let us into the multiplex.
Vladimir Putin: I am fully with you. My colleagues are aware of it. I am not pretending, or making up anything. When I discussed this matter with them, and when they insisted on moving ahead with digital, I agreed with them, just as I agree with you now – it improves the quality and the quantity of free channels.
Trust me, just like you, almost word for word, I asked them this question: "Is it possible that someone in a small village will be left without television?" That is the question. They say no. So, we agreed that we would proceed very carefully, in small steps.
Currently, Tver is undergoing such an experiment, then you. So far, there have been no complaints in Tver. The governor reported to me that he had gone to almost every village and is on top of things. They will help everyone in need of support in order to help them switch to digital, including the small devices needed to receive television of such quality. Then, another couple of regions, on and on …
Truth be told, there was a proposal to move fast and be done in six months. I said, "No, we cannot do that. We must act very carefully and monitor things on the ground and, of course, ensure the interests of the people who cannot afford these consoles, even though they are not expensive." We will see how it goes in individual regions and then take small steps along this path.
Sergei Brilyov: Good afternoon, Mr President.
For understandable reasons, when international politics are discussed at this news conference, it is commonly about conflict, with the possible exception of China.
Today, on December 20, I wanted to mention a project I am working on with my British colleagues. This unprecedented project is on the history of cooperation between Soviet and British secret services during the Great Patriotic War, and the story of 36 Soviet agents that were sent to Nazi-occupied Europe. If you allow me, I will send the materials to you through Mr Peskov.
In this connection, I cannot help but ask you about the current status of Russian-British relations. Let us start with the small things. After the G20 summit, Dmitry Peskov told us that he did not know whether you had met with Theresa May, but you did meet with her. What do you think of these relations? And another interesting question: How, in your opinion, will Brexit impact Russia? What if it does affect us?
Vladimir Putin: Regarding these meetings, there are many meetings at events like the G20; you cannot even list them all because everyone is busy, and we meet, as they say, on the sidelines.
What does "on the sidelines" mean? We get up, we are walking near each other, you greet someone and say something to them. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and I greeted each other in about the same way and said a few words to each other. In my opinion, Russian-British relations are at an impasse, and it is in the interests of both states to move beyond this impasse.
How will Brexit impact us? The impact will be minimal, but it will affect the entire European economy and the global economy, as well. Therefore, it will affect us indirectly.
Are we interested in restoring full relations with the United Kingdom or not? Yes, we are interested; besides, in my opinion, the United Kingdom, primarily its business community, is also interested in this.
We know the British work in our country – fairly actively, I can tell you. Flagships of the British economy like British Petroleum, one of the key shareholders in our leading oil and gas company, Rosneft, – they are working here, and continue to do so, actively operating in our market, and they want to continue, and not just them.
Now, in connection with Brexit – if this eventually goes through to the end, and, by the way, I understand the position of the Prime Minister, she is fighting for Brexit (let them decide this for themselves, this is none of our business, or else they might accuse us of wrongdoing again), but the referendum did take place. So what can she do?
She must implement the will of the people as expressed in the referendum, or that is no referendum at all. Some didn't like it – and the whole thing goes around and around. Is this democracy? I wonder how the critics of this process will assess the situation if and when some spit on this Brexit deal and carry out all these events again until they satisfy someone.
So what is the point of holding a referendum and what is the meaning of direct democracy? Well, anyway, this is their concern, never mind. But, they are interested in our market, interested in direct partnerships. We did not discuss this with the prime minister, but we discussed it with our colleagues and friends; we have many in Britain, especially among the businesspeople.
You know, if you look at direct foreign investment, where has most of the direct foreign investment come from this year? From Britain – $22 billion. Germany is second, followed by Singapore. That says something, right?
True, this may be partly due to the repatriation of our capital, because they have somewhat scared it off over there, but all the same, there is huge interest in our agriculture (our export potential is enormous and keeps growing), industrial production and the energy sector. There are so many areas. And I hope that common sense will prevail.
What about the skis over there? I find it interesting; it's winter now.
Svetlana Shaganova: Svetlana Shaganova, State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, Karachayevo-Circassia. I have one simple problem for you: Putin plus skiing equals our region – Karachayevo-Circassia. You are certainly faithful to judo and sambo, but we would be happy if you visited our region, our new Arkhyz resort and enjoy the skiing there. Will you find such an opportunity in your busy schedule?
Vladimir Putin: I would very much like to do this. Either way, I congratulate you on the development of tourism. The republic is developing, these are competitive advantages for the republic – developing resorts like this. I'm sure this will develop further. If I can, I will come with pleasure. Thank you very much.
Remark: Regarding Gazprom, Mr President.
Vladimir Putin: Ah yes, Gazprom. Yes, one more question now, please, and then about Gazprom.
Goar Botoyan: Thank you.
AZG Daily, Armenia, Goar Botoyan. Thank you for letting me ask you a question for the fourth time already.
Vladimir Putin: I am listening.
Goar Botoyan: My question is, how will Russia restore its policy towards Armenia after the elections?
Vladimir Putin: What do you mean, restore? We have nothing that collapsed to the point of needing to be restored. Russia and Armenia have smooth relations, this country is our strategic partner in the region and the world in general; it is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation and the Eurasian Economic Union. What is there to restore? We only need to build on the foundation that has been created by the previous generations of leaders. The Armenian people are the closest ally of the Russian people in Transcaucasia; that is the way it has been historically, the way it is today and the way it, hopefully, always will be. We need to proceed from the realities of the current situation in the world and the region, proceed from the needs and our capabilities. We will discuss this soon with Mr Pashinyan, who is to pay us a visit next week.
Goar Botoyan: Thank you very much.
Vladimir Putin: What about Gazprom, what's up? Why are you scaring us?
Viktor Smirnov: Viktor Smirnov, 47news.ru, Leningrad Region. I will explain why Gazprom has no more gas.
Vladimir Putin: Do, please.
Viktor Smirnov: A bit of an introduction first. As you know, the Nord Stream pipeline passes through Leningrad Region; Nord Stream 2 is underway as well. You are now launching the TurkStream project, it all sounds good. But many Leningrad Region residents, who see these pipelines pass through their territory, have not had any gas for many years. Just recently, on December 7, Gazprom went ahead and said that it had no gas for the new consumers residing on the territory of the entire Karelian Isthmus.
Vladimir Putin: The Karelian Isthmus, you say?
Viktor Smirnov: The Karelian Isthmus, yes, two Leningrad Region districts and a section of St Petersburg's territory. They believe the reconstruction of some compressor station for supplying people with gas is unnecessary (either they do not have money to spare or have already allocated it someplace else).
Similarly (this is just for the record, though), a couple of years ago, a pipe was stolen there – simply stolen. It cost a total of 1.8 billion rubles. No criminal proceedings have been initiated since.
Vladimir Putin: I do not understand. Did someone dig it out and drag it away, or what?
Viktor Smirnov: No, it was not installed, but the paperwork was all in place. So it kind of exists, but kind of does not.
Vladimir Putin: You mean, the money was allocated, but no pipe was laid?
Viktor Smirnov: Right. No criminal proceedings were initiated either.
Vladimir Putin: Where did this take place?
Viktor Smirnov: Priozersky District. You have been there before, you have seen it.
Vladimir Putin: I have indeed.
Viktor Smirnov: On top of this, the deadlines for connecting the Leningrad Region users to gas grids are often missed, but in the gas monopoly they use the beautiful words "postponement and synchronisation," annual. That is, the deadlines are missed, and missed, and missed again, but this is synchronisation.
And the fourth point I would like to mention. With all the problems in the gas monopoly and the problems of the residents who also suffer from these problems (some have had no access to gas since 2009), despite all this, the children of the board members, the specific individuals we wrote about, have no qualms about taking top management positions in subsidiaries. And they have no qualms about posting photos of luxury cars on the internet, and flying in business jets to watch football in Italy. How is that for national wealth, Mr President? Aren't they going too far?
Vladimir Putin: Well, it always helps to keep track of expenses, on superjet flights, to look what they actually did there, and what kind of football they watched. After all, Gazprom, among other things, sponsors foreign football clubs, like FC Schalke 04 in Germany. But why does it sponsor them? Because it does a lot of work there, in Germany, and in Italy too. These contacts need to be maintained. As long as it is within in the bounds of common sense, all is well, and we must always watch this very carefully. So you are right to pay attention to this. I will also look what they fly on and where.
As for domestic gas supply, it is growing. True, our sales on the foreign market are growing also. This year, exports will top 200 billion cubic metres – this is a very good result, a historic high. This is what Russia needs, not Gazprom, it is what our national economy and the federal budget need, because the bulk of Gazprom's revenues, which then flow into the budget, come from exports, as it should be.
As for internal issues and decisions on connection, I repeat once again, things are moving forward. It is not only about Gazprom, Gazprom lays the pipelines to populated areas, and then there is further distribution, and the so-called last mile, so this problem should be resolved with the help of the region.
Viktor Smirnov: Well, the region has built it.
Vladimir Putin: Built it?
Viktor Smirnov: Yes.
Vladimir Putin: Well, I will check it out. I do not know, I will check and see.
Of course, Gazprom is driven by considerations of economic feasibility, but in addition to economic feasibility, there are social issues, of course, including the provision of gas to households in a given area.
I will see how it is built. You know, in any case, very often there is a discrepancy between the statements of local authorities and the reality. I will definitely pay attention to this. Priozersky District is what I heard. Priozersky, right?
Viktor Smirnov: Part of Priozersky, part of Vyborg, and part of St Petersburg.
Vladimir Putin: Ok.
Viktor Smirnov: Gazprom says that their station is not ready.
Vladimir Putin: I assure you, I will definitely look into this and respond.
Everything is not smooth sailing with us, but things are more or less stable. Here is Novaya Gazeta, I am sure they will come up with something. Please go ahead.
Ilya Azar: Good afternoon.
Ilya Azar: My colleagues and friends Alexander Rastorguyev, Orkhan Dzhemal and Kirill Radchenko died in the Central African Republic this year.
Vladimir Putin: This is a major tragedy, I agree.
Ilya Azar: What do you know about the circumstances of their death and, in particular, the possible involvement of private military company Wagner in this?
Secondly, do you think it is right that a businessman whom everyone calls your chef, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is believed to be involved in managing PMC Wagner?
In general, what do you think about private military companies? One gets the impression that you are somewhat embarrassed by or deny their existence. Perhaps, we should be proud of them, because they operate in Syria, Donbass, Central Africa and other countries.
And another short question. As you are aware, human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov, a 77-year-old man, was arrested and jailed for 15 days for a post on Facebook. What do you as a human being think about this? Is that a normal thing to do?
Vladimir Putin: Let us start with Wagner and chefs.
All my chefs are employed by the Federal Guard Service. They are servicemen holding different ranks. I have no other chefs.
This matter should be made clear once and for all so that we do not have to return to it in the future. If someone wants to label someone, they are free to do so, and there is nothing wrong with that. This is part of politicking in our country. There is even such a thing as "safe food." For your information, we do not outsource this job, and the Federal Guard Service employees do all the work.
Now, on to Wagner and what these people are doing. Everything must remain within the law, everything. We can ban private security firms altogether, but once we do so, I think you will be flooded with petitions demanding to protect this section of the labour market. Almost a million people are employed there. If this Wagner group breaks any laws, the General Prosecutor's Office will go ahead and give it a legal assessment.
Now, about their presence in foreign countries. To reiterate, if they comply with Russian laws, they have every right to work and promote their business interests anywhere in the world.
Finally, the tragedy that you mentioned. It was certainly a tragedy. These people died and left behind families and friends. In general, unfortunately, a lot of tragedies are connected with journalists. I think we should never forget them, including the journalists who died in southeastern Ukraine under fire, or were killed in gun attacks, practically assassinated. Please do not forget about them, either.
As far as I know, your colleagues travelled to Africa as tourists, not even as journalists, without notifying local authorities. According to the data available to date, some local groups are behind this attack.
As far as I understand, an investigation is underway. Unfortunately, there is no reliable information yet, but we strongly hope that it will be eventually obtained. We are on top of this situation through our diplomatic channels. I hope that at least at some point we will find out what happened there. My heart goes out to you, to all members of the editorial board and the families of the people who died there.
Sergei Milvit: Vladivostok!
Vladimir Putin: Okay, let us hear from Vladivostok. It is louder than the others…
Sergei Milvit: Good afternoon, Mr President. Thank you very much for giving me the floor.
I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of all residents of Vladivostok for your decision to make it the capital of the Far Eastern Federal District. Thank you very much.
At the last news conference I asked you questions about ecology, a waste incineration plant, Snegovaya Pad and forest clearance. Thank you very much for the closure of the waste incineration plant. I hope it will not be reopened.
The only problem is that there are some companies that would like to handle separated garbage but for some reason the regional operator does not allow it because it is leased and a land plot cannot be subleased and so on.
Recently we had elections and as you know of course, the pension reform was the main reason for protests. This is why the elections were drawn out, this was the main reason.
I would like to continue talking about environmental protection and the sports complex that has not been finished and house equity holders that have been cheated – their residential houses have not been finished. Dalkhimprom-Karyernaya is where our marines are deployed. There is also school #55 that was closed and now children have to go to faraway schools.
And one more thing. The lands of the forest fund are government property like the strategic Primvodokanal facility. What is happening currently? To this day forests have not undergone cadastral registration. They are being cut down and cottages are being built – nothing has changed.
Lakes and water reservoirs at Primvodokanal that should be government property are now privately owned. I would like to ask you to clear up this question.
Remark: Question!
Sergei Milvit: Ok. Excuse me please. We will move on to the next issue. If you could comment briefly on the pension reform.
It seems to me that you were likely deceived about the pension reform. I will explain why. It appears that the pension deficit for 2018 amounts to 257 billion, right?
And when there was some popular unrest, they decided to give them another 500 billion so as to provide some benefits. Don't you think that it is worth paying attention to this and maybe it is better to cancel the pension reform?
We are spending a lot of money. We have a deficit but are still spending so much. I think generally I have said everything I wanted about the pension reform.
Wait a minute. I would like to say happy New Year to Mr President and wish him strength, every success and all the best.
And, sorry guys, I would like to make one last point. Mr Peskov said that there was some information and I would like to share it.
Instead of all the requests that journalists want me to make, I will speak about the most important issue.
Mr President, please help. Vladislav Shestakov has been sick for three years. He is from the Irkutsk Region, the city of Cheremkhovo. He simply needs to be transferred to Moscow.
People have raised money. Please help us resolve this problem. And please answer the questions that I asked.
Please take measures to return the forest fund to the state and lakes to Primvodokanal.
Vladimir Putin: Let us begin with the most sensitive issue.
I apologise to Novaya Gazeta – you asked me about Lev Ponomaryov. We discussed this issue at a meeting with human rights activists at a Council meeting. It is not because I want to dodge the question, I just skipped over it inadvertently.
With regard to Ponomaryov, the court ruled based on calls for an unauthorised rally. I do not want to question court decisions or the fairness of this particular ruling.
Now, regarding the sensitive issue of the pension reform. In the early and mid-2000s, and you are aware of my position, I said that I was strongly against raising the retirement age, and it was impossible to do so back then.
I still believe this was the correct position, because life expectancy was at a low of 65, and the number of workers (the workers/non-workers ratio) was different and more or less acceptable.
Now, things have changed dramatically. The point is not about the current shortages. The fact is that trends are such that the number of workers is declining, while the number of non-working pensioners is on the rise.
You are right, we can leave this issue unaddressed, and I said so in my remarks. We can forget about it for the next five to seven years; however, then the country will have to do it no matter what, but it will have to be done abruptly, without a transition period, or any easing of terms, including for women.
We will then have to act quickly, that is the problem. If I did not see these trends, I would have never allowed this to happen, but these are objective trends that cannot be ignored.
You know, I was well aware of how people would react. No matter what arguments one can come up with, when a particular person's interests are at stake, no one is delighted with the prospect. I was well aware that criticism would be coming both from the right and the left.
We know what was done by the left. In their time, they dismantled the Soviet Union with their economic policy, and later, in the 1990s, almost destroyed Russia. We would not be living in the Russian Federation now. Instead, we would be left with Moscovia, or something like it. We managed to keep the situation in check. Moreover, the country is getting stronger and better.
This is an unpleasant and, clearly, not a fun thing to do, but it has to be done nonetheless. To reiterate, if I was not convinced that it would have to be done some time down the road, I would have never allowed it to happen.
Now, regarding the specific questions that you asked, including forest reserves, the school and the sports complex. This, as you understand, requires separate consideration, as these are separate issues.
I promise that I will definitely look into them. I hope that Oleg Kozhemyako will do so as well. I am sure he can hear me now. I want him to submit the corresponding information to me and report accordingly.
Regarding the transfer of the administrative centre to Vladivostok, [Presidential Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District] Trutnev raised this issue a very long time ago. Vladivostok is doing very well and is really the centre of the region and, to a certain extent, a centre of gravity, I mean with regard to neighbouring countries, so I think this is a well-grounded decision.
Sergei Milvit: More about the child…
Vladimir Putin: Where is the boy now?
Sergei Milvit: The town of Cheremkhovo, Irkutsk Region.
Vladimir Putin: What is wrong with him?
Sergei Milvit: He is ill.
Vladimir Putin: All right, we will definitely help him.
Dmitry Peskov: Our colleagues will take your contact information.
Vladimir Putin: Please go ahead.
Anastasia Melnikova: Good afternoon, my name is Anastasia Melnikova, Znak.com.
Mr President, torture at some prisons, pre-trial detention facilities and special penitentiaries has been reported with frightening regularity lately.
I am now talking about the Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, Orenburg and Saratov regions, Khakassia and the Trans-Baikal Territory. Then last summer, thanks to our colleagues at Novaya Gazeta, we learned about atrocious torture at the Yaroslavl prison.
At the same time we hear the story of serial killer Vyacheslav Tsepovyaz, who, while being held at a high-security prison, was allowed the pleasure of eating crab, caviar and the like.
Don't you think the Federal Penitentiary Service desperately needs reforming – and this needs to be done right now? Since I am clearly not the first to alert you to this problem, can you tell us what is being done and who will be given this responsibility?
When will prisons in Russia stop being a place for recreation for some people and a place where other people are subject to medieval torture? Because this is really too much, I mean the things that are now happening at federal penitentiaries. This is really too much even for our country.
Vladimir Putin: The situation at the prisons must constantly be overseen by the prosecutor's offices, first of all. Clearly, the incidents that are being reported are absolutely unacceptable.
Any violation of the law, to say nothing of torture, is a crime. Those who violate the law, who commit these crimes must be held responsible. Incidentally, this is what happens when these kinds of stories come to light, in part, thanks to the media.
But it would also be incorrect to say that we need to destroy the whole system. We should improve the system and bring public oversight to a new level – I completely agree with this.
In connection with this, I would like to remind you that we have established commissions that must work on this and which will receive support from the Government and the President. I expect them to play a positive role in resolving the problems that the system definitely has.
Rustam Falyakhov: Gazeta.Ru, I am Rustam Falyakhov, good afternoon.
Mr President, when you opened the press conference, you summed up macroeconomic results and it seems we are living increasingly better. Paris residents might just be very jealous if we believe the statistics.
Vladimir Putin: Native residents of Paris are moving to the suburbs for a number of reasons. This is why a hike in petrol prices caused such discontent, many native Parisians moved to the suburbs and higher petrol prices are very hard on their budgets. But this is a different issue.
Let us speak about housing construction.
Rustam Falyahov: I have a question about the accuracy of statistics, the accuracy of the information used to measure the standard of living in Russia. If we believe the Government reports, incomes are growing, you also gave the number of half a percent.
Incomes are rising whereas prices are falling. When Russians see price tags on goods and services, they understand that government officials are just playing loose with the numbers. I am speaking about the statistics from the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Finance Ministry and others.
Experts are also bewildered as their numbers and their data do not conform to official statistical data, and apparently, desperate experts are already proposing to introduce a somewhat exotic happiness index, which would take into account the voice of the Russians.
My question is very simple – is it time to fine-tune official statistics? Otherwise, the May Executive Order will be fulfilled easily whereas the happiness index will stand at zero.
Vladimir Putin: I understand and partly share your concern, but only partly in the sense that it should be explained to people where the numbers come from and what they mean, and how they should be taken.
Because when pure numbers are presented and it is said that life has become better and happier whereas people see, as you say, real prices in the shops going up, it causes bewilderment and mistrust of the statistics. They are not perfect, by the way. If we can, if we do not get tired of talking for such a long tome, we can revisit the issue.
The statistics are not ideal but the point is not so much their quality, which needs perfecting, the point is also that people should be told that those are average figures.
We are talking about living standards. We are talking about salaries. I said that in the first ten months there was a 7.4 percent increase, and that by the end of the year it will be 6.9 percent. But people will see this and say, "I have had no such increase."
This is an average. It concerns certain sectors and certain regions. Somewhere there is an increase in a certain sector, for example, for oil workers or steel workers. And in some cases, there is no increase. These are average figures. That's the point.
Among the most important indicators are the disposable income of the population and retail sales numbers. This more or less conforms with the real state of affairs. And what is this like?
In 2015, we had an over-2-percent drop in the real disposable income of the population, in 2016 – minus 5.8, and in 2017 – 1.2, but also on the minus side. This is the disposable income of the population.
Incidentally, analysts certainly understand what I am talking about. But for the majority of people it's unclear. Let me explain what it means and how these figures are calculated, it will take 30 seconds.
It is fairly easy to calculate people's expenses: how and where they spend money and how much. In other words, if people spent money, they had it. Added to this are bank deposits and cash savings. This is, on the whole, a calculable sum, because it is more or less clear how much money people keep in banks. The Central Bank, which regulates the money supply, is aware of the total amount: how much is kept in banks, how much is in the hands of consumers. Cash savings in foreign currencies are harder to calculate. But this is basically clear. Then the taxes paid by an individual (personal income tax, or property tax if there is any property) are deducted, and then the figures are adjusted for inflation.
These are the disposable incomes of the population. Again, they had been falling in our country in these years. And only now, by the end of this year, we may have a 0.1-percent increase, but only if we do not take into account the lump-sum payments of 5,000 rubles to pensioners at the end of 2017.
So, the trend is generally positive, and it is backed up by other data. What data? Sales volumes – sales are picking up. Despite some problems in the auto industry itself, car sales have grown 27 percent.
As I said, the production of clothing and footwear has increased, food production is up 13 percent compared with the previous increase of 9 percent.
The volume of international air transportation has surged 46 percent, while domestic air travel has grown by more than 20 percent. These are all signs of growing consumer purchasing power. It is gradual and cautious, but it has been recovering.
It seems to me that if we explain this to people in normal human language and show it as a whole, it will become clearer where we are and where we are going. But this system undoubtedly needs to be improved, I completely agree with you.
It is difficult for me to decide… The one with the Russian flag – by all means.
Yelena Yeskina: Thank you very much Mr President, first of all from the cameramen because it appears that my flag was in their way. But do not worry, the flag was the longest but my question will be brief. My name is Yelena.
Vladimir Putin: The Russian flag cannot be in anybody's way.
Yelena Yeskina: You see, camera operators. So, my name is Yelena Yeskina, and I am a journalist of the Dagestan State Television And Radio Broadcasting Company.
We live in a multi-ethnic country and this is wonderful, is it not?
Vladimir Putin: It is very good.
Yelena Yeskina: Here is my brief question. I will just add a little. I am indeed lucky because I live in a multi-ethnic country…
Vladimir Putin: Please say a few words about yourself. Go ahead please.
Yelena Yeskina: …in the multi-ethnic republic of Dagestan and plus in a multi-ethnic family. I am Russian and my husband is Avar, so our children do not really look Slavic.
Vladimir Putin: You yourself look like an Avar.
Yelena Yeskina: Really?
Vladimir Putin: Yes, a bit.
Yelena Yeskina: Must be all the years of living in Dagestan.
Vladimir Putin: Indeed. (Laughter)
Yelena Yeskina: After I had children, I started paying attention to what they show on Russian television. Very often, if not always, they show in ads beautiful children – so fair, with light hair, light eyes, big blue eyes.
And I started wondering where the other types, for instance Mongoloids, were. After all, Russia is multi-ethnic; we have about 200 ethnic groups. Let us take a regiment, the main regiment of the country– the Kremlin regiment and the guys there look Slavic. There is an unspoken requirement that Slavic guys should form this regiment. Do you not think so?
Vladimir Putin: No, I do not.
Yelena Yeskina: You do not. Then it just seemed so to me. Okay, Then I will just ask you…
Vladimir Putin: It just seems like that to you.
Yelena Yeskina: Probably it does, I apologise.
I have a request for you. This has nothing to do with seeming, and it is a big request. Please look into the investigation of the Gasanguseinov brothers' case.
Two teenagers were shot in Shamil District in 2016. It turned out later that they were not militants and were not involved in illegal armed units.
Now the case has been reclassified and is being investigated under Article 105 Murder where the father is considered the injured party. This case has been transferred to Moscow but has not been brought to a close.
I would like to ask you to personally oversee the investigation of the case of the murder of the Gasanguseinov brothers and please rehabilitate them officially as soon as possible. I just feel so sorry for their parents.
Vladimir Putin: I must give corresponding instructions to Mr Bastrykin [Chairman of the Investigative Committee]. Consider it done. He will take control and report to me on what is happening there.
To be honest, this is the first I have heard of it, but I promise you that I will give it the attention it deserves and Alexander Bastrykin will receive corresponding instructions.
Turkey… Please pass the microphone.
Fuad Safarov: Fuad Safarov, journalist and analyst on Turkey, RiA Vesti (Russia and Azerbaijan Vesti) news website.
Recently, Turkey marked the anniversary [of the death] of the founder of the Turkish Republic Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. I would like to know what you think of Ataturk as a person and his historic role in global policy. Looking back at Ataturk, how will you assess today's progress in relations between Russia and Turkey?
Vladimir Putin: Ataturk is certainly an outstanding figure in Turkish history. He made an extraordinary contribution to the efforts to preserve and restore Turkey as a state, he did quite a lot to achieve this.
He was a great friend of Russia, we know this, and he cooperated with Russia, worked with it and we appreciate his input very much.
Ataturk created modern Turkey, having laid the foundation for the state. This is what I think of him.
As for the status of our relations today, I think we should be satisfied with the progress in the development of ties between Russia and Turkey in the economy and on security issues. Although our interests have not always coincided on some matters, we have managed to make compromise decisions on how to resolve the Syria crisis.
We respect the national interests of the Turkish Republic and the Turkish people in this area, and we see that our Turkish partners are willing to compromise and so together we make these compromise decisions to secure the development of a favourable situation in Syria and for the sake of fighting terrorism and strengthening our relations.
As for the economy, you can see yourself that our ties are growing stronger. Despite Turkey being a NATO member country, it delivers on its commitments, as far as we can see. At the same time, being a NATO member it is pursuing an independent foreign policy.
We appreciate this, as it creates conditions for maintaining predictable and healthy relations. Of course, in this sense, the role of the incumbent Turkish President is great. Hopefully, this trend will continue under the leadership of Mr Erdogan.
Dmitry Peskov: The CIS TV and radio company MIR, if you please.
Vladimir Putin: The next one will be for equity holders, okay?
Elina Dashkuyeva: Hello, Mr President. Elina Dashkuyeva, MIR.
You said at the Russia Calling! forum that the dollar is leaving Russia. First of all, what advantages and disadvantages can we expect from this? What currency will the Eurasian Economic Union countries now use to pay each other – will they adopt an interstate currency or use new digital technologies such as blockchain?
Vladimir Putin: A very important and interesting question. About dollarisation and weaning the economy off the dollar, including the Russian economy.
In general, according to the IMF, payments in dollars have slightly decreased around the world. The year before last, they were a little over 63 percent I think, and now slightly over 62. But for Russia, this figure is higher, 69 percent.
This is due to the fact that our main export products, primarily oil, are listed on world exchanges in dollars, and this is a large amount.
Our foreign exchange reserves in dollars are declining; only recently, we were holders of American securities quoted in dollars in the amount of $104 billion, now down to $14.4 billion. Payments in yen and pounds have slightly grown in world trade.
As for weaning Russia off the dollar, it will exclusively concern settlements between economic entities, but will in no way affect citizens.
When we were discussing today's news conference yesterday, Mr Peskov told me that they are removing exchange rate ads in some cities, including Moscow, and people are wondering about the reason behind this, whether this may be connected with some restrictions on using dollars.
There is nothing of the kind, and it will not happen, I would like to reassure everyone. Advertising exchange rates on currency exchange offices is only connected with one thing: the fight against illegal money exchange businesses. This is about streamlining the sphere of finance, money circulation, and cracking down on grey businesses operating in this area, nothing more.
Regarding the ruble. Yes, use of the ruble as a reserve currency in transactions is growing, maybe not a lot, but it is growing, primarily in transactions between the EAEU countries and in the post-Soviet space.
For example, use of the ruble has grown significantly in transactions between Russia and Belarus, reaching, if I'm correct, over 60 percent, almost 70 percent in clearing transactions while the numbers in cash settlements are smaller. But the role of the ruble will certainly increase in this segment, that's obvious.
It's more reliable and does not involve extra costs, especially the costs associated with dollar transactions. Because you and I know perfectly well: wherever clearing operations are made, they all go through US banks.
And if there are restrictions, it makes you want to sidestep these restrictions which is a natural reaction. This is happening around the world, by the way, in view of instability with these transactions.
However, several issues must be resolved for the ruble to be used at least as a regional currency. First, cutting volatility. The exchange rate must be stable, and we have generally managed to maintain it recently.
This is related to the activities of the Central Bank and the Government of the Russian Federation. As you have seen, it is stable; it has somewhat lost its dependency on fuel and oil price fluctuations partly due to the introduction of a floating exchange rate for the ruble.
This is the first goal. But we have to ensure further stability and keep inflation low. This is an extremely important condition.
Then comes the next step – we have to develop the financial infrastructure for transactions in the ruble. It is clear what this means. We need to improve the settlement mechanisms between economic parties and financial institutions. We will be working on this.
Dmitry Peskov: Mr Putin, perhaps you will take a question from foreign media. I can see The Wall Street Journalhere.
Ann Maria Simmons: Good afternoon, Mr President. Thank you very much for the opportunity to ask you a question.
In the West, many politicians, experts and even ordinary people see Russia as a great threat. They even think that you, as the President of Russia, want to rule the world.
Vladimir Putin: Well, of course.
Ann Maria Simmons: I want to know if you really want this. Also, please, what is the real goal of your foreign policy? Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: With regard to ruling the world, we know where the headquarters that is trying to do so is located, and it is not in Moscow. However, this is related to the leading role of the United States in the global economy and defence spending: the United States is spending over $700 billion on defence, while we spend only $46 billion.
Just think of it, we have 146 million people in Russia, whereas the NATO countries' population is 600 million, and you think our goal is to rule the world? This is a cliché imposed on public opinion in Western countries in order to resolve intra-bloc and domestic political issues.
When I say intra-bloc, I mean that in order for NATO to rally countries around itself, it needs an external threat. It does not work otherwise. You have to have someone to rally against. As a major nuclear power, Russia fits the bill perfectly.
With regard to domestic political issues, unfortunately, Russophobia continues to flourish in many countries, especially in Eastern Europe. For what purpose? In order to use old historical fears to ensure their own domestic political well-being.
This is also harmful, because, ultimately, it is about exploiting the phobias of the past, which prevent us from moving forward. It is harmful for the countries and peoples whose leaders are trying to pursue such a policy.
In fact, the main goal of our foreign policy is to provide favourable conditions for the Russian Federation, its economy and social sphere, to ensure unfettered movement forward and to strengthen our country from the inside, above all, so that it can take its rightful place in the international arena as an equal among equals.
We are in favour of consolidating the system of international law, ensuring unconditional compliance with the UN Charter, and using this platform to develop equal relations with all the participants of international affairs.
Dmitry Peskov: Mr President, you promised to talk about housing equity holders. Who wanted to ask about this?
Vladimir Putin: Yes, please. This is an important question.
Alla Andreyeva: Good afternoon, Mr President! Alla Andreyeva, Ryazanskaya Oblastnaya Gazeta newspaper. Mr President, thank you very much for giving me the floor.
Vladimir Putin: You are welcome.
Alla Andreyeva: I am speaking on behalf of St Petersburg.
Vladimir Putin: St Petersburg?
Alla Andreyeva: Like you, I am from St Petersburg.
Vladimir Putin: St Petersburg again. A Ryazan newspaper from St Petersburg. St Petersburg is everywhere.
Alla Andreyeva: We both work in different places than where we were born.
Vladimir Putin: Totally different.
Alla Andreyeva: Mr President, I have a very big request for you: can you please pay more attention to housing equity holders that have been cheated: in St Petersburg, the Leningrad Region and all across Russia.
What is happening now? Unfinished buildings that do not comply with building equity contracts are being commissioned in St Petersburg just to report to Moscow that everything is fine. You see, during your Direct Line on June 15, 2017, Albin and Minenko, a federal inspector, stood in front of my house, which had not been finished; construction was ongoing, but they officially declared the building commissioned, thus committing a criminal offence. But, you see, activists like me are being bullied for taking this position. They are trying to open a criminal case against me, because I am trying to write the truth about the officials.
My husband was killed on October 6, 2015. The investigation has not made any progress. Over the first 18 months they have made my life a nightmare, as well as the lives of my family, because someone leaked information to mass media. My mother passed away when she heard about this from a television report. Can you see what is happening in St Petersburg? My car was burned before that. All of this is happening in our hometown, our St Petersburg. Please, I am begging you to look into this case, to look into housing equity holders not only in St Petersburg, but in the Leningrad Region and everywhere in Russia.
I do not know. Let us, together with you… We are just like you, we do not bite. Come to St Petersburg and meet our activists. We will tell you the truth. We will tell you everything as it is, without these fake reports and road maps, without these useless scraps of paper published by these officials on their websites all over the country. I communicate with equity holders practically from all regions. We have a large group of activists. I have a pressing request. This is not even a question but a cry for help: please help the cheated equity holders and on the investigation of my husband's case.
Vladimir Putin: Do you think your husband's murder was related to your activities to protect the interests of equity holders?
Alla Andreyeva: Yes, this is the only connection I can see.
Vladimir Putin: Is that so? I promise you to pay attention to this by all means. Do not have any doubts about this. This is the first thing I will say.
The second is about the problem you raised, it is very urgent indeed. This gives me an opportunity to speak in greater detail about the problem and the construction industry. You know, this will never end if we do not sort out the mess and switch to civilised ways of housing construction. Indeed, the real estate industry is faced with the task of building 120 million square metres of housing but we must stop the practice of attracting people's money and irresponsibly spending it.
This is what happens: yes, we keep the cost of housing relatively low but at the expense of what? Because some people acquire this housing at relatively low prices. In particular, this is also done at the expense of the people whose money is taken but who do not receive anything – either money or housing. This is the root of the problem and all evil. So we must certainly switch to civilised ways of funding this industry even if this leads to a certain reduction in the construction sector and some increase in prices. But without this we will never be able to put things in order there.
We must switch to bank financing, to normal and civilised loans or else this will never end. The people who found themselves in a difficult situation because they paid the money but received no housing must certainly be helped. We should not shut our eyes to the scale of this problem. It is clear and I agree with you that even the figures that are now shown, the figures on cheated equity holders and their personal problems do not click with reality. In fact, the problem is even more urgent than these documents show.
As for the situation you described in your question, I do not know these buildings of course, but we will see. I will also talk to the Acting Governor of this region, Mr Beglov. He is a very experienced man and can figure this out. I hope the situation will improve. In any case, be sure that this will be a subject of my conversation with him. The first thing that will happen is that he will meet with you.
Colleagues, listen to me. If we want to go on a little longer, we must not turn our press conference into an unauthorised rally. OK? Let us not. So I ask you to calm down.
Dmitry Peskov: Mr President, let me authorise: Marina Kim, The Great Game.
Marina Kim: Good afternoon, Channel One.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to ask questions. By the way, regarding the question of whether there are non-Slavic faces on Russian TV, well, there are and Channel One shows me live on a daily basis.
Our question is: The Great Game show is about Russia-US relations. We would like to know if a meeting with Mr Trump is possible after he cancelled it himself, for example, in the immediate future. Are you ready for one?
And to quote Kipling, the 19th century, who said the Great Game is finished when everyone is dead. And it was a standoff of the Anglo-Saxon world.
Vladimir Putin: That's great! "Would you like to meet?" "Will there be a meeting?" "Everyone will die."
Marina Kim: I will explain. There was a standoff between the Anglo-Saxon world and the Russian world in the 19thcentury. Have the rules changed now or is it the same game? Thank you very much.
Vladimir Putin: Unfortunately, we see that many birthmarks of the past, as Karl Marx used to say, are still there, but I hope that some things will somehow be made right. Ultimately we will reach the bottom in our relations and will understand that we have to go up, to push off from that bottom, go up, take a lungful of fresh air and with a clear head start thinking how to proceed.
I do not know if we have a meeting or not, I said a number of times that we are ready. We believe there are issues that we have to discuss together. Work at the expert level on Syria, for example, is ongoing. We also have to speak about North Korea, and Afghanistan, a great many other situations in the world.
After all, we need to talk about bilateral relations; we are interested in this, as well as our American partners are, by the way. Of course, there is no super-global interest. Our mutual trade stands at a meagre 28 billion, or even lower now, less than 28, 25 to 27 billion maybe. This is nothing, zero. With China, we will reach 100 billion this year, and with the US, everything is in decline. Who is interested in this? No one, not even the President of the United States, who is promoting the idea of reviving the economy, as he says, in his quest to make America great again.
I certainly believe that working with Russia is important in itself, and this includes economic cooperation, at least bearing in mind that we play a key role in the global energy market; cooperation in the field of nonproliferation and global security also matters, among other things. We have a lot to talk about. But we see what is happening there. Now power will change in Congress. Almost certainly, 100 percent sure, there will be new attacks on the current President. Under these conditions, whether he will be able to achieve any kind of direct dialogue with Russia, I do not know; you will have to ask them.
What worries me though? You mentioned the Anglo-Saxon world, where some deep-rooted, tectonic changes are occurring. After all, please note, Trump won – this is an obvious fact no one seems to be arguing with, but they do not want to recognise his victory either. This actually shows disrespect for the voters – refusing to recognise his victory, doing everything to delegitimise the incumbent President.
The same applies to Britain: Brexit got the majority vote – but no one wants to implement it. What are they refusing to recognise? The referendum results. Democratic procedures are being dropped out of the equation, and destroyed; their value is being destroyed. That is what is happening there. This is a serious process. I have pointed out that Western analysts are already discussing this matter, both in the States, by the way, and in Britain. We must keep this in mind. But whatever happens, we still need to build bilateral relations. We are willing to. As soon as possible. As soon as the other side is ready, we will do this.
This one. [Sign] "How's the health?" Did you mean your health, mine or someone else's? Or did you mean the country's healthcare?
Yekaterina Butkevich: Good afternoon.
Yekaterina Butkevich: I'm Yekaterina from Ministry of Ideas TV channel. I was asking about your health.
Vladimir Putin: What is the channel's name?
Yekaterina Butkevich: Ministry of Ideas. It is a private TV channel located in Yekaterinburg. The question is about your health. How are you feeling? How are you?
Vladimir Putin: Don't hold your breath! (Laughter in the audience.)
Yekaterina Butkevich: I mean everyone is just asking their questions but no one is wondering how you are and whether you need help in some matters. (Laughter in the audience.)
Vladimir Putin: What is your name?
Yekaterina Butkevich: Yekaterina.
Vladimir Putin: Yekaterina, we will discuss it later. (Laughter in the audience.)
Yekaterina Butkevich: Mine is not a question but a proposal.
Vladimir Putin: Go ahead.
Yekaterina Butkevich: We all know that everything is based on ideas. Our life, our future and our country are also based on ideas. And our team proposes to establish a Ministry of Ideas of the Russian Federation.
Vladimir Putin: Establishing the Ministry of Ideas is a good idea.
Yekaterina Butkevich: I would like to hear your opinion on this matter. And we are ready to help establish this agency.
Vladimir Putin: I believe that our Ministry of Economic Development should fulfill this function, because it should generate ideas to promote development. But I am ready to discuss your proposal. We just need to understand the substance, what it means. You and your colleagues please think about it, explain what the "ministry of ideas" is, what it should do, how it will function, on what principles, and what the substance of its work would be.
As for my health, it really does not differ from anyone else's. I mean, thank God, I do sports, and I am fine. I try to take care of my health. But just like everyone else, I can catch flu or something in the offseason. So far, everything is okay. Thank you very much for your concern.
Yekaterina Butkevich: Thank you.
Dmitry Peskov: Mr President, you have not taken any sports-related questions so far. Will you take one from Sovietsky Sport?
Vladimir Putin: Fine. There is something about a pike. What is up with the pike?
Nikolai Yaremenko: Good afternoon, Nikolai Yaremenko, Sovietsky Sport.
There are many sporting events, but I have only one question. I will not mention the World Cup, which we hosted brilliantly (strangely, no one has mentioned it today), nor will I say anything about Mutko leaving football forever yesterday, or even the upcoming 95th anniversary of our newspaper and our hope to see you as a guest in our editorial offices.
I have a quick question about doping which is a longstanding issue. It appears that this has long since become a political matter. Similar to the sanctions, international sports organisations seem willing to take a bite at us whenever they get the chance.
On the other hand, this is a comfortable position for many of our sports officials as they can sit on their hands and blame everything on politics. Do you think we are now clean enough in this area to be able to say that everything is fine now?
Vladimir Putin: First of all, to a large extent, we ourselves are to blame for this situation, because our athletes did use doping.
It is a different matter that we were accused of authorising the use of doping at the state level. This is not true, and it has never happened and will never happen, because we must keep in mind not only the results, which, of course are important, but also the health of our athletes.
However, since this has happened, we must, first, acknowledge it and, second, admit our fault, which means that we were unable to properly control doping. This is the responsibility of the organisations and government agencies that were supposed to do this.
With regard to whether we have stopped this or not, probably not, not 100 percent. Enormous efforts were made, and a good framework was created to do it properly and to make sure it was done with integrity.
But this is not just our scourge; doping is used around the world. Nevertheless, we must strive to reduce it completely.
The WADA commission is currently working in our country. They are holding talks with the Ministry of Sport, including on access to related materials. But you are right about the political aspect of it, which I hope will be overcome completely as well.
Dmitry Peskov: Mr President, we have been working for quite a while, almost three and a half hours. And so I have a suggestion. There are three veteran journalists from the national level – Terekhov from Interfax, Gamov from Komsomolskaya Pravda and Kondratyev from NTV television channel. I suggest wraping up by taking three questions from them.
Go ahead, Mr Terekhov.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, but let several other colleagues ask their questions too.
Dmitry Peskov: Since you are the most experienced you must express yourself in a few words.
Vyacheslav Terekhov: Absolutely.
In the very beginning you spoke about health, medications, healthcare and the like. In many respects our health depends on medications. Could you please tell us to what extent we are independent of foreign supplies as regards medications? How do our medications compare with their foreign counterparts in efficacy and who is responsible for the fact that our analogues are even worse than planned?
Vladimir Putin: You know, we must put things right here in many respects and counter the assertions you just made. You asked: Who is responsible for the inferior quality of our medications compared to their foreign counterparts? This is not true, they are in no way inferior, however we must combat certain things in several areas.
Doctors that prescribe these medications should cooperate less with producers and think more about their patients. Do you understand? Because when they cooperate with specific producers they say: "Ours are worse – take this imported one."
But this does not mean that we should get rid of all imported medications. If a certain medication is required, it should be prescribed. This is a sensitive process but it is important to understand what the problem is in all respects.
Now I will say a few words about the scale. First, we have even started to export our medications. This year we will export 700 million worth of medications. This is not so much but still a considerable amount – 700 million.
If we look at price tags, 30 percent of medications are produced at home for the domestic market. They are 60 percent of the range.
As for our dependence or independence, everything is interrelated in this world. That said we produce, say, 80 percent of vital medications. Importantly, there are an increasing number of substances produced in Russia, not simply generics that are brought in from abroad. On the whole, this programme is working. I believe it was launched in 2015 and will be carried out until 2020.
As for the development of the pharmaceutical and medical industry, it is working. About 200 billion rubles are allocated for it and it is fairly effective on the whole. This is a very important area of our work and we will certainly continue it.
Alexander Gamov: Komsomolskaya Pravda website, radio and newspaper.
Mr President, frankly speaking, I feel sorry for President Putin because we have nice numbers, truthful numbers, they are real, they do not raise doubts among experts, I think. Meanwhile, ordinary people do not quite trust them because life is hard in Russia. This is my first point.
The second. There is no peace, I do not mean the situation itself, but in people's hearts, souls, minds, and thoughts. In other words, people worry a lot about both you and the country. So why does this happen? I believe that the middle tier official, the top tier, ministers, governors – they are all afraid of Putin. You have appointed everyone, lined them up, there are basically all normal people. Whereas those officials who want to talk about an excise tax on sausage, or the Kremlin banning births or whatever, they muddy the waters and make it harder for people to believe Putin, the state and so on. I think some sort of reform is needed. We must do something with this middle tier. Let us retrain them, and let us help you.
To conclude, literally just before the press conference I got a telephone message, a very short one, "Gamov, ask Vladimir Putin if it is time to look into the disastrous gap between the incomes of top managers and ordinary people? When will the President finally make a clear statement about it?" Because you have revisted that topic several times.
Vladimir Putin: The point you are making is an eternal Russian argument: The Tsar is good while the courtiers are thieves and outlaws. You see, if something does not go well, it is everyone's fault. This is my first point. And secondly, as I have already said, the point is not that the numbers are somehow wrong. The point is that they do not work well with the numbers. They do not explain the numbers to the people. Whereas you said that the numbers are good but they are not trusted. As if you failed to hear what I said in the beginning and in the middle, when I gave data related to a decline in the real disposable incomes of the population. What is good about that? I did not say it was good. Incomes fell in the country in 2015 while in 2016 they were down by 5.8 percent. What is good about that? And I did not say it was good, I said the trend is righting itself, thank God, and it is an objective factor. I do not think that people here do not believe it. These are truthful things, and I hope people do understand that.
Speaking about officials in general, you, of course, know that there are people who have no idea what they are saying. They are not where they should be and are not careful with their words. There are people like this. But this is what we all are, our environment. That kind of person was just someone yesterday and is an official now, so they can blab. They are not ready. This means they are simply not ready for the job.
And, of course, we must work with people, with all the officials. There are many good and active people among them, too. This is a fact, we should accept this. You see, it is impossible to close everything and then open the box to make it right. It is not a coincidence that Moses and the Jews wandered in the desert for 40 years. Well, we cannot lead 146 million people across the desert for so long.
This is a process of growing up for the civil service. We are working with it; see, we are organising various contests for young people. We have a human resources contest, Leaders of Russia. We teach them later at our academy. I believe 12 or 15 graduates have already become governors, two are federal ministers and five or six are deputy ministers. Little by little we will be expanding this. It is a long process.
Alexander Gamov: You have not talked about the gap.
Vladimir Putin: Speaking about the gap. First, unfortunately, it does exist.
Second, which is also unfortunate, as rule, this is a global trend. In any case, this is what is happening in large economies. Look what is happening in the US. Our US colleagues are present here, they must read US analyses. The gap between those who earn a lot and those who earn very little is expanding by their estimation. By the way, the campaign of President Trump, the current president, noted this very clearly. They used this in their campaign and turned out to be right.
Of course we must take this into consideration. At the very least we must decrease the number of poor people. This is true.
Dmitry Peskov: Mr President, we have a veteran to wrap things up.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, another veteran.
Vladimir Kondratyev: I will really be brief.
Mr President, speaking at an earlier press conference, you said something interesting, that you collect emotions. You collect emotions, and this is your wealth as the country's leader. What kind of year was this in terms of emotions? Which event do you consider the biggest?
Vladimir Putin: Two events.
Vladimir Kondratyev: Two events?
Vladimir Putin: Yes. Certainly, the presidential election, as this is important for the whole country. And the World Cup, which also turned out to be important for the whole country and the world.
Ussuriysk, please go ahead.
Yekaterina Kharina: Good afternoon, I am Yekaterina Kharina, Telemix TV Channel, Ussuriysk.
Mr President, last week you signed an executive order on moving the capital of the Far East from Khabarovsk to Vladivostok. I have a question about this: what plans does the Government have to strengthen the regions in the Far East and in particular, of Primorye Territory? Will we live to see the gasification of the entire region? And what do you think about the merging of our territory with Sakhalin Region?
Vladimir Putin: You see, the merging of any constituent entities in the Federation is a matter for the entities of the Federation themselves according to current law. If Sakhalin and Primorye Territory decide to unite, they can; they have to go through their respective procedures in parliament or hold a referendum, whichever is provided for in the regional legislation. But looking deeper, Sakhalin is a self-sustaining region, it provides a large share of its own budget, and the average income of the population is higher than in the Territory in general, but this is the internal business of the two regions. That is my first point.
The second concerns development. We have a complete programme, a package of measures to develop the Far East and Primorye Territory, a complete programme to establish favourable development conditions in the Far East. This includes the well-known Priority Development Areas, which is the 'Far Eastern hectare', the development of infrastructure, ports, airports, it is support for exports, including, and primarily, non-energy exports. We will do all this; it will never disappear. On the contrary, all of this will be actively pursued. There must be no doubt about it whatsoever. This will offer us an additional competitive edge.
We will definitely develop science and education; we will keep supporting the Far Eastern Federal University. We will certainly develop the shipbuilding sector and continue the construction of the shipyard in Vladivostok. And you know, the first steps have already been taken for this, and fairly big steps. Russia's largest tonnage ships will be built in Vladivostok. We will build ships that are bigger than anything seen in the Soviet Union.
We will obviously continue our support for the aviation sector; plants will have contracts to keep busy, and research will be developed. And a totally new sector has emerged – aerospace, the new Vostochny Space Launch Centre. Marine biology, everything connected with fisheries – this will all be a priority for us. I have no doubt that we will achieve positive results.
I promised Euronews. Go ahead, please.
Galina Polonskaya: Hello, Mr President. Galina Polonskaya, Euronews TV channel. Thank you for the opportunity to ask you a question. I will put down the sign, I have already become one with it during these four hours.
The UN adopted a resolution about Russia's militarisation of the Sea of ​​Azov, Crimea, and part of the Black Sea. After what happened with the Ukrainian ships in the Kerch Strait, there were reports that Russia was sending military equipment to Crimea. Why should Russia reinforce its military presence in Crimea? Is Russia ready to declare the entire water area of ​​the Sea of ​​Azov its territory? Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: Look, in 2014, people living in Crimea came out for the referendum and ultimately voted for reunification with the Russian Federation. From that moment, after the relevant domestic procedures, Crimea became part of the Russian Federation, part of Russia. Therefore, we are entitled to and will continue to pursue our military policy on any part of our territory, as we see fit to ensure national security. Crimea is no exception. If the General Staff, if the border guards believe that we need to do something extra in some area, we will do it. Russia's security in this area will certainly be ensured. We are not going to overdo it there, but what needs to be done, will be done. This is the first point.
Now about the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait. We almost immediately announced that we intended to build a bridge to link up with Crimea, which we did. First we built an energy bridge, then a gas pipe, and now we are building two power plants there, in Sevastopol and in Simferopol, with a total capacity of 940 megawatts. We are building the Tavrida road, to be completed by the end of 2020. Next year, I think, the two-lane road will open, and by the end of 2020, a four-lane road.
We will develop the local infrastructure. That is, it is not only about reinforcing the military component, but above all, the civilian, infrastructure component. All this will certainly be implemented. We have a federal targeted programme for the development of Crimea. For the next two years, we have allocated 300 billion rubles for the development of the peninsula. All this will progress. Along with that, the military component will be strengthened, as far as we need it.
As for the Kerch straits, the situation is difficult, in terms of nature. These straits are very narrow and rather shallow. Their depth is about 13 metres. Let me emphasise that pilotage has always been conducted there. The construction of the bridge does not interfere with anything. Pilots escort ships as they used to.
Freight turnover is growing, in particular, in the ports of the Sea of Azov, this is true. But work there is organised and all participants in these economic activities know how this is being done. There is a queue there. Sometimes it is bigger and sometimes it is smaller. Just look at the number of vessels in front of the entrance to the port of Novorossiysk. There are quite a few of them.
I will have to repeat this once again: On September 11 of the past year Ukrainian vessels, including warships, fulfilled all requirements of passage through these straits and under the bridge and were calmly led by our pilots into the Sea of Azov and further on to their destination in the Sea. Nobody interfered with them – just helped.
This time everything was different. This is a deliberate provocation in the course of Mr Poroshenko's election campaign. We have already shown in the media the logbook that contains the order to "enter secretly." What does "secretly" mean? Nobody can say what might happen there without pilotage, all the more so when some politicians say in public that they are ready to blow up the bridge. Naturally, we cannot allow this to happen. This would be simply absurd for us, period. As for routine activities, nobody restricts them.
Now a few words about the regime in the Sea of Azov. We have a treaty dating back to 2003, I think. What does it say? It reads that there is a coastal area of five kilometres, not the usual 12 sea miles in accordance with the international Law of the Sea, but five kilometres off the coast. These are the territorial waters of a state, in this case of Russia or Ukraine, and the rest is common sea. Incidentally, our fishermen were once captured although they did not enter the five km zone. Nonetheless, they were seized and their captain is still detained. And your Euronews channel does not even mention this as if this is how it should be. The same is true of other Russian seamen: there is a dry-cargo vessel with its crew out there somewhere, but nobody recalls anything. Therefore, we should observe these agreements and abstain from announcing any unilateral actions.
As for warships, they should be in constant contact with our border guards. The border guards conduct their border mission. In conditions of martial law, I can hardly imagine warships going to and fro, but in general we would like to normalise the situation. We do not create any obstacles to vessels, including warships. Let me repeat that last September vessels were led by our pilot and nobody interfered with them, on the contrary we only helped.
This is a complicated problem, which we will certainly keep working on. You are right about this, I agree.
As far as the amendments to the Constitution are concerned, this is a matter for broad public discussion.
Dmitry Peskov: Mr President, there is a banner "Russians in Danger." Please, tell us, which Russians are in danger? The last row. Show it, you raised it before.
Khamzat Batukayev: I am Khamzat Batukayev, Grozny TV Channel, Chechen Republic.
First, thank you for noticing the back row. The press conference has been going on for over three hours, and only the front rows and middle rows…
I have a personal request. We have guests from Latin America here. During each break they keep yelling "Latin America," but no one is paying attention. If possible, will you please give them the floor after me; they have come a long way.
And now, properly, Mr President, just a second. I have already forgotten what I was going to say.
Vladimir Putin: Let's talk to the people from Latin America then.
Khamzat Batukayev: This is a serious subject, in fact. I wrote "Russians in Danger" because thousands of our compatriots are still in Syria. They are there for one reason or another, but there are also children who are not there by choice.
Their parents have been sentenced to long prison terms, maybe even life terms. The children are left without parents, without care, and there are many such cases. How can we bring them back? We know your principled position on the issue, so the question is how can we proceed with this?
And, if I may, a second brief question. One of the first requests from the first president of the Chechen Republic, Akhmad-Haji Kadyrov, that was addressed to you regarded the construction of the airport in Grozny, the restoration, to be exact.
It was restored, but ever since it has been suspended in some technical phase, which means it was not completely finished. Currently the republic's government is holding discussions with various ministries on the second stage and apparently, there are some problems.
How can this be completed? Objectively, Chechnya is still developing, but we host hundreds of thousands of tourists, and the airport capacity is not sufficient.
And the last thing. You know Mr President, we have a main avenue that is named in your honour. You might not be aware that we are currently building the Vladimir Putin Judo Palace.
You always receive one of the highest percentage of votes in the region, I can honestly tell you that Chechens have deep respect for you, this is why I would like to invite you there.
You have also received an invitation from Adygeya or Karachayevo-Circassia, so when you go there, you can also come to the Chechen Republic as a second leg of your trip.
Vladimir Putin: I cannot go to Chechnya on my way to or from. I must go there directly. And I certainly will. This is the first thing.
Second, regarding the children. I believe this is a priority. We are engaged in this; we have a programme for repatriating these children to their homeland, to Russia, Chechnya, to the Caucasus, wherever. And Ramzan Kadyrov is also involved in this. We are doing this and will continue with it.
Urals, there is a sign that says Urals.
Roman Zykov: Good afternoon.
My name is Zykov Roman, Urals television.
Mr President, you say that patriotism should be our national idea. Isn't it time we codify this in law, amend the Constitution to stipulate that patriotism is the national idea? Right now, a national idea is prohibited by of the Constitution. This is my first question.
Vladimir Putin: It is ideology as a leading force that is prohibited, not patriotism. I hear you. This is a subject for a wide public discussion.
Roman Zykov: And the second question. We have spoken about active patriotism; now, I am worried about the environment.
A lot of money is being allocated for the purification of water, which then goes to consumers, but there is practically no money allocated to maintain the quality of the pipes that deliver it to consumers, and to ensure that the sewage does not pollute our nature.
Unfortunately, 30 percent of sewage water pollutes nature – experts confirm this. Could you look into the issue and possibly adopt some technical regulations so that the quality of the pipes that deliver water to consumers like you and me is higher and we do not pollute the surrounding waters?
Vladimir Putin: This is a question of technical regulations.
You are certainly right. We must look into what is being supplied. I agree with you. It is a problem. But the problem is not only the pipes.
The problem is in the discharge of wastewater, and its purification. This is an issue that affects the entire country. But the relevant decisions have actually been taken here. This also applies to industry.
Applicable law provides for a transition to the latest available technologies. Penalties are imposed for the discharge of untreated water, and, generally, for waste, on companies that do not comply with the environmental requirements.
As for the airport, when needed, it operates as an international airport. If something more is needed, Mr Kadyrov will come and tell me. I will see what needs to be done; I just do not see what else needs to be done. The airport is functioning, but if we need to do more, we will see. Will that do? And thank you for the invitation.
Friendship of Peoples – over there, a young woman is standing in a kokoshnik. Yes, please, give her the microphone.
Valeria Pavlyuchenko: Mr President, good afternoon! My name is Valeria Pavlyuchenko; I am a representative of the First Russian ethnic TV channel.
I believe you know about our TV channel, because it was established with the support of the Presidential Council for Interethnic Relations. I would like to expand on the topic raised by our colleague from Dagestan, who spoke about ethnic and interethnic journalism.
We are a young team, let us say, a developing channel, and we report about the achievements of the regions, and interethnic stories. We would like to ask for your assistance, we really want to become information partners in the implementation of ethnic policies. Can you help us with this?
Vladimir Putin: Look, we have the Presidential Council for Interethnic Relations. I will definitely ask my colleagues to get in touch with you and find opportunities to work with you on this most important matter for our country.
I wish you all a Happy New Year. Please do not be mad at me, we really have to wrap up now. Thank you very much for your attention, and for your questions. I sincerely wish you all the best.
Filed under: Afghanistan, BREXIT, Economy, Eurasia, Japan, NATO, Putin, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, USA | Tagged: Black Sea, Crimea, INF Treaty, ISIL, Kerch Strait, Khashoggi, Medvedev, sanctions, Skripal Case, Syria reconciliation |	Comments Off on President Vladimir Putin's annual news conference December 20, 2018
Lavrov's interview with Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's interview with Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda, Moscow, December 17, 2018
Question: Mr Lavrov, we met with you in the same format one and a half year ago.
We began by stating that the foreign policy situation surrounding Russia at the time was growing alarming. But you assured us that there would be no war because the Russian leaders were absolutely against it. Our partners, as you said, were certainly not interested in it either. Now, one and a half year later, we can see no improvements. On the contrary, things are growing increasingly alarming. Some of our listeners even feel scared. Others compare the current situation with the late 1930s. One of the readers even asks: "Please be honest and say what we should expect? Will we be attacked?"
Sergey Lavrov: There are comparisons that go farther back into history. Both in this country and elsewhere, there are figures who predict that a situation will arise resembling that on the eve of World War I. They are referring to the pent-up antagonisms existing in Europe, including, by the way, in the Balkans. But it is my strong, firm conviction that the politicians in the key countries cannot allow a big war to happen. The public opinion and the nations themselves will not let them. I hope that the parliaments in each Western country will also display maximal responsibility.
But I absolutely agree that tensions are being fomented in an unprecedented way. We see international agreements collapsing. Not so long ago, the United States unilaterally disrupted the ABM Treaty. We had to adopt measures that would prevent this extremely negative event from undermining strategic stability. Next in line is the INF Treaty, which Washington believes to be outmoded, while accusing us of violating it. In so doing, they are hinting in no uncertain terms that they would like to extend the restriction identical to that assumed by the USSR and the United States to China and a number of other countries, including North Korea and Iran.
We are categorically against this initiative. We are in favour of keeping the INF Treaty. The entire international community has repeatedly recognised it as a cornerstone of international security and strategic stability. Today at the UN, we will make a second attempt to submit a General Assembly resolution in support of preserving this Treaty.
Apart from that, we have presented the US with our concerns regarding how it implements this Treaty. These concerns are based on concrete facts and developments in the military technical sphere, specifically the deployment of a US military base in Romania and deployment plans for Poland. We hear statements by our US colleagues that the only way to save the Treaty is to destroy the 9M729 missile, which Russia has allegedly developed with a range exceeding the limit imposed by the Treaty. In response, Minister of Defence Sergey Shoigu, following similar steps at the expert level, has officially suggested that he and US Secretary of Defence James Mattis meet and start a professional discussion. The US did not even reply or at least formally acknowledge the receipt of the invitation. Possibly, if they had done this, they would have had to explain why they are evading a professional discussion and continue to act in the notorious "highly likely" style, as though wishing to say that what remains for us is to repent because we are allegedly to blame for everything.
While we are on this subject, I would like to say this. I have no doubt that US President Donald Trump was sincere when he said during his election campaign that he wanted good relations with the Russian Federation. Regrettably, the consequences of Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton have caused a tsunami in US domestic political life, primarily because the so-called system elites have felt uncomfortable. They saw the current developments as something that was putting power within reach of ordinary voters. Since then, no one has ever corroborated with facts the repeated charges of Russian meddling in the US elections, hacker attacks on the Democratic Party and other US agencies, etc.
Let me note that this Russophobia, as we are convinced, is to a decisive degree linked to the internal political infighting [in the US]. The United States, no matter who would advocate good relations with Russia, sees us as a rival as it does China. It is not accidental that for the lack of facts proving our "sins" against US democracy, the Russophobic campaign has brought no results whatsoever.
In recent days, the US propagandists have pitched in at China. In their view, China is already the "chief hacker" undermining the mainstay of US society. It is regrettable that the interests of the international community, global strategic stability and international security are being sacrificed for the sake of domestic political squabbles. But we will always be ready for dialogue. Even under these circumstances, we never refuse to take part in a professional discussion in areas where our partners are prepared to consider the existing threats and problems in an equal and honest manner.
After a long break, yet another round of talks on fighting terrorism has been held. Our security services are in contact on a number of other issues, including Syrian settlement, the North Korean nuclear problem and Afghanistan. We maintain regular enough contacts, even though we are not always on the same page.
Question: They write, with such friends, who needs enemies?
Sergey Lavrov: We have this proverb in Russian.
Question: When we mentioned the growing tension in the world, we actually meant Ukraine. The Kerch Strait incident is going too far. We also had in mind Donbass, where almost every day they are expecting an attack. Why do we compare poorly to Ukraine, according to the opinion of the world community?
Ukraine has assumed a clear ideological position: Russia confronts us, so we fight Russia, defending ourselves, and so on. We – Russia – are declared the enemy. Soon our church, our priests may become great martyrs, because we do not know what will happen to them. Some get imprisoned, and criminal cases are brought against them. Then, there might be a religious war, we have already gone this far. With the situation so aggravated, we still hold a sluggish, relaxed position, when Ukraine has openly declared us an enemy, and introduced martial law. Why don't we declare Ukraine a Nazi regime? We have a lot of evidence: the new law on the Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army recognising Hitler's rabble as heroes. This has already been proven. Why do we not explicitly declare that Nazism is a rabid dog one doesn't talk to, but shoots? This would give us a moral trump card in the global community. This would not be a conflict with Ukraine, which has declared us an enemy and has already declared martial law, but a fight against the Nazi regime. The Ukrainian people are not our enemy. The enemy is the Nazi regime. Why not declare it directly?
We are putting our diplomats who remain there at risk (our readers write about this). Why not withdraw the Embassy from that country?
Many people ask us when Russia will recognise the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics.
Sergey Lavrov: We are not at war with the Ukrainian regime, which has all the features of the Nazi and neo-Nazi. The Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine who live in Donbass are fighting it.
Question: Then maybe we should break off the relations with them? How can we have a relationship with the Nazi regime?
Sergey Lavrov: We have relations with the Ukrainian state. The Ukrainian state is much more important for us than the regime that came to power thanks to the West betraying all norms of international law and international behaviour.
The Ukrainian people have nothing to do with it. The overwhelming majority, I am sure, wants peace in the country, wants to get rid of this shameful regime and return to normal relations with the Russian Federation. For that, the internal problems of Ukraine will have to be resolved, of course. They are much wider, and much deeper than just the DPR and the LPR. As a reminder, it all happened because the West has committed criminal connivance, I should say. Back in February 2014, the European Union, through the foreign ministers of Germany, Poland, and France, guaranteed an agreement between Viktor Yanukovych and the opposition. The next morning, the opposition destroyed that agreement. Neither France, nor Germany, nor Poland, nor the United States, which did not sign the document, but actively supported it, lifted a finger. They did not even apologise to those who had hoped that the agreement would lead to a peaceful settlement.
Three days later, Dmitry Yarosh who led all the military operations on the Maidan, publicly stated (it was his official statement and is still available) that "Russians should not be in Crimea, because they will never glorify Stepan Bandera or Roman Shukhevych and will never think in Ukrainian." Therefore, he said, Russians in Crimea "must either be destroyed or expelled." After that, unrest began among the Crimean people. When Yarosh later tried to organise an attack on the Supreme Council, it erupted in a protest, which led to a referendum and eventually to the decision to return Crimea to the Russian Federation.
Now we are obliged to fulfill the Minsk Agreements.
Question: They collapsed long ago. You spoke about this 18 months ago. Nobody remembers that now, except Donbass.
If you come to the village of Zaitsevo, where every household has buried someone, and if you mention the Minsk Agreements, I don't know what they will do to you. They honour them, and the fact that they are being killed on a daily basis – is that Minsk Agreements as well?
Sergey Lavrov: I believe that there is no alternative to the Minsk Agreements, and I also said that back in 2016. The UN Charter has also been violated many times, and it has also malfunctioned on many occasions. But we must not give in to panic. Are you suggesting that we recognise the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics?
Question: Yes, of course.
Sergey Lavrov: And then what?
Question: After that, we would defend our territory, recognised by us, and we would help our fraternal peoples.
Sergey Lavrov: Do you want to lose the rest of Ukraine? Do you want to leave it at the mercy of the Nazis?
Question: As I see it, we should go to war against the Nazi regime because they declared martial law against us, they have called us enemies, and they attack our ships.
Sergey Lavrov: We will not go to war against Ukraine, I can promise you that.
Question: What should be done about the church?
Sergey Lavrov: You suggest recognising the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics and declaring war (I don't know how you imagine that Russia would attack Ukraine). That would just amount to a nervous breakdown and weakness. If we want to preserve Ukraine as a normal, adequate and neutral country, we must ensure that people living in Ukraine have a comfortable life. I disagree with your position if you want the rest of Ukraine to celebrate the creation of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, as well as the birthdays of Roman Shukhevych and Stepan Bandera, rather than May 9, as their national holidays. The Minsk Agreements formalise the principle of Ukraine's decentralisation and the use of the Russian language where Russian-speaking people want to speak it. Today, this regime is moving to wreck its own constitution, which guarantees the rights of the Russian language, as well as its international obligations; but this does not mean that we must abandon all Ukrainians who are governed by this regime to their own devices.
Question: Why don't we officially recognise it as a Nazi regime, and why don't we say that we will not have any dealings with it because it is impossible to have dealings with Hitler?
Sergey Lavrov: This is an appealing position. Somewhere in the village of Zaitsevo people will probably rejoice for a week if we now sever all relations with this regime. And what will happen next? After that, you will need to explain why progressive and civilised humankind lost Ukraine.
We want to keep it. Today, we have the right under international law to demand this from Ukraine and, most importantly, from the West, which now controls Ukraine.
Question: What do you think of the OSCE's work in that region? Its representatives are coming here while in fact working against us, spying against the Donbass defenders and communicating their information to Kiev. After the OSCE visits a town or a village, they become subject to strikes. It is a known fact. The OSCE is never on our side.
Sergey Lavrov: First of all, it is not true that the OSCE brings shells to their targets. The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) is indeed under very serious pressure – mainly from pro-Western Ukrainians; but the mission is also susceptible to our influence and is gradually making steps in the right direction, although it takes a while to be pushed first. I will give you an example. We have been asking the SMM to stop writing such things in their reports as "this week, so many strikes took place, so many civilian facilities were destroyed, there were so many civilian casualties", but to specify from which side of the contact line [the strikes came], which victims and what kind of destruction. A year ago, with great difficulty, we managed to get the OSCE to write its first report on this matter which said that the eastern side of the contact line – where the self-defence forces are living and defending themselves – account for the overwhelming majority of civilian casualties and destruction in the civilian sector.
Ukraine tried hard to stop this report, to stop it from being published. But it failed. The OSCE eventually did what it was supposed to do and the required statistics became publicly available.
We have one more concern regarding our Western partners (who, I believe, discredited themselves in this Ukrainian story starting in February 2014, when they failed to compel the opposition to fulfil the agreement with the government). This, in fact, has to do with the media. You, for example, go to Donbass. Our television crews are working at the contact line 24/7 to show the frontline from the perspective of the self-defence forces. When our Western partners claim that the self-defence forces are to blame for all the clashes and attacks, that they provoke them, we show them our journalists' work, which is always available on air and is broadcast repeatedly on the news. We ask them: if they are so sure that the Ukrainian government is acting in the right way and they want to show the truth to international audiences, then why are there no Western journalists working on the western side of the contact line the same hours as our journalists? There were a couple of cases when, I think, BBC reporters travelled there for a few days and, by the way, filmed a rather objective report (perhaps this is why this practice was stopped).
They can't wait for us to break off the relationship with Ukraine and withdraw from the Minsk Agreements. Just like after the coup of February 21, 2014, they will wash their hands of them and say, "so it died" – meaning they are not bound by anything. It will be a huge mistake.
Question: If President of Ukraine Petr Poroshenko now sends troops to Donbass or warships to break through the Kerch Strait, what will we do?
Sergey Lavrov: I am sure that there will be provocations. The day before yesterday we heard Petr Poroshenko speak at a show called Unification Council for Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Actually, he has never stuck to the diplomatic language before, but this time he crossed all lines imaginable and unimaginable. I have never heard such rudeness from a leader who considers himself a politician. He seemed to actually lose control a few times. Apparently, something is happening to him. But this is not my problem.
Commenting on the martial law he wanted to introduce for 60 days, then 30, first across the country, then only in Russian-speaking areas, where he has a very low popularity rating (it is low enough everywhere, but there he is not popular at all, and does not even enjoy minimum understanding), Poroshenko said they would not extend martial law unless there are armed provocations along the contact line in Donbass or, as he put it, "on the administrative border" with Crimea.
The 30-day martial law expires on December 25. We have information (official Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has mentioned this more than once) that Ukraine has concentrated around 12,000 troops and a large amount of equipment on the contact line. American, British and, apparently, other instructors are actively helping them. An American drone regularly patrols the area. We have reported this. According to additional information that we tend to believe, in the last ten days of December, President Poroshenko is planning an armed provocation on the border with the Russian Federation – Crimea.
He will get a response. He won't find it funny, I can assure you.
This is our country, our border, and we will not allow him to try in any way to defend "his interests" as he sees them and violate those rights that the Crimeans have defended in full accordance with international law. Moreover, according to our information, he is discussing this provocation on the border with Crimea with his Western curators and "trustees."
According to our data, which seem credible, he is advised to maintain low-intensity hostilities to support the ongoing outcry in the propaganda space about "Russians attacking Ukraine" and "Russians need to be further sanctioned," but in no case should military operations be allowed to reach a phase to elicit a full-blown response. Nasty, petty provocation. Our respective services take all necessary measures to prevent such excesses from happening.
Question: I would like to talk about Russian-US relations again. Mr Poroshenko is behaving boorishly, but I think he is emulating US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who made unacceptable comments about the Russian Government after our bombers arrived in Venezuela, telling us how we must spend public funds.
As for President Donald Trump, he doesn't seem to know his own mind. You said he was really willing to meet with President Vladimir Putin. He said when boarding the plane for the G20 summit that he was looking forward to a face-to-face with President Putin. But when he disembarked in Argentina several hours later, he said he had called off the meeting. He did an about-face, as the saying goes. Maybe they really don't want to conduct a constructive dialogue with us?
Sergey Lavrov: They are extremely pragmatic people. They want to talk when this can benefit them, especially now that the business mentality is taking a hold in US foreign policy.
This is a very short-sighted position, because it can help you get something today but will undermine your long-term positions and harm your strategic interests. The Americans live in two-year cycles. Every two years they need to show everyone that they are tough guys who can do what others can't, and that everyone else is soft.
Look at the unilateral sanctions that have been imposed not only on Russia or China but also on some of the US allies. The United States continues to threaten others with sanctions and imposes new sanctions simply for violating a US law that prohibits trade with Iran. There are no such laws in France or Germany. But when their companies engage in business that is perfectly legal from the viewpoint of their own legislation or international law, they are forced to pay billions of dollars in a deal that would allow them to work in the United States. This is racketeering.
There are also sanctions that concern settlements in US dollars. In the near future before the next elections, these sanctions may benefit US companies, weaken their rivals and increase employment in the United States, but in the long run they will undermine trust in the dollar. This will harm the fundamental interests of the US because many countries are thinking of reducing their dependence on the dollar.
Question: Do the Americans see this danger?
Sergey Lavrov: Analysts possibly do. But politicians think in the moment, they want to win the election, and they don't care what happens afterwards.
As for Mr Pompeo, it's a long time since we met. I think he is no longer involved with US policy towards Russia. But both of us understand that we need to meet and to talk.
As of now, US foreign policy has been clearly delegated to John Bolton. He has come to Russia several times. He has met with President Putin and his counterpart, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev. I have held rather lengthy talks with Mr Bolton. There is a kind of dialogue.
We have not met for a long time at the level of the Russian Foreign Ministry and the US Department of State. The last time was in New York in September, when the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council held a traditional meeting. But it was not a bilateral meeting. Our deputies and department directors hold meetings, although the Americans often pull stunts and cancel meetings with barely a day's notice. But as I said, we don't hold on to grudges.
Question: Why?
Sergey Lavrov: Because a grudge is a heavy burden to carry.
Question: Well, a grudge is, indeed, a heavy burden to carry. For example, what is Russia doing in the Council of Europe, where it has no right to vote? Why does such a sovereign state as Russia submit to the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg? Why don't we withdraw completely from such organisations, where we don't play any role at all? We can use this money to build schools. What are we doing there? And how much do we pay to the European Court of Human Rights?
Sergey Lavrov: We don't pay anything to the European Court of Human Rights. We pay for its decisions. Do you know what percentage of our payments to the ECHR has to do with Russian courts' decisions on payments to our citizens that the Russian Treasury violates and withholds the payments?
Question: In that case we must get back to our own problems. Why are we running to foreigners for help?
Sergey Lavrov: As you probably know, we are now facing a situation that we are actively discussing: the future of Russia's Council of Europe membership is in question. There is no doubt that our decision to join this organisation was sincere and met the country's interests. You should discuss this matter with judges, representatives of the Supreme and Constitutional courts and the Ministry of Justice. A huge set of laws that make life easier for Russian citizens and protect their life and rights was passed during our cooperation with the Council of Europe and as a result of our perception of the practices that could be applied to Russian legislation. Russian citizens are forced to apply to the European Court of Human Rights after a Russian court has ruled that the state must pay them. If the state has failed to pay a citizen in compliance with a Russian court's ruling, do you think that therefore he or she does not deserve this payment?
Question: Of course, they deserve them. But instead of taking the case to a foreign court, we need to sort things out at home. What is your opinion of this?
Sergey Lavrov: In some cases, we were unable to rectify the situation without the ECHR. I will tell you more: Russia is now by no means the main client of the European Court of Human Rights.
We make an overwhelming majority of payments under Russian courts' decisions. Please keep that in mind.
Question: Are we going to leave the Council of Europe?
Sergey Lavrov: To show that we don't care?
Question: If they don't take us seriously, yes, we should show them that we don't care.
Sergey Lavrov: No, we shouldn't do that. Instead we should have a sense of dignity.
Speaking of the Council of Europe, we have no right to vote only at the Parliamentary Assembly, which would be an unimportant body if it weren't for its function to elect judges, the Commissioner for Human Rights and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe.
No one has deprived us of any rights at the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which is a regulatory, rather than consultative, body.
Today, we are trying to convince the Council of Europe that this situation cannot last indefinitely, and that, under the Council of Europe Statute, all member countries have equal rights at all its bodies. The incumbent Secretary General's legal findings state that the PACE decision runs counter to the Council of Europe Statute and should therefore be modified.
We have repeatedly explained to our colleagues that there can be no halfway decisions here. They tried to assuage our concerns by proposing to reinstate our right to elect officials, including judges, the Secretary General and the Commissioner for Human Rights, but to withhold all other rights for the time being. We emphatically rejected this offer.
The moment of truth will come in June, when the new Council of Europe Secretary General will be elected. If we don't take part in this election, it would send a message that the Council of Europe is losing its importance for us as an organisation that does not respect the principle of equality.
Question: You mentioned dignity. As I see it, our dignity is being trampled in various situations.
Poland has destroyed many monuments to Soviet soldiers. Actually, 600,000 of our boys were killed there. Why doesn't Russia give an appropriate response in line with diplomatic traditions?
Do you want to hit our monuments? In that case, we will send bulldozers to Katyn, and we will demolish your monuments if you touch ours.
Sergey Lavrov: Are you serious?
Question: Absolutely. Why can they wreck our monuments?
Sergey Lavrov: I wish you were not serious. I was hoping this is a joke.
Question: Unfortunately, my colleague is voicing a common opinion that is expressed by our audiences. What can you say on this score?
Sergey Lavrov: I believe this position has nothing to do with Orthodox Christianity or Christianity in general.
Question: Are they acting like Christians?
Sergey Lavrov: Of course, not.
Question: So, where is our symmetrical diplomatic response? You do something nasty to us, and we will reciprocate. Where is our dignity?
Sergey Lavrov: Our dignity tells us that we must be above all this, and that we must never descend to the level of these neo-Nazis.
Question: We are always above that. We were above it in the Skripal case too.
But what about the Skripals? Where is our consul? Where is Yulia Skripal? Local lawyers ask me why our consuls are not suing to see Yulia Skripal – dead or alive. After all, she is a Russian citizen. The West operates only through courts. The state should sue and demand access to Yulia Skripal. All conventions are on our side. Why are we being so sluggish?
Why don't we sue, when British Prime Minister Theresa May accuses our President of having committed murder? We could hire Swiss lawyers and sue. Could it be that there are things we don't know and an action of this sort is being pursued?
Sergey Lavrov: If you followed our Ministry's reports, including the information delivered by the ministry spokesperson at her briefings, you would have a somewhat different picture of what is happening.
We have been acting in full conformity with international law, because English law is of no help in this case. There is the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which makes it mandatory for the British government to grant us access to a Russian citizen. Sergey Skripal is an arguable case because he has dual citizenship, but Yulia Skripal is only a Russian citizen.
Question: But we can apply to the British court, can't we? Lawyers in the UK explained this to me. And Swiss layers also said we could apply to the British court for the Russian citizen to be delivered to us or at least in order to arrange her meeting with a Russian consul.
Sergey Lavrov: No court will help us. There is an international obligation, the Vienna Convention, which is absolutely irrevocable. And we will demand that it is obeyed.
Question: What stage are the talks at now?
Sergey Lavrov: I am not yet through with the courts. Let me remind you how we tried to deal with the Litvinenko case, when [Litvinenko] was also allegedly poisoned.
The court did not want to prove anything. The court just made the investigation secret and conducted it in a format that banned the demonstration of security service documents.
In this instance, when we demanded information on the Skripals that was linked, among other things, to the British exploiting the Skripal theme at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, we got an official reply to the effect that this issue was related to British security. For this reason, it is not subject to any disclosure or London's meaningful reply.
Question: But international law has precedence over their law, hasn't it? Does the Vienna Convention have precedence?
Sergey Lavrov: Yes it does.
Question: Can't we achieve anything through the courts?
Sergey Lavrov: We will continue to press for a meeting with our citizen.
Question: But isn't it their minister who said that Russia should "shut up and go away?"
Sergey Lavrov: He (the UK Defence Secretary. – Ed.) is a man whose oversized amour propre is superimposed upon an inferiority complex. I saw his colleague too, and it is very sad that the UK assigns foreign ministers of this sort to handle foreign policy.
He contacted me when five ministers of foreign affairs of the five permanent member states of the UN Security Council were meeting in New York. The five of us were just sitting around a table. After that he went out and started saying that he had challenged me on 12 counts and accused me of everything.
Question: What did you say to him in response?
Sergey Lavrov: I didn't say anything: you can't talk with people like that.
As for the Skripal case, I can assure you that we will not drop this issue. I am absolutely convinced that we must demand answers, just like with the Malaysian Boeing. And the longer our partners delay with a response, the more out of line they will look.
Question: But we have been sued by the relatives of those who have died in the Boeing crash.
Sergey Lavrov: Yes, they have sued us. There is one thing we need to understand. They say that we have done it to the Skripals and that we must say whether it was done on orders from President Putin or whether he had lost control over the secret services which did this without his consent. Nobody else had a clear reason [to poison the Skripals], so it is highly likely that Russia is responsible, they say.
This is baby talk, not a serious investigation.
We put concrete questions to them: Where is Yulia Skripal? Why has her cousin been denied a visa which we requested officially many times? Unfortunately, you can't sue for a visa.
We ask similar questions about the Malaysian Boeing. Why haven't they included in their investigation the material that has been provided by Almaz-Antey, the producer of the Buk systems? Why haven't the Ukrainians provided their radar data, unlike Russia, or the transcript of what their air controllers said? Why haven't the Americans provided their satellite information? No answer. But we will continue to ask these questions and we will keep reminding everyone that a day will come when these shameful intrigues will end.
Question: Maybe we should not remind but demand? There are already jokes about your recommendations on social media. Can I tell one of them?
Sergey Lavrov: Yes, certainly. I have read many things about myself.
Question: Sergey Lavrov enters a room for talks with Mike Pompeo, opens his briefcase and takes out a jar of fat chance, a dead donkey's ears and a heap of fig leaves. He lights a cigarette and politely says "Hello" to Mike Pompeo.
Maybe this is how we should talk with them, not "express concern" or "draw their attention" to problems?
Sergey Lavrov: The meeting I had in this joke was not with Pompeo but with Taro Kono.
Really, do you want us to use four-letter words in international discourse, so that we will all be in the same league? No, I think that if Jupiter is angry, it means he is wrong.
I have read your reports from hot spots, and I respect you for what you are doing. We have criticised our Western colleagues for not sending their journalists to Donbass to report the truth. There are few Western journalists in Syria as well. When somebody wants to drive you mad and you resort to foul language in response, I would caution against this, even if we are not full of grace ourselves. We must not exceed the bounds of decency even if we ourselves set the boundaries.
Question: Is it true that the Foreign Ministry cellars are stocked with coffers of your great patience?
Sergey Lavrov: We have no cellars.
Question: I have worked in Armenia and Georgia. The situation there is dramatic.
I am shocked that we have let go of the situation in Georgia. The Americans are building a deep-water port in Anaklia, a stone's throw from Sochi. Initially, they planned to deploy their nuclear submarines there, which would be extremely dangerous for us. A NATO base is under construction near Tbilisi. They have signed an official declaration to this effect. And there are three bio laboratories in Georgia.
The Americans are training nine motorised battalions. When I asked who these battalions would be used against, the answer was, "Against our enemies, against Russia."
President Elect Salome Zurabishvili said at her inauguration that she would do her utmost to fight the Russian occupation.
The situation is very serious, considering that the Americans have failed to build a naval base in Crimea. But now they will build it on our doorstep, on Abkhazia's border with Georgia. Yet we remain silent.
The Georgians who are on our side – 40 per cent of people in Georgia are for rapprochement and 80 per cent for dialogue with Russia – say that we are feeding them.
Their shops are stocked with Russian goods. There were 1.6 million [Russian] tourists.
Sergey Lavrov: I know this.
Question: They ask why we keep silent, why we don't say to them that either they shut down the bases, which are a direct threat to our security, or we close the border to their goods.
Sergey Lavrov: Where did you find these highway advisers?
Question: Why do we sell Georgian wines? They are making money through us, and at the same time they are fighting against our "occupation."
Sergey Lavrov: You surely know that Ukrainians earn millions of roubles in Russia.
Question: We must respond to this. Why do we remain the whipping boys?
Sergey Lavrov: We don't say that we know all the answers. How can we respond? Close the border? Sever all ties?
Question: The Georgians themselves have proposed closing the border and suspending trade and money transfers until the construction of a base on Russia's doorstep is stopped. They complain that we don't have a policy towards Georgia, that we are glad that Mikheil Saakashvili is no longer in Georgia. But we forget that there are very many other anti-Russia forces working there.
Sergey Lavrov: Just imagine how it would be if we severed the relations which we have been developing in recent years.
First we launched chartered flights. Now we have scheduled flights, and their number has increased to include Tbilisi, Moscow, St Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Kutaisi. The planes are filled with tourists. Our trade is on the upswing. I believe Russia has become Georgia's largest trade partner. Our civil societies hold regular events. People are meeting, talking and trying to understand which point in our relations we have reached.
Imagine that we stop all this simply to please your friends, who feel hurt. We stop all this, but they complete the base anyway and train the battalions, and the bio laboratory continues working. Who will stand to gain from this?
Question: Should there be some response from our side? What should we do?
Sergey Lavrov: I would like to ask you, do you think that we need to respond just to establish our importance or what?
Question: We do need to show our importance.
Sergey Lavrov: And that's all?
Question: No, that's not all. There are levers of economic pressure, similar to military ones. If Georgia lives at our expense, it will howl when it has nothing to eat.
Sergey Lavrov: I assure you, they will find a way to live. I would like to look at this from a different angle. Are you proposing to choke Georgia? What for? You say 40 percent of the population supports contacts with Russia. Break these contacts, and it will be 2 percent.
Question: But we will need to explain why we are doing this. We can say: it threatens our security.
Sergey Lavrov: Once again. The most serious threat here is the biological laboratories. I am confident that they will not go anywhere with their battalions. They understand that we have allied relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and we will not allow anyone to attack our allies. There are bio labs not only in Georgia, but also in Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. It will be useless to talk about it with Ukraine. We are talking about it with Georgia through the relevant organisations, the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological and Toxin Weapons. Similarly, we are talking with Kazakhstan and Armenia. Georgians have already invited diplomats to their bio lab to look around. We thanked them because it was a large group of diplomats and we noted that we would be more interested in sending professionals who understand what is being done in this bio lab better than diplomats. We need to know how big a threat these experiments pose to the Russian Federation and neighbouring countries.
On principle, I am categorically against a foreign policy that amounts to breaking off relations every time someone does us wrong. Otherwise we would have to break off relations with America and Britain. Do you by any chance have friends there who offer you advice?
Question: America clearly responds with sanctions. We do not impose sanctions. Introduce sanctions against Georgia. Armenia is our strategic ally. Why did we allow the building of three US bio labs there in 2016? We have the best friendship in the Eurasian Economic Union.
Sergey Lavrov: With Armenia, we are completing the work on a document that will guarantee the non-presence of the foreign military in these biological labs and full transparency.
Question: And Kazakhstan?
Sergey Lavrov: The same.
Question: Will they remove these labs? Or make sure there are no foreign nationals?
Sergey Lavrov: You are not listening to me. I have just told you that an agreement is being prepared that will guarantee that there will be no foreign military in the bio labs and everything that is done there will be transparent, with guarantees, without any threats or risks.
Question: Consider this example: When you come to Armenia, you find 19 Russian diplomats and 2,500 American workers there – an impressive ratio, of course. I do not understand how we can have only 19 diplomats in such a strategically important country. Political strategists in Armenia say: "Russia really uses clumsy force against the former Soviet republics. It never works with the opposition, so for Russia, Nikol Pashinyan came as a huge surprise. Russia never works with the civil society, but only with people in power who are hated in society and whose ratings, according to your Russian officers, are below zero. What is it, the blindness of your diplomacy? I do not know; it is unexplainable. There are normal people in the opposition with whom you could be cooperating."
Sergey Lavrov: Who writes all this to you?
Question: Political observers with whom I spoke in Armenia.
Sergey Lavrov: This "your diplomacy" – have Armenians written this?
Question: Yes, Armenians. Why isn't Russian diplomacy working with the opposition? Remember the last time we argued about soft power? There are 5,000 US NGOs that are canvassing young people who then grow up pro-America and anti-Russia, but there are no Russian NGOs or media there. We have already spoken about this many times.
Sergey Lavrov: So what is your bottom line? As I understand it, the options are either to send 3,000 diplomats and create 5,000 NGOs there, or to break off diplomatic relations.
Question: This is where I think soft power is the best option.
Sergey Lavrov: Why?
Question: At least the people's attitude to Russia was good; now it has grown worse. It will continue deteriorating. The youth is growing up.
Sergey Lavrov: We are treated well in Georgia. And you propose breaking off relations.
Question: What ideas are being fed to young people? They are raised on the idea that Russia is bad. They are now arguing who was the first to attack.
Sergey Lavrov: Where – in Georgia?
Question: I just watched a talk show where they are proving to children that it was Russia who attacked Georgia ten years ago. And the children are listening.
Sergey Lavrov: There is a report prepared for the EU by a group of experts led by Heidi Tagliavini, which clearly blames Saakashvili for starting the war. Nobody in the EU has contested this conclusion. Now they say that our response was unacceptable. This is sheer hypocrisy.
As for soft power, I fully agree on this. There are two or three times fewer Russian diplomats in Armenia or any other CIS country than American ones. Our diplomatic staff numbers 2,500 together with rotation personnel.
Question: The Americans have the largest staff in Bagdad and second largest in Armenia.
Sergey Lavrov: They have their own criteria for their work. And we have our traditions and financial limitations, because their non-governmental team working in the former Soviet republics costs big money. In most cases, these NGOs are financed by the Agency for International Development of the US State Department, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), which is affiliated with the Democratic Party, or other similar organisations. George Soros is very active there, just as in many other parts of our space and beyond. Of course, they have the advantage in numbers. We cannot respond in kind; we cannot create the same number of puppet organisations. Very many of them have a provocative negative agenda.
I agree that we must work with all political forces, which we are doing. We are working with everyone not only in the South Caucasus but also in other post-Soviet republics. We are working with registered opposition groups. We don't work with nonregistered or underground groups. I believe that this is correct. We have maintained ties with various parliamentary groups, including the nine MPs who represented Nikol Pashinyan's party when Serzh Sargsyan was president of Armenia.
It is another matter that we have probably acquired immunity against revolutions, because everything the West is doing in the post-Soviet space is preparing revolutions. This may be our problem, but we definitely cannot be blamed for this. We have survived several revolutions, which claimed a great number of lives and destroyed cities and villages. We don't want to see a repetition of this, and we don't wish it on others.
Therefore, the conclusion is simple: we must work with society and people, promote projects of interest to them in culture, language, sport, education and people-to-people interaction. I believe we can report certain positive results in this sphere. But we must not stop now. You can't have enough of such events. We have established interregional forums, days of culture and educational exchanges with nearly all CSTO countries. We are opening branches of our universities there. I have recently visited Azerbaijan where MGIMO University is opening a branch. It is a very popular form of cooperation.
Question: Yet the most influential instrument is mass media. But Margarita Simonyan cannot work for all of us. We need our own local media outlets that will look to you in their work. Very many people would like to work in this way. But they simply don't have the money.
Sergey Lavrov: Exactly.
Question: Do you mean that we don't have the money for this?
Sergey Lavrov: The Foreign Ministry doesn't.
Question: Why cannot we ask our oligarchs? They could be made responsible for certain areas.
Sergey Lavrov: Those of our people who have big money buy media outlets, including in Russia. If they do the same abroad, we would not complain.
Question: The Americans do this. They have more money.
Sergey Lavrov: But they don't buy on behalf of the state.
Question: They set up a state fund to finance such projects.
Question: Why not lease the Kuril Islands? The sovereignty would be ours either way. Hong Kong was once leased on these terms. China leased a village and got a major modern city.
Question: There is such a thing as zugzwang in chess, when any move leads to a worse position. We have not had this peace treaty, so why do we need this "piece of paper?" We have diplomatic and economic relations, but no military relations. Nor will there be any in the future. Why do we need a peace treaty with Japan, if we consider the Kuril issue on this basis?
Sergey Lavrov: We are interested in having good relations with Japan.
The situation is very simple. We are people obeying international law. In 1956, the USSR signed an agreement with Japan, the so-called 1956 Declaration. When the USSR was dissolved, the Russian Federation was recognised not just as the legal successor state (all constituent republics except the Baltic states became legal successors) but the USSR's only continuing state. This is the legal status under which we assumed all the obligations as well as all the assets of the USSR. This was one of the grounds for signing, within the CIS, a treaty on the "zero option" for properties abroad. We assumed all of the USSR's debt obligations as all the properties were transferred to us (something that is happening today). This is why, when President Vladimir Putin was elected and this issue came up for the first time during his presidency in some situation (I think it was a meeting with then prime minister, Yoshiro Mori) he said that as the successor to the USSR we assumed the 1956 Declaration and were prepared to sign a peace treaty based on that.
In Singapore, we agreed to declare that we had come to terms on revisiting negotiations on signing a peace treaty based on the 1956 Declaration. In this regard, it is very important to understand what this document is all about and basically what situation has taken shape around it. It says: You shall sign a peace treaty. After that, the USSR – as a goodwill gesture and with regard for the interests of the neighbourly Japanese people, not as a move to return [the islands] – will be prepared to transfer the Habomai Ridge and Shikotan Island. President Putin has repeatedly explained, including at his news conference in Singapore and later in Buenos Aires, that this was not a directly applicable obligation of the USSR that had transferred to Russia and that the parties would have to discuss how, to whom, when, and in what form to transfer [whatever there is to transfer].
This was in 1956. After that were the events of 1960, when Japan and the US signed the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, under which the Americans could deploy their military bases practically wherever they wanted, in any part of Japanese territory. Under the same treaty, the US is creating the Asian segment of its antimissile defence system and deploying antimissile launchers that can be used to fire Tomahawk missiles.
Japan has withdrawn from the Declaration of its own free will. Of course, the USSR responded to the signing of the US-Japan security treaty. Therefore, when we say "based on the Declaration," we cannot ignore the fact that the events of 1960 have taken place since then, which, from the point of view of a US military presence on the Japanese islands, are increasingly of a very serious nature as a threat to our security. We have explained all of this to our Japanese colleagues at talks with foreign ministry and security council representatives. We are waiting for a response. For us, this is a problem of direct practical importance.
But, most importantly, when we say "based on the 1956 Declaration," this expresses Japan's unconditional recognition of the results of World War II. So far, our Japanese colleagues are not ready for this, and they are sending all sorts of signals to the effect that this will not work out. This is a serious issue.
Recently, my Japanese counterpart went on record as saying that he apologised to the Japanese media for having avoided answering the question about the upcoming talks, on several occasions. He stated that he was unwilling to discuss the subject because Japan's position was unchanged but, if he said this he would provoke his Russian colleagues to state their point of view. Consider that it was not he who provoked us. It is just that we were never ashamed of our position. If Japan's position is unchanged then we are in the same position we have always been in. This is basically a refusal to recognise the results of World War II, while recognising the results of World War II is an inalienable first step in any talks, let alone any legal negotiations.
Question: Should we perhaps leave this matter to the judgment of future generations and place it on record as is?
Sergey Lavrov: We do not refuse to talk, but I have outlined the terms and the framework, within which these talks will proceed.
Question: May I ask you a few private questions that are often asked by our readers – in the blitz mode?
Sergey Lavrov: Go ahead.
Question: You are one of the most popular and best-known politicians in our country. How do you feel in that capacity?
Sergey Lavrov: I have never thought about it. It is a pleasure for me to communicate with people when I go somewhere, whether on a working mission or not. I talk to young people. It is interesting to listen to questions and comments. If my work meets with a positive response, I am pleased for our Ministry.
Question: As you know, the former Soviet Foreign Minister Alexei Gromyko was dubbed in the West as nothing other than "Mr No". Andrei Kozyrev must have been a "Mr Yes". How would you describe your own image in similar terms? Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov is "Mr what?"
Sergey Lavrov: Whatever, but certainly not "Mr Yesman."
Question: In your interviews, you nearly always refer to our foes as partners. Why?
Sergey Lavrov: Sometimes, I fail to express irony through intonation.
Question: In one of your interviews, you said that you respect Vladimir Vysotsky's work. What words from his songs would you use to describe the current international situation?
Sergey Lavrov (laughing): "Lukomorye exists no more…" and so on and so forth.
Question: Your opponents were talking such nonsense lately. What self-composure you have. Is it hard to deal with a negotiating partner if you feel that he or she has a grudge against you?
Sergey Lavrov: I have grown used to it.
Question: What helps you remain so calm and coolheaded?
Sergey Lavrov: Maybe life has hardened me over the past years. In New York, I had a good schooling in terms of responding to all sorts of crisis situations at the UN Security Council. Someone would dash in and say that something had erupted, broken out and it was necessary to urgently adopt a resolution, when we wanted to work the matter through and take no abrupt steps.
Question: Were there episodes during your service as minister, when things grew very alarming and even frightening?
Sergey Lavrov: Probably not, considering that I was already accustomed to crisis situations in my work prior to my appointment to this post. Maybe, that experience helps.
Question: Do you feel like putting work aside
And sailing down the river with a guitar,
Making a campfire at sunset
And talking of peace and love?
Sergey Lavrov: Yes, certainly. Moreover, I even do that.
Question: What is the largest fish that you caught during your river trips? Where did it happen and how much did it weigh?
Sergey Lavrov: I do not remember, because, actually, I am not really a fishing sort. When we go canoeing down the river Katun, two of our group members handle the fishing and I break camp and watch the campfire.
Question: Suppose you had a time machine, who of our country's rulers of the past years or even centuries would you like to talk to and what essential question would you ask that person?
Sergey Lavrov: Among our fellow countrymen – Alexander Gorchakov. Much has been written about him and all his diplomatic achievements are well known. I would ask him exactly the same thing that you asked me – about his self-composure that enabled him to return Crimea.
Question: Who of the US presidents of the past would you like to talk to and what would you ask him?
Sergey Lavrov: Maybe, Harry Truman. After Franklin Roosevelt's policy, he made a sharp turn towards the "cold war". It would be interesting to understand why. Though, as a matter of fact, it looks like everyone understands everything. The USSR was a real ally of Britain and the United States in the war, but maybe a situational ally, after all, though that situation was about the life or death of the whole of humanity. Almost. And it was a genuine alliance. Nevertheless, they never fully considered us to be one of theirs, and back then they already saw a threat.
Question: If you had the opportunity to turn back the clock and influence some event in our country or elsewhere, what would you change?
Sergey Lavrov: First, I have no opportunity to turn back the clock. Second, I do not want to. Third, we all know that history has no "ifs". Whatever God does is for the best. There are many proverbs, for example, "it does not hurt to dream."
Question: Will the Eurasian Economic Union survive as an entity, considering our problems with President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko and Kazakhstan?
Sergey Lavrov: It will survive. In any event, we have common interests. In the five years of its existence or even less (there used to be a Customs Union, followed by the Eurasian Economic Union), we are making great strides forward, as compared with the deadlines that allowed Europe to achieve the same level of integration.
Question: It was easier for us.
Sergey Lavrov: Nevertheless, economic ties were disrupted considerably after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Question: President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko says that he is planning to leave the Eurasian Economic Union.
Sergey Lavrov: Just like other countries' leaders, we judge the policies of other countries by their deeds, rather than words. When US President Donald Trump conducts talks, he also makes all kinds of statements.
Question: Is this blackmail?
Sergey Lavrov: It is preparations for talks, if you like. I cannot say that US President Donald Trump is blackmailing anyone, although he exerts tough pressure.
Question: What would be the first thing you saved if the Foreign Ministry building caught fire?
Sergey Lavrov: God forbid. We don't need any self-fulfilling prophecies, and we have a good fire safety system.
Question: What do you eat to improve your mood?
Sergey Lavrov: I prefer tasty food.
Question: Could you be more specific? All of us like tasty food.
Sergey Lavrov: Sauerkraut shchi and borsch. I like soups very much.
Question: How do you relax? And what is your favourite music? How do you manage to stay in shape all the time? Perhaps you like rap music?
Sergey Lavrov: I am not into rap music. I like bard singers, including Vladimir Vysotsky, Bulat Okudzhava, Yury Vizbor and Oleg Mityayev. And I love the outdoors.
Question: If on New Year's Eve you found a magic lantern that could grant any personal wish, what would it be?
Sergey Lavrov: A personal wish? I don't know. Never thought about it. I am not used to making wishes. I am more of a realist than a dreamer.
Question: So when the Kremlin chimes welcome the New Year in, you never make a wish?
Sergey Lavrov: No. On my rafting team, we have this principle – never drink to anything in advance. We do not celebrate what is to come, but celebrate what happened. If it's someone's birthday, we raise a glass of champagne. But we never toast what is still to come. It is even considered wrong.
Question: Figuratively speaking, if we take Russia's foreign policy in recent years, was there anything you would toast with a glass of champagne with your colleagues?
Sergey Lavrov: I am not assessing the work of my Ministry now. One of our most significant projects in recent years was the chemical disarmament agreement in Syria, which helped us avoid an act of American aggression. This agreement was documented in a UN Security Council resolution, but, unfortunately, after that, the OPCW, whose job was to physically remove and destroy toxic substances from Syria, suffered a hostile takeover from the inside.
Question: Do you mean following the Skripal case?
Sergey Lavrov: No, this was not following the Skripal case. It primarily had to do with Syria. It was a separate story. Some of our western partners are now trying to replace international law with a "rules-based order." But what they mean is not any universally agreed rules, but those they consider convenient for themselves. Western media are already openly writing about it. In particular, the British newspaper The Times wrote that the departure from international law is leading to a very unstable system, where relationships will be determined by the balance of power, brute force or economic and financial pressure such as blackmail, and bilateral agreements. This is roughly what the Americans are trying to do now, breaking the multilateral structures, including the World Trade Organisation, and moving from relations with the EU to resolving all problems bilaterally. Therefore, the agreement on chemical disarmament in Syria was indeed a serious achievement. Now, under various far-fetched pretexts, the Americans and their closest allies are trying to claim that not everything has been destroyed. Although international organisations, namely the OPCW, in the presence of observers, including those from the United States, verified the destruction of all chemical facilities and substances in Syria. Such are our partners.
Question: Do we still have any influence in that organisation?
Sergey Lavrov: Yes.
Question: Do you remember the most unusual New Year gift you received or gave?
Sergey Lavrov: My "hard drive" does not store such things. They have been erased from memory. These days I am more busy thinking about work than about the New Year.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all the listeners and readers of Komsomolskaya Pravda a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. All the best to you, good health and good luck.
Filed under: American Empire, China, EU, Eurasia, INF, Japan, neo-nazis, Russia, Russophobia, Syria, Ukraine, USA, USSR | Tagged: American Empire, Black Sea, Donbass, Georgia, International Law, Lavrov, NGOs, Orthodox Church in Ukraine, Pompeo, Russophobia, sanctions, Skripal Case, Trump |	Comments Off on Lavrov's interview with Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda
How the New Silk Roads are merging into Greater Eurasia
Russia is keen to push economic integration with parts of Asia and this fits in with China's Belt and Road Initiative
by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with The Asia Times by special agreement with the author)
The concept of Greater Eurasia has been discussed at the highest levels of Russian academia and policy-making for some time. This week the policy was presented at the Council of Ministers and looks set to be enshrined, without fanfare, as the main guideline of Russian foreign policy for the foreseeable future.
President Putin is unconditionally engaged to make it a success. Already at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2016, Putin referred to an emerging "Eurasian partnership".
I was privileged over the past week to engage in excellent discussions in Moscow with some of the top Russian analysts and policymakers involved in advancing Greater Eurasia.
Three particularly stand out: Yaroslav Lissovolik, program director of the Valdai Discussion Club and an expert on the politics and economics of the Global South; Glenn Diesen, author of the seminal Russia's Geoeconomic Strategy for a Greater Eurasia; and the legendary Professor Sergey Karaganov, dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at the National Research University Higher School of Economics and honorary chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, who received me in his office for an off-the-record conversation.
The framework for Great Eurasia has been dissected in detail by the indispensable Valdai Discussion Club, particularly on Rediscovering the Identity, the sixth part of a series called Toward the Great Ocean, published last September, and authored by an academic who's who on the Russian Far East, led by Leonid Blyakher of the Pacific National University in Khabarovsk and coordinated by Karaganov, director of the project.
The conceptual heart of Greater Eurasia is Russia's Turn to the East, or pivot to Asia, home of the economic and technological markets of the future. This implies Greater Eurasia proceeding in symbiosis with China's New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). And yet this advanced stage of the Russia-China strategic partnership does not mean Moscow will neglect its myriad close ties to Europe.
Russian Far East experts are very much aware of the "Eurocentrism of a considerable portion of Russian elites." They know how almost the entire economic, demographic and ideological environment in Russia has been closely intertwined with Europe for three centuries. They recognize that Russia has borrowed Europe's high culture and its system of military organization. But now, they argue, it's time, as a great Eurasian power, to profit from "an original and self-sustained fusion of many civilizations"; Russia not just as a trade or connectivity point, but as a "civilizational bridge".
Legacy of Genghis Khan
What my conversations, especially with Lissovolik, Diesen and Karaganov, have revealed is something absolutely groundbreaking – and virtually ignored across the West; Russia is aiming to establish a new paradigm not only in geopolitics and geoeconomics, but also on a cultural and ideological level.
Conditions are certainly ripe for it. Northeast Asia is immersed in a power vacuum. The Trump administration's priority – as well as the US National Security Strategy's – is containment of China. Both Japan and South Korea, slowly but surely, are getting closer to Russia.
Culturally, retracing Russia's past, Greater Eurasia analysts may puzzle misinformed Western eyes. 'Towards the Great Ocean', the Valdai report supervised by Karaganov, notes the influence of Byzantium, which "preserved classical culture and made it embrace the best of the Orient culture at a time when Europe was sinking into the Dark Ages." Byzantium inspired Russia to adopt Orthodox Christianity.
It also stresses the role of the Mongols over Russia's political system. "The political traditions of most Asian countries are based on the legacy of the Mongols. Arguably, both Russia and China are rooted in Genghis Khan's empire," it says.
If the current Russian political system may be deemed authoritarian – or, as claimed in Paris and Berlin, an exponent of "illiberalism" – top Russian academics argue that a market economy protected by lean, mean military power performs way more efficiently than crisis-ridden Western liberal democracy.
As China heads West in myriad forms, Greater Eurasia and the Belt and Road Initiative are bound to merge. Eurasia is crisscrossed by mighty mountain ranges such as the Pamirs and deserts like the Taklamakan and the Karakum. The best ground route runs via Russia or via Kazakhstan to Russia. In crucial soft power terms, Russian remains the lingua franca in Mongolia, Central Asia and the Caucasus.
And that leads us to the utmost importance of an upgraded Trans-Siberian railway – Eurasia's current connectivity core. In parallel, the transportation systems of the Central Asian "stans" are closely integrated with the Russian network of roads; all that is bound to be enhanced in the near future by Chinese-built high-speed rail.
Iran and Turkey are conducting their own versions of a pivot to Asia. A free-trade agreement between Iran and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) was approved in early December. Iran and India are also bound to strike a free-trade agreement. Iran is a big player in the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which is essential in driving closer economic integration between Russia and India.
The Caspian Sea, after a recent deal between its five littoral states, is re-emerging as a major trading post in Central Eurasia. Russia and Iran are involved in a joint project to build a gas pipeline to India.
Kazakhstan shows how Greater Eurasia and BRI are complementary; Astana is both a member of BRI and the EAEU. The same applies to gateway Vladivostok, Eurasia's entry point for both South Korea and Japan, as well as Russia's entry point to Northeast Asia.
Ultimately, Russia's regional aim is to connect China's northern provinces with Eurasia via the Trans-Siberian and the Chinese Eastern Railway – with Chita in China and Khabarovsk in Russia totally inter-connected.
And all across the spectrum, Moscow aims at maximizing return on the crown jewels of the Russian Far East; agriculture, water resources, minerals, lumber, oil and gas. Construction of liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants in Yamal vastly benefits China, Japan and South Korea.
Eurasianism, as initially conceptualized in the early 20th century by the geographer PN Savitsky, the geopolitician GV Vernadsky and the cultural historian VN Ilyn, among others, regarded Russian culture as a unique, complex combination of East and West, and the Russian people as belonging to "a fully original Eurasian community".
That certainly still applies. But as Valdai Club analysts argue, the upgraded concept of Greater Eurasia "is not targeted against Europe or the West"; it aims to include at least a significant part of the EU.
The Chinese leadership describes BRI not only as connectivity corridors, but also as a "community". Russians use a similar term applied to Greater Eurasia; sobornost ("community spirit").
As Alexander Lukin of the Higher School of Economics and an expert on the SCO has constantly stressed, including in his book China and Russia: The New Rapprochement, this is all about the interconnection of Greater Eurasia, BRI, EAEU, SCO, INSTC, BRICS, BRICS Plus and ASEAN.
The cream of the crop of Russian intellectuals – at the Valdai Club and the Higher School of Economics – as well as top Chinese analysts, are in sync. Karaganov himself constantly reiterates that the concept of Greater Eurasia was arrived at, "jointly and officially", by the Russia-China partnership; "a common space for economic, logistic and information cooperation, peace and security from Shanghai to Lisbon and New Delhi to Murmansk".
The concept of Greater Eurasia is, of course, a work in progress. What my conversations in Moscow revealed is its extraordinary ambition; positioning Russia as a key geoeconomic and geopolitical crossroads linking the economic systems of North Eurasia, Central and Southwest Asia.
As Diesen notes, Russia and China have become inevitable allies because of their "shared objective of restructuring global value-chains and developing a multipolar world". It's no wonder Beijing's drive to develop state-of-the-art national technological platforms is provoking so much anger in Washington. And in terms of the big picture, it makes perfect sense for BRI to be harmonized with Russia's economic connectivity drive for Greater Eurasia.
That's irreversible. The dogs of demonization, containment, sanctions and even war may bark all they want, but the Eurasia integration caravan keeps moving along.
Filed under: BRICS, China, Eurasia, Iran, Japan, Multipolar World Order, Putin, Russia, South Korea, Turkey | Tagged: BRI, Pepe Escobar, SCO, Silk Road |	Comments Off on How the New Silk Roads are merging into Greater Eurasia
"RIC": BRICS after Bolsonaro
Posted on November 9, 2018 by martyrashrakat
by Ghassan Kadi for The Saker Blog
BRICS is the acronym of the "alliance" that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
In reality, and with all due respect to Brazil and South Africa, BRICS is about RIC.
With Russia, India and China, in any order, there lies the future of Eurasia; the virtually unchartered quarter that houses over one third of the entire world population; a huge chunk of landmass, rich in resources, not only human resources, and just waiting for the right moment to make its mark in history.
The so-called "Silk Road", or in reality silk roads, was historically the network of caravan paths that ancient traders took on their journeys from east to west, linking worlds largely unknown to each other, long before Vasco da Gama's highly documented trips.
And whilst the ancient cultures of India and China flourished in their own right, apart from Alexander's conquest, the Muslim and subsequent Mongol conquests, there was little historic geopolitical interaction between that far Far East and the Middle East; let alone Europe. The long icy and hard terrain made it very difficult, even for the brave at heart, to take the journey from Beijing to Vienna. The temptations to make that trip did not match the hardship of the journey for the averagely motivated traveler.
But this is all about to change. The new "Silk Road", the network of super highways that the "RIC" nations are intent to build is going to change this status quo and shorten land distances.
The Trans-Siberian railway is a Russian route and constructing it linked Vladivostok with Moscow, but it was not intended to link China with Europe. If anything, it helped bolster the isolation of the USSR. But the new "Silk Road" project will change the transportation map of the world upside down once and for ever.
The determination to build this massive road network does not need either Brazil or South Africa; again with all due respect to both nations.
By taking many considerations into account, we must be realistic and say that the electoral win of Brazilian candidate Bolsonaro will not affect the prospect of the "Silk Road" one way or the other. The repercussions of his election will affect Brazil more than any other country. Purportedly, his policies will affect global climate, but this is another issue. His fiscal and international policy making decisions may put Brazil under the American sphere of influence, and this unfortunately can and will affect Brazil very adversely, but the damage is likely to be restricted to Brazil only.
With or without Brazil, BRICS can survive, but for it to survive and make a difference, it will need to become more serious about conducting its business.
The first step towards becoming more proactive is best done by establishing proper trust and conciliation between the three major players; Russia, China and India.
The love-hate relationship that marred the Soviet-Maoist era took a while to heal. The Russians and the Chinese seem to have gone many steps ahead towards establishing trust and confidence in each other. But China and India continue to have serious problems, and for as long as they have border and sovereignty disputes, this hinders them from becoming effective partners in every way.
Furthermore, BRICS needs a preamble and a Statement of Purpose. At the moment, it doesn't have one. With all of its hypocrisies, the Western alliance camouflages itself behind the veil of Christian values, democracy and the "free world" slogans. Thus far, the only undeclared statement of purpose for BRICS seems to be that of defiance to the Western alliance.
The BRICS alliance will face a struggle founding an attractive preamble. Orthodox Christian Russia, predominantly Hindu India and Communist/Taoist/Buddhist China have little in common religiously speaking. Perhaps the BRICS leaders should be using common political grounds instead. They certainly cannot use democracy; not only because such an adoption would make them look as copycats, but also because they have different ideas about democracy, and Russia and China definitely do not endorse Western-style democracy.
In reality however, BRICS can use abstract lofty principles as their preamble; principles such as morality, honesty, and if they want to be less "theological" as it were, they could use principles such as "International law", "International equality" and the like.
Apart from accumulating gold, building bridges and super road networks, planning fiscal measures to cushion the effects of a possible collapse of the Western economy on their own economies, developing state-of-the-art hypersonic weaponry and giving a clear message announcing that the world is no longer unipolar, the BRICS alliance ought to make clear statements about what kind of alternative world it envisions.
This is very important, because a significant percentage of the world population does not know what to expect if the BRICS alliance becomes the new dominant financial and military power. They have special concerns about China because they don't know much about China, and they worry not only about whether or not China will be a new colonial super power, but they also worry about one day waking up and seeing traffic signals in Mandarin; so to speak.
To many people across the globe, the Chinese culture, language and modus operandi look like something from another planet.
The Cyrillic Russian and the Devanagari Indian scripts are no less daunting than the Mandarin script, but many Indians and Russians speak English and the West has had much more cultural interaction with both Russia and India than it ever did with China.
Furthermore, for the BRICS alliance to become more viable, it will need to develop a military alliance akin to that of NATO. When and if such an alliance is forged, then members will be protected as any attack on one will be considered as an attack on the whole coalition. Such an alliance will not increase the chances of war. Quite the contrary in fact, as it can lead to much needed stability. If for argument sake North Korea were a member, it would not be in a situation where it can claim that it needs nuclear weapons for self-defense, and secondly, the West would not be threatening to attack for fear of a major global escalation. The Cold-War, costly and potentially disastrous as it was, presents a successful model of nuclear deterrence. And in retrospect, had Vietnam been a member of the Warsaw Pact (or a similar one that included the USSR), it is possible that America's war on Vietnam would have been averted. A more realistically plausible scenario is the case of former Yugoslavia. Had the Warsaw Pact been still standing, NATO would have never attacked Serbia back in 1999.
To be able to afford a more effective military deterrent, be a viable stand-alone economic power and to be attractive to the rest of the world, the BRICS coalition will ultimately need more member nations. Ideally, it would be of huge significance if Japan could be convinced to join it. The inclusion of Japan will not only add a huge financial power to the group, but it will also generate an in-house regional security to the China Sea region. Baby steps have been recently made between China and Japan towards conciliation, and much more needs to be done. It will take a lot of work and good intentions on both sides to undo a long history of hostilities and distrust.
Other nations that can and arguably should enter the coalition are; Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and post Erdogan Turkey. Why post Erdogan? Because Erdogan's Turkey can turn BRICS into a bag of TRICS.
Resource-rich Australia has much to gain in joining such an alliance as this will not only bolster its own security, but it will also secure economic stability and on-going trade.
Thus far, all the official visits that the RIC leaders have exchanged, all the business deals they made, all the projects they are embarking on, huge as they are, are only baby steps towards turning their alliance into one that can lead the world and establish the necessary moral, financial and security foundations that are capable of underpinning it.
Over and above establishing a new world reserve currency, setting up an alternative to the US-based Internet and WWW, SWIFT, etc, the brave new world will need hope, trust, morality and concrete assurances for a long-awaited change for the better. These are the real challenges facing the BRICS alliance now; not the Bolsonaro win.
Filed under: Australia, BRICS, China, India, Japan, Latin America, South Africa | Tagged: Bolsonaro, Brazil, International Law, Silk Road, SWIFT a US Tool |	1 Comment »
How the tentacles of the US military are strangling the planet
Posted on October 6, 2018 by michaellee2009
By Vijay Prashad
The overreach of the U.S. military provides incentive for it to treat every conflict as a potential war.
Earlier this year, in Itoman (Okinawa, Japan), a young girl—Rinko Sagara (age 14)— read out of a poem based on her great-grandmother's experience of World War II. Sagara's great-grandmother reminded her of the cruelty of war. She had seen her friends shot in front of her. It was ugly. Okinawa, a small island on the edge of southern Japan, saw its share of war from April to June 1945. "The blue skies were obscured by the iron rain," wrote Rinko Sagara, channeling the memories of her great-grandmother. The roar of the bombs overpowered the haunting melody from the sanshin, Okinawa's snakeskin-covered three-string guitar. "Cherish each day," the poem goes, "For our future is just an extension of this moment. Now is our future."
This week, the people of Okinawa elected Denny Tamaki of the Liberal Party as the governor of Okinawa. Tamaki's mother is an Okinawan, while his father—whom he does not know—was a U.S. soldier. Tamaki, like Okinawa's former governor Takeshi Onaga, opposes the U.S. military bases on Okinawa. Onaga wanted the presence of the U.S. military removed from the island, a position that Tamaki seems to endorse. The United States has over 50,000 troops in Japan as well as a very large contingent of ships and aircraft. Seventy percent of the U.S. bases are on Okinawa island. Almost everyone in Okinawa wants the U.S. military to go. Rape by U.S. soldiers—including of young children—has long angered the Okinawans. Terrible environmental pollution—including the harsh noise from U.S. military aircraft—rankles people. It was not difficult for Tamaki to run on an anti-U.S. base platform. It is the most basic demand of his constituents.
But, the Japanese government does not accept the democratic views of the Okinawan people. Discrimination against the Okinawans plays a role here, but more fundamentally there is a lack of regard for the wishes of ordinary people when it comes to a U.S. base. In 2009, Yukio Hatoyama led the Democratic Party to victory in the national elections on a wide-ranging platform that included shifting Japanese foreign policy from its U.S. orientation to a more balanced approach with the rest of Asia. Prime Minister Hatoyama called for the United States and Japan to have a "close and equal" relationship, which meant that Japan would no longer be ordered about by Washington. The test case for Hatoyama was the relocation of the U.S. Futenma Marine Corps Air Base to a less populated section of Okinawa. His party wanted all the U.S. bases to be removed from the island. Pressure on the Japanese state from Washington was intense. Hatoyama could not deliver on his promise. He resigned his post. It was impossible to go against U.S. military policy and to rebalance Japan's relationship with the rest of Asia. Japan, but more properly Okinawa, is effectively a U.S. aircraft carrier.
Japan's Prostituted Daughter
Hatoyama could not move an agenda at the national level—likewise, local politicians and activists have struggled to move an agenda in Okinawa. Tamaki's predecessor Takeshi Onaga— who died this August—could not get rid of the U.S. bases in Okinawa. Yamashiro Hiroji, head of the Okinawa Peace Action Center, and his comrades regularly protest the bases and in particular the transfer of the Futenma base. In October 2016, Hiroji was arrested when he cut a barbed wire fence at the base. He was held in prison for five months and not allowed to see his family. In June 2017, Hiroji went before the UN Human Rights Council to say, "The government of Japan dispatched a large police force in Okinawa to oppress and violently remove civilians." Protest is illegal. The Japanese forces are acting here on behalf of the U.S. government.
Suzuyo Takazato, head of the Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, has called Okinawa "Japan's prostituted daughter." This is a stark characterization. Takazato's group was formed in 1995 as part of the protest against the rape of a 12-year-old girl by three U.S. servicemen based in Okinawa. For decades now, Okinawans have complained about the creation of enclaves of their island that operate as places for the recreation of U.S. soldiers. The photographer Mao Ishikawa has portrayed these places, the segregated bars where only U.S. soldiers are allowed to go and meet Okinawan women (her book, Red Flower: The Women of Okinawa, collects many of these pictures from the 1970s). There have been at least 120 reported rapes since 1972, the "tip of the iceberg," says Takazato. Every year there is at least one incident that captures the imagination of the people—a terrible act of violence, a rape or a murder. What the people want is for the bases to close, since they see the bases as the reason for these acts of violence. It is not enough to call for justice after the incidents; it is necessary, they say, to remove the cause of the incidents.
The Futenma base is to be relocated to Henoko in Nago City, Okinawa. A referendum in 1997 allowed the residents of Nago City to vote against a base. A massive demonstration in 2004 reiterated their view, and it was this demonstration that halted construction of the new base in 2005. Susumu Inamine, former mayor of Nago City, is opposed to the construction of any base in his city; he lost a re-election bid this year to Taketoyo Toguchi, who did not raise the base issue, by a slim margin. Everyone knows that if there were a new referendum in Nago City over a base, it would be roundly defeated. But, democracy is meaningless when it comes to the U.S. military base.
Fort Trump
The United States military has a staggering 883 military bases in 183 countries. In contrast, Russia has 10 such bases—8 of them in the former USSR. China has one overseas military base. There is no country with a military footprint that replicates that of the United States. The U.S. bases in Japan are only a small part of the massive infrastructure that allows the U.S. military to be hours away from armed action against any part of the planet.
There is no proposal to downsize the U.S. military footprint. In fact, there are only plans to increase it. The United States has long sought to build a base in Poland, whose government now courts the White House with the proposal that it be named Fort Trump. Currently, there are U.S.-NATO military bases in Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria with U.S.-NATO troops deployments in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The United States has increased its military presence in the Black Sea and in the Baltic Sea. Attempts to deny Russia access to its only two warm water ports in Sevastopol, Crimea, and Latakia, Syria, pushed Moscow to defend them with military interventions. A U.S. base in Poland, at the doorstep of Belarus, will rattle the Russians as much as they were rattled by Ukraine's pledge to join NATO and by the war in Syria.
These U.S.-NATO bases provide instability and insecurity rather than peace. Tensions abound around them. Threats emanate from their presence.
A World Without Bases
In mid-November, in Dublin, Ireland, a coalition of organizations from around the world will hold the First International Conference Against US/NATO Military Bases. This conference is part of the newly formed Global Campaign Against US/NATO Military Bases.
The view of the organizers is that "none of us can stop this madness alone." By madness, they refer to the belligerence of the bases and the wars that come as a result of them. A decade ago, a CIA operative offered me the old chestnut, "if you have a hammer, then everything looks like a nail." What this means is that the expansion of the U.S. military—and its covert infrastructure—provides the incentive for the U.S. political leadership to treat every conflict as a potential war. Diplomacy goes out of the window. Regional structures to manage conflict—such as the African Union and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation—are disregarded. The U.S. hammer comes down hard on nails from one end of Asia to the other end of the Americas.
The poem by Rinko Sagara ends with an evocative line—now is our future. But it is, sadly, not so. The future will need to be produced—a future that disentangles the massive global infrastructure of war erected by the United States and NATO. The future, hopefully, will be made in Dublin and not in Warsaw; in Okinawa and not in Washington.
Vijay Prashad is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is also the author of Red Star Over the Third World (LeftWord, 2017) and The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution (University of California Press, 2016), among other books.
This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
Filed under: Japan, US Foreign Policy, USA | Tagged: Israel-USA Relationship, regime change, The Enemy Within, Trump, US Congress, US Lies, Wars for Israel |	Comments Off on How the tentacles of the US military are strangling the planet
Greater Eurasia coming together in the Russian Far East
The Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok has become a crucial part of strategic integration between China, Russia and other countries in northeast Asia, a graduation assimilation set to transform the current world system
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin were involved in a joint cooking venture. Pancakes with caviar (blin, in Russian), chased down with a shot of vodka. It just happened at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. Talk about a graphic (and edible) metaphor sealing the ever-evolving 'Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership'.
For a few years now the Vladivostok forum has been offering an unequaled roadmap tracking progress on Eurasia integration.
Last year, on the sidelines of the forum, Moscow and Seoul delivered a bombshell: a trilateral trade platform, crucially integrating Pyongyang, revolving around a connectivity corridor between the whole Korean peninsula and the Russian Far East.
Roundtable topics this year included integration of the Russian Far East into Eurasian logistic chains; once again the Russian link-up with the Koreas – aiming to build a Trans-Korean railway connected to the Trans-Siberian and a "Pipelineistan" branch-out into South Korea via China. Other topics were the Russia-Japan partnership in terms of Eurasian transit, centering on the link-up of the Trans-Siberian and Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) upgrades to a projected railway to the island of Sakhalin, and then all the way to the island of Hokkaido.
The future: Tokyo to London, seamlessly, by train.
Then there was integration between Russia and ASEAN – beyond current infrastructure, agricultural, and shipbuilding projects to energy, agro-industry sector and forestry, as outlined by Ivan Polyakov, chairman of the Russia-ASEAN Business Council.
Essentially this is all about the simultaneous build-up of a growing East-West and also North-South axis. Russia, China, Japan, the Koreas and Vietnam, slowly but surely, are on their way to solid geoeconomic integration.
Arguably the most fascinating discussion in Vladivostok was Crossroads on the Silk Road, featuring, among others, Sergey Gorkov, Russian deputy minister of economic development; Wang Yilin, chairman of China's oil giant CNPC, and Zhou Xiaochun, vice-chairman of the board of directors of the essential Boao Forum.
Moscow's drive is to link the New Silk Roads or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Yet the ultimate geoeconomic target is even more ambitious; a "Greater Eurasian partnership", where BRI converges with the EAEU, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and ASEAN. At its core lies the Russia-China strategic partnership.
The roadmap ahead, of course, involves striking the right chords in a complex balance of political interests and management practices amid multiple East-West projects. Cultural symbiosis has to be part of the picture. The Russia-China partnership is increasingly inclined to reason in go (weiqi, the game) terms, a shared vision based on universal strategic principles.
Another key discussion in Vladivostok featured Fyodor Lukyanov, research director at the always essential Valdai Discussion Club, and Lanxin Xiang, director of the Centre of One Belt and One Road Studies at the China National Institute for SCO International Exchange. That centered on the geopolitics of Asian interaction, involving key BRICS members Russia, China and India, and how Russia might be able to capitalize on it while navigating the harrowing sanctions and trade war swamp.
All power from Siberia
It all comes back to the basics and the evolving Russia-China strategic partnership. Xi and Putin are implicated to the core. Xi defines the partnership as the best mechanism to "jointly neutralize the external risks and challenges". For Putin, "our relations are crucial, not only for our countries, but for the world as well." It's the first time ever that a Chinese leader has joined the Vladivostok discussions.
China is progressively interconnecting with the Russian Far East. International transport corridors – Primorye 1 and Primorye 2 – will boost cargo transit between Vladivostok and northeast China. Gazprom is about to complete the Russian stretch of the massive Power of Siberia gas pipeline to China, in agreement with CNPC. Over 2,000 kilometers of pipes have been welded and laid from Yakutia to the Russian-Chinese border. Power of Siberia starts operating in December 2019.
According to the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the partnership is evaluating 73 investment projects worth more than $100 billion. The overseer is the Russian-Chinese Business Advisory Committee, including more than 150 executives from leading Russian and Chinese companies. The CEO of RDIF, Kirill Dmitriev, is convinced "particularly promising transactions will be found in bilateral deals that capitalize on the Russia-China relationship."
In Vladivostok, Putin and Xi once again agreed to keep increasing bilateral trade on yuan and rubles, bypassing the US dollar – building upon a mutual decision in June to increase the number of yuan-ruble contracts. In parallel, Economic Development Minister Maksim Oreshkin advised Russians to sell US dollars and buy rubles.
Moscow expects the ruble to appreciate to around 64 per US dollar next year. It's currently trading at around 70 rubles against the dollar, dragged down by US sanctions and the dollar weaponization wreaking havoc in BRICS members Brazil, India and South Africa, as well as potential BRICS Plus states such as Turkey and Indonesia.
Putin and Xi once again reaffirmed they will continue to work in tandem on their inter-Korean roadmap based on "dual freeze" – North Korea suspends nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches while the US suspends military drills with Seoul.
But what really seems to be capturing the imagination of the Koreas is the Trans-Korean railway. Kim Chang-sik, head of railway development in Pyongyang said: "We will further develop this project on the basis of negotiations between Russia, North Korea and South Korea, so that the owners of this project will be the countries of the Korean peninsula."
That connects to what South Korean President Moon Jae-in said only three months ago: "Once the Trans-Korean main line is built, it may be connected to the Trans-Siberian Railway. In this case, it would be possible to deliver goods from South Korea to Europe, which would be economically beneficial not only to South and North Korea, but to Russia as well."
Understanding the matryoshka
Contrary to misinformed or manipulated Western hysteria, the current Vostok war games in the Russian Far East's Trans-Baikal, including 3,000 Chinese troops, are just a section of the much deeper, complex Russia-China strategic partnership. This is all about a matryoshka: the war game is a doll inside the geoeconomic game.
In 'China and Russia: The New Rapprochement', Alexander Lukin, from the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow, lays down the roadmap in detail; the evolving, Eurasia-wide economic partnership is part of a much larger, comprehensive concept of "Greater Eurasia". This is the core of the Russia-China entente, leading to what political scientist Sergey Karaganov has dubbed, "a common space for economic, logistic and information cooperation, peace and security from Shanghai to Lisbon and from New Delhi to Murmansk."
Without understanding the Big Picture enveloping debates such as the annual gathering in Vladivostok, it's impossible to understand how the progressive integration of BRI, EAEU, SCO, ASEAN, BRICS and BRICS Plus is bound to irreversibly change the current world-system.
Filed under: China, Eurasia, Iran, Japan, Korea, Putin, Russia | Tagged: Pepe Escobar, SCO, Silk Road |	Comments Off on Greater Eurasia coming together in the Russian Far East
Aftermath of the (unnecessary) US Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Posted on August 9, 2018 by michaellee2009
Aftermath of the US Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – Voice Over – Russian Ambassador 1945
Filed under: America, Japan, US Foreign Policy, USA | Tagged: Tax Dollars at Work, US Lies |	Comments Off on Aftermath of the (unnecessary) US Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
US to Hold Massive Military Exercise on Korean Peninsula…Again
Posted on November 25, 2017 by Richard Edmondson
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
US Trying to Deliberately 'Provoke' North Korea, says Lavrov
It was back in August that the US staged a massive 10-day war war games exercise on the Korean peninsula. Involving some 75,000 US and South Korean troops, the exercise, dubbed "Ulchi-Freedom Guardian," saw forces deployed on land, sea, and in the air–a massive display of military power denounced by the North Koreans as a "reckless behavior driving the situation into the uncontrollable phase of a nuclear war"…and it was also around this time that the DPRK threatened to attack Guam.
Now here we are three months later, and the US is about to do it all again. An exercise called "Vigilance Ace" is scheduled to run December 4-8, and according to Sputnik it will involve 230 war planes, including F-22 Raptors and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.
The "realistic" combat exercise is tailored to "enhance interoperability between US and Republic of Korea forces and crease the combat effectiveness of both nations," the Seventh US Air Force, which operates out of South Korea, said in a Friday statement.
All this comes just 10 days after reports emerged of three US aircraft carrier groups taking positions in waters around the Korean peninsula in what North Korea's UN ambassador described as a "strike posture."
As in the previous two incidents–the Ulchi-Freedom exercise in August and the carrier deployments earlier this month–the North Koreans are again speaking out in protest, calling the upcoming Vigilance Ace games a "serious provocation."
But perhaps the most arresting, eye-brow-raising remarks of all have come from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who suggested that the US is intentionally trying to provoke the North Koreans.
"We are alarmed that in the last two months when North Korea conducted no tests or rocket launches, it seemed that Washington was not happy about that, and tried to do things that would irritate and provoke Pyongyang," Lavrov said.
He has a good point. It has been approximately 70 days since North Korea's last missile test. Why the need for a massive military exercise now?
Lavrov also suggested that the confrontation with North Korea is a pretext, and that the real objective is the placement of US missiles on Russia's doorstep. He is almost certainly correct in this, but of course it is extremely rare for a high-ranking Russian official to speak this candidly.
"We are expressing deep concern, with facts to back it up, that Japan, along with South Korea, is becoming a territory for the deployment of elements of the US global missile defence system which is being rolled out in that region under the pretext of the North Korea threat," Lavrov said.
"We have no problems directly with Japan, we do not see risks there. We see risks because of the proliferation of a global US missile defence system on the territory of countries that neighbour Russia, including Japan," he added.
Lavrov made the remarks during a visit to Moscow by Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono.
Russia and China have proposed an agreement calling for an end to US war games on the Korean peninsula in exchange for a halt in missile testing by the North. The proposal has been rejected by the US and South Korea.
Filed under: Japan, North Korea, Russia, US Foreign Policy, USA | Tagged: Lavrov, Richard Edmondson, Trump |	Comments Off on US to Hold Massive Military Exercise on Korean Peninsula…Again
The US dilemma in the Iranian nuclear file المأزق الأميركي في الملف النووي الإيراني
The US dilemma in the Iranian nuclear file
The US President Donald Trump has chosen his weakest points and the strongest points of the Iranian force in order to fight with Iran; he made the Iranian nuclear file an issue that is full of the files of disagreements with Iran regarding its missile program, the security of Israel, and the regional role of Iran, towards the future of Hezbollah and its resistance, he was about to show the US weakness in the international arena. The agreement on the Iranian nuclear file is an international convention that does not accommodate the US approach of the disputing bilateral files with Iran. the officials of Trump's administration declared about their sticking to the agreement and the seeking to modify it as they said, they are aware that the modification according to their terms is impossible, because their demands collide with a dispute on the description with at least two main partners namely Russia and China, and Iran for sure whether concerning the missile program of Iran, the regional role of Iran, or the role of Hezbollah. If this modification is impossible then the fate of the US movement will be the failure.
The second problem of America is European regarding the bad choice. Europe which participated Washington in its reservations on the missile program of Iran and its concern for Israel's security, and its anticipation for disciplining Hezbollah, but it does not want to affect the nuclear agreement, because this agreement is its way for the positive partnership with Iran economically and politically in achieving the stability in Syria and Iraq in particular, in order to prevent the growth of terrorism and its rootedness on one hand. It became stable that there will be no security in Europe without extinguishing the wars in Syria and Iraq, furthermore no extinguishing of these wars without Iran and even without Hezbollah. On the other hand, it resorts to Iran to maintain stability and to return the lifecycle as the prevention of the flow of the immigrants and the displaced people to Europe. The Demographic stability of Europe has become the way to preserve the unity of its entities, after the destabilization resulted from the displacement has led to the exit of Britain from the European Union. The displacement leads to dual opposing growth of the racism of the Nazi –right and the incubating environment of extremism among the displaced and immigrants, without stopping the displacement, the communities of Europe will be threatened of disintegration and the unity of its entities will be threatened, just for that it puts aside its reservations and tries to protect the agreement with Iran, it sees it as a way for getting out of recession, after Washington has monopolized the Gulf's money to resolve its crises, so what are left are Iran , Syria, and Iraq.
The third problem of America regarding the nuclear agreement with Iran is Asian in terms of the future of the engagement with North Korea from two opposite perspectives, if the content of the message headed to Iran was that there is no usefulness in the positioning under the ceiling of the international law which the major countries that claim to guard it, refuse to apply it on themselves and thus do not commit to, and that the path of North Korea is beneficial through rebellion and threat. Although Iran which possesses in geography, capabilities, and population what is not possessed by North Korea and thus it can rebel and threaten, it accepted to stick to the peaceful nuclear file and to present the necessary guarantees for that. But the superpowers of the world showed it that the conventions are valueless, and sticking to the law does not benefit, while the military nuclear deterrence of North Korea protects it. In contrast, America tells North Korea that the example of the Iranian commitment calls to avoid falling into the trap of accepting understandings that lead to non- possession of nuclear weapons, because the commitment does not ensure the dealing according to law and conventions, since the force is the only way understood by Washington, therefore the result of the US movement is encouraging those who advocate possessing the nuclear weapons among the Iranians and weakening those who advocate going to understandings, as well as complicating the dialogue and negotiation with North Korea, This makes Japan and North Korea avoid including their votes to the advocates of the US position, and makes Seoul and Tokyo aware that the nuclear agreement with Iran is the only example to persuade Pyongyang to abandon the nuclear weapons, provided to be an attractive and encouraging example.
Trump has not succeeded in attracting advocates but Israel and Saudi Arabia, if the US-Saudi- Israeli alliance was enough to form a balance of power against Iran, despite the big differences between the nuclear agreement and others, it would be enough to resolve the situation of Syria, and it would be another agreement than the one we know.
المأزق الأميركي في الملف النووي الإيراني
-اختار الرئيس الأميركي دونالد ترامب أضعف حلقات قوته وأقوى حلقات القوة الإيرانية ساحة للنزال بينه وبين إيران، فجعل الملف النووي الإيراني وعاء يتسع لملفات الخلاف مع إيران حول برنامجها الصاروخي وأمن «إسرائيل» ودور إيران الإقليمي، وصولاً لمستقبل حزب الله ومقاومته. كان الدعسة الناقصة التي ستتكفّل بتظهير الضعف الأميركي على الساحة الدولية. فالاتفاق على الملف النووي الإيراني معاهدة دولية لا تتسع لاستيعاب المقاربة الأميركية للملفات الخلافية الثنائية مع إيران، وبعدما صرّح مسؤولو إدارة ترامب بالتمسك بالاتفاق والسعي لتعديله كما قالوا، يدركون أن التعديل بشروطهم مستحيل، لأن مطالبهم تصطدم بخلاف على التوصيف مع شريكين أساسيين على الأقل، هما روسيا والصين وإيران حكماً، سواء حول البرنامج الصاروخي لإيران أو حول دور إيران الإقليمي أو حول دور حزب الله، وإذا كان هذا التعديل مستحيلاً، ولا تعديل سواه، فيصير مصير الحركة الأميركية هو الفشل.
–مشكلة أميركا الثانية في الاختيار السيئ، أوروبية. فأوروبا التي قد تشارك واشنطن بتحفظاتها على البرنامج الصاروخي لإيران وقلقها على أمن «إسرائيل»، وتطلعها لتقليم أظافر حزب الله، لا تريد المساس بالاتفاق النووي ولا تعريضه للاهتزاز، لأنه طريقها للتشارك الإيجابي مع إيران اقتصادياً وسياسياً في تحقيق الاستقرار في سورية والعراق خصوصاً، منعاً لنمو الإرهاب وتجذره من جهة. وقد صار ثابتاً أنه لا أمن لأوروبا من دون إطفاء الحروب في سورية والعراق، ولا إطفاء لهذه الحروب من دون إيران، بل ومن دون حزب الله. ومن جهة ثانية الاستعانة بإيران لحفظ الاستقرار وإعادة دورة الحياة كطريق لمنع تدفق المهاجرين والنازحين نحو أوروبا. وقد صار استقرار أوروبا الديمغرافي طريق الحفاظ على وحدة كياناتها، بعدما تكفل الاهتزاز الناجم عن النزوح بخروج بريطانيا من الاتحاد الأوروبي، ويتكفّل مسلسل النزوح بنمو متقابل مزدوج، لعنصرية اليمين النازي، والبيئة الحاضنة للتطرف بين النازحين والمهاجرين، ومن دون وقف النزوح تجد أوروبا التهديد لتفتت مجتمعاتها، وتهديد وحدة كياناتها. ولهذا تضع جانباً تحفظاتها، وتتجه لحماية الاتفاق مع إيران، لا بل تراه طريقاً للخروج من الكساد، وقد احتكرت واشنطن مال الخليج لحل أزماتها، وما بقي لأوروبا إلا إيران وسورية والعراق.
-مشكلة أميركا الثالثة في فتح ملف الاتفاق النووي مع إيران، آسيوية، لجهة مستقبل التجاذب مع كوريا الشمالية، من زاويتين متقابلتين. فإذا كانت الرسالة الموجهة لإيران مضمونها أن لا جدوى من التموضع تحت سقف القانون الدولي، الذي لا تلتزمه الدول العظمى أصلاً التي تدّعي حراسته وترفض تطبيقه على أنفسها. والرسالة لإيران هنا هي أن طريق كوريا الشمالية هو المجدي بالتمرّد والتهديد، وإيران إن تمردت وهددت تملك في الجغرافيا والمقدرات والسكان ما لا تملكه كوريا الشمالية، ورغم ذلك ارتضت طريق التمسك بملف نووي سلمي وقدّم ما يلزم من ضمانات لذلك، وتأتي الدولة العظمى الأولى في العالم وتقول لها المعاهدات لا قيمة لها، والالتزام بالقانون لا يقدّم ولا يؤخّر، بينما الردع النووي العسكري لكوريا الشمالية يحميها، وبالمقابل تقول اللغة الأميركية لكوريا الشمالية أن مثال الالتزام الإيراني يدعو لتجنب الوقوع في فخ القبول بالتفاهمات المؤدية لعدم امتلاك السلاح النووي، لأن الالتزام لا يضمن تعاملاً بمقاييس القانون، والمعاهدات. فالقوة وحدها هي التي تفهمها واشنطن، وبالتالي، نتيجة الحركة الأميركية تشجيع دعاة امتلاك السلاح النووي بين الإيرانيين، وإضعاف دعاة الذهاب للتفاهمات، وكذلك تعقيد الحوار والتفاوض مع كوريا الشمالية. وهذا ما جعل اليابان وكوريا الجنوبية تتجنّبان ضم صوتيهما لمؤيدي الموقف الأميركي، وسيول وطوكيو تدركان أن الاتفاق النووي مع إيران هو النموذج الوحيد الذي يمكن عبره إقناع بيونغ يانغ بالتخلّي عن السلاح النووي، شرط أن يكون مثالاً مغرياً ومشجّعاً.
-لم ينجح ترامب بجذب مؤيدين إلا «إسرائيل» والسعودية. ولو كان التحالف الأميركي السعودي «الإسرائيلي» كافياً لتشكيل ميزان قوة بوجه إيران، لكان، رغم الفوارق الكبيرة بين حال الاتفاق النووي وسواه، كافياً لحسم سورية، وعندها لكان اتفاق غير الاتفاق الذي نعرفه.
ترفيع إيران إلى مرتبة عدو أميركا الأول
استراتيجية ترامب حيال إيران… مواجهات غير محسوبة!
الكونغرس الأميركي ضحية جديدة لترامب!
طهران تلوّح بالانسحاب من الاتفاق النووي واستئناف أنشطتها النووية خلال أيام..
ميركل وماي: بلادنا ملتزمة بالاتفاق النووي لكننا ضدّ برنامج طهران الصاروخي
ترامب يقود بلاده إلى العزلة.. هل يحصل الطلاق بين أوروبا وأميركا؟
قرارات ترامب تفتح الطريق أمام هزيمة الولايات المتحدة
«النووي» يزيد التوتّر بين واشنطن وأوروبا: إلغاء الاتفاق يزيد من خطر الحرب
Filed under: Europe, Hezbollah, House of Saud, Iran, Japan, North Korea, Russia, US Foreign Policy, USA, War on Syria | Tagged: AngloZionist Empire, Axis of Resistance, ISIL, Nasser Kandil, nuclear arsenal, Refugees, Trump, Zionist entity |	Comments Off on The US dilemma in the Iranian nuclear file المأزق الأميركي في الملف النووي الإيراني
Sixty Mimutes: Nasser Kandil on the Emerging Multipolar World and the 5 Seas Region
Posted on October 7, 2017 by uprootedpalestinians
Filed under: China, Egypt, France, Germany, House of Saud, Iran, Japan, multipolar world, Russia, Syria, Syria Assad, UK, USA | Tagged: AngloZionist Empire, Axis of Resistance, Nasser Kandil, The 5 Seas Region |	Comments Off on Sixty Mimutes: Nasser Kandil on the Emerging Multipolar World and the 5 Seas Region