A long and ranty piece. Excerpted here of some of the rantiest parts. Still long, but not quite so long.

1. Is Operation Z (The Invasion Of Ukraine) Explicable By “Putin Is Evil?”

I cannot agree with what seems to be the dominant explanation in the West that the Russian invasion of Ukraine occurred because Putin is evil. The ‘explanation’ is usually accompanied by claims that Putin is a megalomaniac and a Russian criminal; that his rulership lacks all legitimacy; that Ukrainians are the victims of his overriding ambition to restore Russia’s imperial place in the world; and that Putin is pushing the world to the brink of a third world war and hence must be stopped.

“What are we going to do about Putin?” as an old friend, in her late sixties, full of existential distress and brimming with moral fervor, exclaimed at a recent lunch. The same sentiments have also been repeated by scholars I admire deeply and have often found common cause with, in this very magazine. Thus, in an email chain I am part of, a historian, whom I consider one of the finest of our times, wrote in support of Ryszard Legutko’s condemnation of Putin in the European Parliament that he spoke “for all of us.” Given that I have recently written very enthusiastically on Legutko’s book on freedom here in the Postil, as well as having written an open letter condemning his appalling treatment at the hands of his fellow colleagues and students at his university, I wish that I did see things like him. But I cannot unsee what I see, and what I see comes from my readings and thought gathered over my adult life as a university teacher, where amongst other things, I taught International Relations.

Likewise, the very friend who introduced me to the Postil, and whose writings I have also applauded in these pages, Zbigniew Janowski, sent me his essay, “Ukraine And The West’s National Interest,” about the Ukraine war for comment. That and the request by another friend to share my take on this war have led me to set out my considerations.

War today is mass death, and horrific suffering, but I find all of the above “diagnosis,” to put it mildly, not only lacking in analytical seriousness but contributing to the mindset that has cried out in support of what—each and every time—have turned out to be disastrous military interventions which have only added chaos in regions which were bad enough before the toppling of regimes said to be guilty of “killing their own people”—a turn of phrase that people utter with such seriousness, as if its very formulation gives the situation a special kind of moral significance that we might otherwise be silly enough to conflate with any other kind of mass killing.

Thus, it is now that the people wanting to line up to morally address this geopolitical tragedy—why I formulate it thus shall become evident—have mostly been silent on Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Many, though far from all, who want NATO to “teach Putin a lesson” (said at the same lunch, where the woman’s husband squared up, “Putin is a bully who must be taught a lesson”) had also supported the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. I confess to having been ambivalent back then—in the case of Iraq, at least when it seemed that the CIA had definite proof about the WMD’s; and now seeing I was utterly wrong to believe that these operations were, at best, anything more than massive strategic blunders (leaving aside the whole “blood for oil” dimensions) that made things far worse than they were—and has only highlighted the deficiencies of the armed forces of the West.

This “essay”—if essay it be—is really a collection of considerations that bring together aspects of the tumult of the times which most would think irrelevant—and they are certainly irrelevant to the narrative-thematics mentioned above—but which for me are critical for any serious response to the war. It is a response that eschews the search for a single cause—because, like everything historically important, such searches are as futile as they are distracting and wrong-headed. That means that it is also not a search for moral culpability as such—for as is very evident to me and as I shall lay out, there is plenty of culpability to go around—though it does seem that plenty of people, including journalists, are either ignorant of, or silent about, all matter of circumstances and players that are pertinent to the disaster of this war. Geopolitical questions are never adequately answered by “He did it!” And yes of course Putin ordered the invasion. But the question that must always be posed to an event is: How has the “who” come to be doing the “what?” And what exactly does the “what” involve?

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As much as the whole gang in a sane world would be players in some Aristophanean farce, we are living in a Western cold civil war and issues that people generally treat as separate are not separate at all. For while the issues that cause division vary from climate to biology to virology, the sociology of race, ethnicity, to political theology and to domestic politics and geopolitics—the pitch and consequence is the same: families and friends, classes and nations turn against each other with ferocity; and the West is in a phase of ideological divisiveness, reminiscent of the political chaos in the post-First World War period. Putin cannot be blamed for any of this. In this civil war, the technocratic lords and their minions are winning in the West (I am sure though that their victory though will be pyrrhic). There are plenty of indications that the “glorious future” (of Western developed societies) will be one of total surveillance. All matters, from climate to environmental issues, to everything social, political, and economic will be in the hands and minds of specialists.

Thinkers of the left (Marcuse in One Dimensional Man) and the right (Heidegger in too many places to mention) envisaged and warned against this almost a century ago. Now one does not need to be a philosopher to make sense of the future, as it takes shape before our eyes, and we witness the transformation of politics into the mere administration of things, including humanity, as Saint-Simon initially formulated it. Food, water and air—all of life—become the “things” to be treated as part of one great calculable planning and trading system by the global oligarchs, political elite and technocrats working on behalf of their version of the good of human kind.

These considerations are neither fanciful, nor off-point. On the contrary, the idea that what is happening in Ukraine can even be remotely considered apart from what else is happening in the Western world strikes me as mad—or, in less polemic terms, methodologically deficient.

2. The Bigger Picture, Or The Great Contestation Of Our Time

The political contestation today that matters in the Western world, and thereby impacts upon the entire planet—and the only one that is really about making the future—is between those who are with a program of global leadership and compliance to the narratives of rights, sustainability, censorship, population control, and the complete technocratization of life, and those who oppose it. The lines of division are not lines that most people are even conscious of (which is typical of people in a phase of an event whose meaning is yet to become known even to the inside players—i.e., the makers of it). But in our age of crisis building upon crisis, the lines always come down to more or less the same people, providing the same methods, for the same kinds of solutions—and all based in moral principles that are ostensibly and fortuitously congruent with “the science,” and which will supposedly lead to a more equal and emancipate world (even though they actually lead to a world of greater conformity and compliance, greater censorship and control and an unprecedented scale of inequality). On this last point, consider how Western COVID policies have impacted on the economies of impoverished countries.

The Ukraine war is one more component of an assemblage of a technocratic globalist world outlook that has multiple open organs of articulation and instantiation. This outlook is widely publicized and broadly crafted. It is not a conspiracy, if one means that there is a plan that is hatched secretly and well executed. The plan—and the vocabulary in which it is formulated—is publicly aired in multiple forums from the UN to the World Economic Forum, from corporate CEOs to NGOs, from newspapers and television stations, and in university and primary school class-rooms.

If, however, one means that a group of players seeks to impose their will upon others to control the direction of resources and the organization and administration of life is a conspiracy—stated thus, then all politics is a conspiracy. Those who believe that “the science,” and hence a technocratic elite, are both necessary to solve the problems of the species and the planet then have to accept that the consequences of implementation are and will be extremely violent. It is very understandable why people think that population control, green energy, universal income etc. are very good outcomes, just as it is very understandable why peasants and workers in Russia and China thought that the solution of communism would be a very good thing. The problem with their position is not only what the world will be like if it arrives to where it is being led (see above), but the horrific costs involved in getting from this world to that future “world.” Those who are challenging this globalist vision believe that this arrival can only be achieved by a level of destruction, and domination that will make the totalitarianism of the twentieth century seem but a prelude to a greater horror.

The “to come” is the messianic formulation that a number of philosophers have used to invoke this future, which will ostensibly emancipate every oppressed group. It is just a fancy name for what Marxists-Leninist used to call “the glorious future” and the “New Man.” Its greatest obstacle is not (as endlessly repeated) the privilege and prejudices of dominators who ideologically indoctrinate the dominated—but traditions which give most people a thicker identity than the thinner ones of race, ethnicity (the very issue that has been the tinderbox in Ukraine), gender, sexuality—all distorted and self-serving ideas of intellectuals who advocate the globalist “view” of emancipation and personhood. The victims of these ideas are primarily the working classes.

Amongst the intelligentsia, it is a tiny and insignificant group of outcasts who are coming to see that any allegiances to the old alliances of left and right (liberal-conservative) have not the slightest relevance at all—because states, corporations and NGOs are equally culpable, being fully integrated into the program, which is (to use a term of that Parisian enthusiast of “nomad thinking,” Gilles Deleuze) rhizomic in its “logic” and evolution, rather than arboreal. This program is a contagion in which the makers of “the future” act in concert, without even realizing what it is that they are making or what the program even is. This too is simply the way events generally transpire, and how we all live, i.e., mostly unaware of what we are doing whilst we do it. It is global in the variety of interests, ideological preferences and types of people that are drawn into its epicentre.

Those who are being drawn in, come from every corner of the globe, and one should not underestimate the attractive “goods” that are promised—prosperity, which given the technological potential unlocked by the fusion of global forces, resources and techniques, enable the chosen ones to live as gods (no wonder the dream is to find technologies to defeat not only sickness but death itself), and pleasure, including the most intense sexual pleasures and array of pleasurable possibilities (the most widely cited philosopher of our time, Michel Foucault, was both prophet and avatar of this new “higher” type).

In most traditional societies those who seek to live their lives pursuing such pleasures have been either outlawed outright, though mostly left to seek their pleasures in hidden, draped and private spaces. But to fabricate entire life identities around a sexual act or preference, so that it becomes a means for the complete overturning of traditional institutions and the touchstone of value is insane, not least because it cannot create the same kinds of sacrificial bonds of solidarity that enable societies to persist over long period of times.

Lest anyone think I am overstating the significance of sexual identity politics, consider the public head of MI6, who came out saying at the very beginning of the Ukraine war that the real difference between Russia and the West is to be seen in how they respectively respond to LGBTQ rights.

Like pretty well every political leader in the non-Western world, not to mention the Islamic world (is it Islamophobic to mention that rainbow flags do not fly atop government buildings in Islamic countries?), Putin does not want to allow sexual identity/diversity politics to flourish in Russia; and it is one reason he is hated so much by liberals in the Western world.

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It is not that I support Putin as if he and the Russians are to be likened to a team I follow, but I am very sure that much of what I am seeing is seen by Putin, as it is by a philosopher, Alexander Dugin, whose thought is gaining increasing exposure as the true source of Putin’s evil thoughts—as if apart from Dugin’s Taking over the World for Dummies, Putin’s library might resemble Pelossi’s bookshelf, and he does not have enough information-flow just by observing the world he is in. Is it being a Putin lackey to suggest if there were a test in political history and geo-politics Putin might blow away any world western leader including Boris, who one would expect to fare well in the Classics bit, but not so great in the final question, “What is going on now and what are you going to do about it?”

Apart from the ridiculousness of this cartoonish division of the world into this hybrid monster (supposedly knowing about Dugin is a sign that one really understands the mechanics of evil coming out of Russia ) and the innocent rest, what I am seeing is not something I want to see—nor is it something that I think Putin and Dugin want to see. Or to say it another way—if one looks at speeches or writings by Dugin and Putin, it is clear that they see the West in its death throes—last October Putin likened the West under the dominion of identity politics to Russia under communism, and (in spite of Putin really being a commie) that was not praise.

When Putin rebukes the West for being an “Empire of Lies” (I take up the problem of widespread Western lies—and the matter of “Russian lies” is simply not relevant to the lies of the West)—I do not know how one can deny that he has seen the rottenness that has become simply part of the day-to-day reality in the West—the fabrication, denunciation and persecution now usual in the West. I do not consider someone either wrong or an enemy, if they show me a character flaw; and I cannot see how the West can begin to heal the rifts that threaten to break it other than by addressing the lies that its elite states about itself, its opponents, and the world at large.

3. International Relations 101: The Russian-Ukraine War

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International conflicts are driven by all manner of reasons, from conflict over resources, to ideological or faith-driven decisions, to prestige. Often wars are the explosive resolutions of entanglements that have occurred over protracted periods of time and past decisions which cannot be unmade without tragic collisions. The history of nations and their interests are not, at least for the most part, as in one’s own life, the result of principles and wisdom, but of circumstances that involve our own and our forefathers’ oversights, missteps, sins and crimes, as well as our and their better judgments and qualities.

In spite of the Western media coverage of this war as a clear-cut case of good vs. evil, I find the position of those who depart from that narrative more compelling. There is John Mearsheimer, International Relations Professor, who, for many years, has been warning that the United States and NATO have been creating an intolerable geopolitical threat to Russia that would result in war.

There is the former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter whose time in active service in the first Iraq war gave him important insights into the regime of Saddam Hussein and why the claims being made about Hussein’s army and the weapons of mass destruction were false.

There is Jacques Baud who has an important essay in the Postil; and Colonel Douglas McGregor, who sums up the situation in terms of whether the USA has a legitimate and genuine national interest in what is a regional conflict.

As counter positions to the mainstream, I have also found 21st Century Wire, Patrick Henningsen podcasts, UK Column, George Galloway, Lee Stranahan, the Duran, Richard Medhurst, the Grayzone to be amongst those I tune into quite regularly and find informative. Anyone familiar with these podcasts and figures will know they fall on opposing sides on some important issues about states and markets—i.e., the left and right. But, as I state above, anyone who thinks that the demarcation between left-right, liberal-conservative, is living in a “literary reality.”

The analyses the aforementioned people provide comes from people challenging the mainstream media line (oozing out of our screens, earbuds and pages) that anything that does not support the Ukrainian cause and narrative is Russian propaganda. The most basic lesson one learns in International Politics is that peoples have different stakes to protect, and live in different “worlds” and they generally wish to protect their livelihoods and ways of being in the world—that is, people have different interests; and the word interest is synonymous with the how and why of life lived within a particular place and time. That is why it is important not just to listen to what Zelensky and the Ukrainians are saying and what we believe them to be doing, but also to what Putin and the Russians are saying and doing.

Putin has said that the invasion is to de-Nazify Ukraine—i.e., destroy the ultra-ethnic nationalist elite whose insignificant electoral representation is no indication of its social and institutional influence, and end NATO expansion.

None of the criticisms I have read against these claims takes these words seriously, though plenty try and deny that there is a neo-Nazi problem; or that the US ever conceded it would stop NATO expansion (a claim Putin often makes); or that there is any reason why Russia should be fazed by NATO expansion. I cannot take these “critical” claims seriously; and in any case, the issue is not what you or I think about how Putin should react to the number of neo-Nazis in Ukraine and the power they have garnered institutionally in pressing their interests, or about NATO expansion—what matters is how Putin and the Russian government think—and it would be wise to commence with the proposition that what they think is what they say, and if there is a mismatch between their words and deeds then interpret accordingly. I don’t think there is a mismatch. What I do see is a lot of people not listening, or not taking their words seriously.

On the matter of Russian expansion, I am inclined to defer to two figures who did foresee where NATO expansion into the East would lead, as they strongly advised against ignoring Russia’s concerns about that expansion—the architect of the US Cold War policy, George Kennan and the former ambassador to Ukraine, and career ambassador, and former ambassador to the Russian Federation William Burns. A similar position has also been aired by Peter Ford, a former UK ambassador to Syria, who has first-hand experience of that ongoing debacle of supplying arms to jihadists who were supposedly our friends and who helped in the creation of ISIS.

But NATO expansion aside, the immediate occasion of the invasion was the mass positioning of Ukrainian troops and the imminent threat of even greater escalation by the Ukrainians of border disputes arising out of the Maidan. The establishment of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic, like the secession of Crimea, are the direct result of attacks upon Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Though, if the Western media is to be believed, the escalation of violence against Russian-speakers, like everything else that Russians say, was mere propaganda and it was simply an open-and-shut case of invasion.

In the Donbas, a civil war has cost many thousands of lives (14000 is the common number bandied around), most of which are Russian-speakers. This too has received scant (albeit occasional) Western media attention, though Patrick Lancaster has been living there and reporting on this unknown civil war for eight years.

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But forgive me if I am somewhat sceptical—what I see is that a huge number of Ukrainians have the very good sense to simply want to get out of the place. And while the Ukrainian army is sizable and well-armed, there are also reports of the government distributing tens of thousands of assault rifles to civilians. This is, as the Russian media and government rightly point out, in breach of international law, requiring the clear demarcation between civilians and combatants. While the Western media has no problem finding stories about unwilling Russian troops, we are supposed to believe that Ukrainians still in Kiev, one and all, are noble, patriotic freedom fighters. Sorry, but I grew up a long time ago, and in spite of the absurd, albeit widespread depiction within anti-Russian media, of Russia as the USSR and Nazi German redux, such analogies do not hold up to even the most cursory of examinations.

There have also been stories coming out of Mariupol of Ukrainian soldiers using civilians as human shields. Like all inconvenient stories about the war they are immediately denied, without investigation by Western journalists and said to be Russian propaganda. But, I ask, why would the non-combatants want to stay in the city, and why would the battalions that Russian soldiers are intent on destroying not be prepared to save themselves at any cost? The military tactics of the Russians do indicate that the objectives of Russia are what Putin says they are—to demilitarize Ukraine and not simply erase it. Thus, it seems plausible that any captured Ukrainian soldier found to have links with the Azov battalion or any other ethnic ultra-nationalist Ukrainian group will in all likelihood be executed immediately.

Whatever we say about Zelensky, he was as incapable of building peace in Ukraine as he was in reducing corruption. In spite of all the media hoopla he receives for his courage in standing up to a tyrant, and speeches that look like they come from US hack-tv drama writers, he was no statesman. He is either truly child-like or has so little knowledge of relatively recent history that he really thought that Russia would simply standby and wait for the Minsk agreements to continually be ignored and watch as Ukrainian forces were got ready to launch a final defeat of the Russian-speaking resistance in the Donbas.

If, by the way, anyone thinks that ethnic-nationalist militias killing Russian first language speakers with impunity, and infiltrating the various institutions of Ukraine, including the military is untrue, which is now the Western media default position, you should go back and read/watch reports in the Guardian and BBC when they were not just outlets of propaganda. You might also turn to a paper, put out by the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University just last September, by Oleksiy Kuzmenko, “Far Right Group Made its Home in Ukraine’s Major Western Military Training Hub.” And if you do not think providing a de facto, if not de jure, front for NATO’s strategic advancement, and threatening Russia with nuclear war, is not brinkmanship, I hazard to guess what would be.

In any case, Mr. Zelensky has had the kind of lesson in geopolitics that those who had the temerity to defy the United States have often had to learn to their peril. And while the United States and other European Nations desist from direct military involvement at least for the moment—though engaging in the now widely accepted practice of asset-seizures of Russian nationals (the future consequences of this policy bode very ill indeed for the world’s economy generally, as well as a future peace, or even the West’s economic power and credibility) as well as the sackings of Russians from all manner of jobs, from teaching to the arts—Mr. Zelensky berates the West for not being brave enough to have a full scale war.

As for the innocence of Saint Zelensky, I have said he is a tragic figure. But as he calls ever more desperately to bring the entire world into war, I cannot see him as anything other than a man who has stumbled blindly into this like a drunk with a match in the aforementioned nitroglycerine factory, panicking for his own survival; or, I will grant him this, possibly a place in the pantheon of the nation’s heroes, right alongside Stepan Bandera, that anti-Soviet Nazi ally and mass-murderer of Jews, Poles, and Russians.

If Western journalists stopped for a moment and realized that Putin does not care what they think of his actions, but he understands Russia and the events and figures within Russia’s historical memory. Putin understands that when President Yushenko posthumously awarded the medal of Hero of the Ukraine in 2010 to Bandera, and when the extremely crooked and much-hated President Pyotr Poroshenko, who emerged out of the Maidan, signed a law in 2015 glorifying the neo-fascist OUN and the UPA, this was a signal of support to Bandera neo-Nazi supporters and an acknowledgment of the need for the support of this influential power block.

Gone are the days when I, at least, could trust anything I see on the BBC. And yet again this prejudice I have developed was confirmed not just to be sheer prejudice, when a friend of mine sent me today a BBC report about how insignificant the Azov battalion and other neo-Nazi groups are in Ukraine and hence Putin was—yet again—telling lies that the roving intrepid BBC journalist was exposing. The “exposure” consisted of loosely tossing around some figures and speaking with Ukrainians who said: No there was no Neo-Nazi problem, there were hardly any of them; and in any case, they were good fighters, and their ideology was personal—akin to being a Seventh Day Adventist. One person who provided important evidence to discredit mad bad Vlad was good old Honest Poroshenko himself—who merely had to roll his eyes when asked of the existence of Ukrainian neo-Nazis.

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The heroic leader Zelensky, as he is portrayed in the West, looks like he is in an all-or-nothing situation. And the millions of dollars he has stashed away overseas, thanks to his former media mogul boss, oligarch—and all-round gangster—political backer, also the former employer of Hunter Biden, Ihor Kolomoyskyi (yes, he was the real owner of Burisma) won’t help him much. In the midst of a country mired in corruption (a little more of which anon), Zelensky, like his predecessor, has been completely played by the US and the EU for their own interests.

Unfortunately, the Ukrainians, who are caught in the midst of the horrors, are learning what I think is the kind of thing anyone learns about in IR or IP classes 101, at least those classes that (admittedly becoming rare) are not taught by some eager beaver social justice warrior reducing geopolitics to race, class and gender. (If you think I am joking, check out how big a field feminist International Relations is now.)

In a world where one would not be denounced as a traitor or apologist of evil for thinking about national interests, International Politics teachers, when trying to understand Russia’s position and role in this event, would, I think, typically (and I have a seen a number of people more or less raise this same example) ask their students to imagine that the US has returned large parts of land annexed by Texas and California in the 19th century to Mexico.

Imagine then that the predominantly English-speaking groups within those territories found themselves disputing about regional resource extraction and distribution with Spanish-speaking groups, most of whom lived on the other side of the country. Then these ethnic tensions culminated in a coup, partly enabled by Chinese meddling in internal affairs. The regions that had formerly been parts of Texas and California became embroiled in a civil war.

The Texan and Californian Mexicans were being continuously bombed by the Mexican government—they were hearing true stories of the government closing down media outlets sympathetic to their cause, and forbidding the English language being taught in Mexican schools—just as the English did with the Irish and Welsh (and has been done in Quebec).

Then China wanted to put rockets on Mexican soil, and were sending in troops on the ground to train Mexican troops; and then the Mexican President said he wanted to build up the country’s nuclear capacity as well as have a more formal security alliance with China which it was desperate to join with other allies of China.

If a student in discussing this scenario were to pipe up and say, “The US President not only should, but would accept all this, and that any President who took military action to intervene on behalf of the persecuted ethnic Anglo-Americans and push back against Chinese meddling in its sphere of influence, would be proof of him being an evil megalomaniac”—any IR teacher would be thinking, “I have completely failed this student—he (sorry, I meant it) has no clue.”

But this all is meant to sound reasonable when we just insert the words “Putin,” “Russia,” “Ukraine” and the “USA.” It reminds me of how our educated elite think it perfectly acceptable to say that “white men are exploiters, thieves, privileged, undeserving etc.,” but were the “white men” replaced with “Jews,” “women,” “blacks,” there would be mass outrage.

The thinking that ignores geopolitical “realities” (and they are realities because of forces that have accrued over a protracted period of time; they are delicately poised; and the failure of statesmen to balance them come with massive consequences)—enables mass death. And in spite of the voluntarist metaphysical tendency that has completely seized the Western mind, these realities do not wilt under the glare of a moral(izing), that is to say, hypocritical, conscience.

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4. “A Thug In The Kremlin?” Or, Comparative Politics 101

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The history of political philosophy can roughly be broken down into two schools—one consists of thinkers like Aristotle, such as Montesquieu, Burke, and in some important ways G.W.F. Hegel, and de Tocqueville, who are driven by the comparative method which takes account of historical and social conditions which dictate the choices available to statesmen and peoples. The other school takes its bearing from norms, rational principles, arguments and ideal standards, Plato is their founder; and its modern exponents include John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau (who in his less known and better political observations drops it), Immanuel Kant, J.G. Fichte, the neo-Hegelians and (once one unveils the fog and contradictions of historical materialism) Marxist-Leninists, John Rawls, and (also once one gets through the thicket of fog) the post-structuralists—and George Bush and the neo-cons, Barack Obama and the liberal world order more generally.

As you can see, this second group is ideologically very diverse (hence I suppose some clown in university administration can satisfy themselves that this would be a good thing—hell, there is even a black guy in the list, and plenty of feminist theorists to fill the bill). Unfortunately, their position is built upon inferences rather than detailed knowledge of circumstance, which is also why their position is a great platform for making noble-sounding speeches; but when it comes to political action is either irrelevant (the cause of very bad decisions and inevitable failure to get the outcomes that accord with the principles, which inevitably leads to charges of outright hypocrisy), or catastrophic. This latter method, if method it really be, is easy to grasp once one adopts a first principle, an unassailable idea, which, of course, can be done with greater (as in Immanuel Kant or J.G. Fichte) or lesser sophistication, like the mainstream Western journalists and commentariat reporting on this war.

In keeping with this ‘idea-ist’ (sic.) approach, most arguments and reports about the war are framed as ethico-political denunciations of Russia—and the idea that if some fact harms the war effort of our team it must be Russian propaganda—and I have no doubt that this essay will be dismissed by many who skim it as pure Russian propaganda …oh well, this is the world we now live in.

The denunciations tend to assume one or both of the following: (a) Russia is a tyranny while the West is the font of freedom; and (b) Ukraine is really like the West both culturally and politically.

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First, let us briefly consider “the money”—that variable which is so widely used to identify a people’s welfare—as in GDP per capita. In Ukraine, the official GDP per capita in 2020 was $(US) 3,800 (adjusted for ppp $12, 100). In Russia, in 2020, GDP per capita had declined by some 30 percent, since its peak in 2013, but it was still over $10, 000, and rendered in ppp almost $ (US) 26,500.

Figures such as these never tell the whole story, but I think it symptomatic of a fact that I think is indisputable—since the demise of the Soviet Union there has never been a government in the Ukraine that has not been plagued by corruption, or, and this follows inexorably from the scale of the country’s corruption, that has managed to retain great popular support. Nor one that has been able to sufficiently rein in the power of the oligarchs that Ukraine could achieve even a moderate level of economic well being.

Before addressing Russia’s “authoritarian government,” I will state another fact that I think will not appeal to people whose image of Putin comes exclusively from Western main-stream media outlets. Putin has the kind of support base in the population that Western politicians only dream of, and the reason for that is not primarily because he is a thug/criminal/stand-over merchant.

The circumstances and challenges in Ukraine and Russia, in the aftermath of communism, were somewhat similar, though Ukraine was economically the poorer, with GDP per capita being $ (US) 1257 – but had halved by 2000; in 1993 Russia’s was a tad over $ (US) 3000, and had almost halved by 2000. The geographical distribution of resources in the country had created what many might consider a very undesirable state of things—the West was more dependent upon the East for its wealth, which is also why the Crimea and the Donbas were not just a matter of national pride for the various governments operating out of Kiev.

By the turn of the millennium the GDP per capita of both had roughly halved. Then, in the Putin years there came astonishing growth in Russia, around 10 percent until 2014. This was the kind of growth which is impossible to retain for protracted periods; and not only did it slow, with a combination of sanctions and a drop in oil prices, there was a steep decline. And though it has risen since 2014, it is still not back to the figures of 2010. But compared to the previous decade substantial improvements had been made in the material conditions of most Russians.

In Ukraine the take off point occurs around the same time, but the rise is far less substantial, also followed by decline and moderate rise. Also noteworthy is the telling figure that in 2021 remittances made up 12 percent of GDP in Ukraine, foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2021 was a third of that—estimates at the beginning of the war, based upon the large outflow of refugees, were that remittances would increase by 8 percent. Yes, that increase in remittances as a percentage of GDP may be laid at the door of the Russians, but the figure of 2021 is the kind of figure that one associates with a country with economic opportunities which make leaving a smart economic move.

The other important part of the story is corruption. We hear much of Putin and his Russian oligarch cronies in the West—but I am astonished how poorly informed are most people, who are otherwise well educated, about oligarchs in Ukraine and the problems of corrupt government. As with Russia, state assets were dissolved into vouchers, and the vouchers were bought at bargain basement prices, or simply stolen by those with the know-how or muscle to do so.

Katya Gorchinskaya’s six part report, “A Brief History of Corruption” identifies the major players and plays which have left Ukrainians amongst Europe’s poorest and most corrupt nations. It begins with President Kravchuk, the first to hold power in post-Soviet Ukraine, presiding over the economic privatisation and resource gobbling.

Amongst those doing the gobbling were two Ukrainian Prime Ministers, one of whom would be successfully prosecuted in the US for money-laundering, fraud and extortion; another, Yulia Tymoshenko, would become the attractive poster face—along with Victor Yushchenko—of the Orange Revolution. Tymoshenko would eventually be prosecuted for a range of crimes, from embezzlement to involvement in the murder of another oligarch, Yevhen Shcherban, with Yushchenko himself being a witness against her.

Tymoshenko was found guilty of profiting from gas contracts signed with Russia. Although she found support amongst European human rights organizations (Yuschchenko begged to differ with their defence of her). During the 1990s she and her family had made their fortunes in energy and controlled the United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU). It was Ukraine’s largest gas trader, “supplying gas from Russia’s Gazprom to seven of Ukraine’s large industrial and agricultural regions.”

While the initial distribution of vouchers had initially enabled the oligarchs’ rise to power, Gorchinskaya sees the biggest asset grab as the work of politicians in 1998. As she writes: “The list of parliamentarians reads like the yellow pages of Ukraine’s future oligarchy.”

Politics and corruption are common bed-fellows. I hazard the obvious conjecture: the difference between them and Russian and Western politicians, who have made spectacular amounts of money after decades of public service, is that in Ukraine and Russia there was a brief moment of a bonanza round of assets available to them that made the usual grift seem like child’s play.

The scandals surrounding every President in the Ukraine parliament are easily discovered, and I don’t need to enter into more detail. In any case the headline from a piece in the Guardian in February 2015 sums it all up: “Welcome to Ukraine, the most corrupt nation in Europe.” It showed the West what everyone who lived there knew—that in spite of the victory over the Russian stooge/crook Yanukovich, in spite of the deaths, the noble speeches, the visits of US and European dignitaries, and promises of support, in spite of the flags, songs, international media coverage Ukraine was an economic and crime ridden dump—with magnificent scenery and a capital as beautiful as any city in the world. The article also pointed out that while “officials from the general prosecutor’s office, who were interviewed by Reuters, claimed that between 2010 and 2014, officials were stealing a fifth of the country’s national output every year,” nothing had improved.

Later that same year, a writer in Forbes magazine wrote a piece “Corruption is Killing Ukraine’s Economy.” As with Poroshensko, Zelensky, like the Presidents before him, was elected on the promise of ending corruption—though he also indicated he was the man to mend fences with Russia. He didn’t, and he wasn’t.

It is not simply the corruption I wish to underscore; it is that since the dismantling of the Soviet Union Ukraine has had two “revolutions,” and achieved nothing other than an outright civil war and a war with a great power. I don’t know how anyone who is impartial and not blinded by the patriotic fog and fervour accompanying the avoidance of the basics of international diplomacy can see it otherwise. And need I say that none of these problems—with the obvious exception of the war itself—can be traced back to Putin.

Turning to Russia, everyone of a certain age will recall that between the end of the Soviet Union and the Yeltsin years, Russia and the fall-out from its empire were in free-fall. Yeltsin had gone from being a hero of the people to a corrupt drunken buffoon. Oligarchs had taken over all the most important resources; and gangsters simply took over apartments; and the streets were not safe. The poverty was widespread and wretched.

And the reality of post-Soviet Russia made the drab days of Brezhnev and Andropov look like the golden years.

While people in the West were still celebrating Gorbachev and talking about him being a great man who changed the course of history, most Russians cursed him for creating the havoc they were living through. One cannot begin to understand Putin’s popularity if one does not concede the hell of Russia in the Yeltsin years—captured in videos of the period by images of the extremes of the old and recently rendered destitute standing on the streets huddled around a fire in the snow and ice with their knickknacks and baubles and pleading eyes; or the new phenomenon of Russian prostitution for export—the international sex trade really takes off with the end of communism—and the oligarchs and mafia with their great fur-coats, cruising by in their convoys of Western cars, and armies of protection. Stalin would not have allowed this, they reasoned. And you can say what you will about him, but he not only dressed with moderation, but he never draped his great big fur coats with gold chains, while pushing aside beggars on the way to the night club to snort blow and be blown by a girl who had drifted into the city to make some money.

Western journalists seem to think that when Putin speaks of the most terrible event being the end of the Soviet Union, that he is saying he loved communism. That is nonsense. He saw a once respected leading world power, a power, that for all its shockingness did export resources and training to those who fought on its side and from whom it saw geopolitical strategic advantage—I don’t want to get all maudlin about a system and regime that was ultimately a massive mass-murdering experiment and monstrous disaster (in no small part paid for by Western capitalists, as Anthony Sutton meticulously demonstrated). But I think to see that it was not only all for nothing; that whatever slim achievements it had made (and it would have made far more had it just been left to the autocrats prior to the Bolsheviks) had vanished along with the Soviet Union. In its place was a beggarly, broken state, of utter disorder— nothing resembling the Western commercialized sheen and shine images that one might have seen on television – but then again the sprawling tents of the homeless and junkies in Portland and San Francisco today bespeak a world resembling a similar kind of corruption, and ineptitude that Yeltsin and his mates were tolerating in Russia.

It is an odd thought, I know. But maybe what Putin said was rhetorically done for political purpose. But irrespective whether he is a “murdering swine,” as old an friend, Political Science ex-colleague, and mentor has posted on Facebook, Putin understood the rage of the humiliated, of a people who had been tricked out of the relative security—with all its scarcity—that the communist state provided, and thrown out of work and onto the streets. And he could see, as could the rest of the population, that all of this chaos was facilitated by the IMF and the Harvard Russian Project crew.

Moreover, aside from ex-party officials and their friends with their on-the-ground advantage and the armed to the teeth “wise guys” snapping up for peanuts, resources (energy and media/ communications being prime targets) worth billions and conning Russians out of, when not simply stealing, the vouchers, which were supposedly designed to distribute Soviet assets to “the people”—were Western grifters (like Bill Browder discussed below). It was a free for all in free-fall.

And on top of this were the Chechnyan terrorists and their bombs, deliberately killing innocent school children as well as adults. What made matters even worse was that Chechnyan rebels had been trained and funded by the CIA. That is a fact that Western journalists no doubt would like to put down to Russian propaganda. By the way, and lest I am sounding like the kind of left-wingers I usually take issue with for their blindness to the nature of markets, I have never been anti-everything the US does to protect its interests. But the incompetence of the US as a military and strategic power has become increasingly breathtaking, and its funding of such groups has brought nothing but havoc and understandable hatred of the West.

And, then, in the midst of this, Putin, who had been working for the mayor of Saint-Petersburg, facilitating foreign investments, and suspected of masterminding a kick-back scheme worth tens of millions of dollars, receiving a PhD for a work that had, in part at least, been plagiarised, were it even written by him, looked like just another junior on the grift “yes man” political operator had been given the nod by Yeltsin and backed by the oligarch Berezovsky, who came to regret misreading Putin’s character till the end of his life. Though, almost every Western documentary or biography depict Putin with the same sneering disbelief that this little jump-start still has power and struts around the world stage killing people, while great philanthropists and lovers of liberty like Berezovsky himself or Khodorkovsky were banished so that Putin could get nearly all of the pie.

In any case, not long after the tap on the shoulder Putin took on the oligarchs. Or, more precisely, sided with one bunch of oligarchs against another. It is fanciful to think that any political leader in Russia would have been able to survive without finding factional support amongst oligarchs— men who whose control extended to “armies” to do their bidding, protect their wealth, and trade (from arms running, to sex and drug trafficking, to gas and information). I think even the moralising denouncers of Putin don’t doubt that the level of criminality and the scale of violence of Russia’s oligarchy, and that that had touched ever part of Russia’s social fibre.

Quiz question: How would you have stopped it?

The manner in which the oligarchs accumulated their wealth as well as the tactics they deployed in defending it were all carried out in a manner befitting the kinds of weapons, financial conduits and systems, goods and services demand and supplies and political racketeering that are as mod con as mod con can possibly be: international banks laundered their money; politicians did their bidding by making deals and enacting laws that benefit them; shipping, planes and transport systems moved the girls and drugs, and immigrants with enough money to pay for their forged passports and relocation. Their computers and codes, and bank accounts in far-away lands, their hotels and majestic villas, clubs and casinos, private jets and helicopters, and yachts, their weapons and preferred drugs may have spoken of the unprecedented quality of the spoils of ill-gotten gain. But the motivation and operation were not really different from ancient tribes, or ancient and modern nations or empires seizing land and resources from enemies, or lords and kings providing their protection in return for services rendered (protection included their preparedness to not simply take everything from those they might crush were their offers of protection refused, to fighting off others desirous of those lands), or the cattle barons and robber barons, or the mafia, or those like Joe Kennedy who made a fortune out of prohibition. We accept that no one running for the presidency in the United States could be successful without finding wealthy political donors—or, at least, being an extremely rich person. But as with state foundations, the older the money the more likely it was to be founded in blood.

The way politics and wealth form a bond may vary by location, but the bond is universal, and the difference between what counts as corruption tends to also be bound up with merely how things gets done, and the wealthy get to keep their wealth and pay others to help them acquire more, and enact processes that assist their political preferences and priorities. “Not that there is anything wrong with that”—but journalists in the West tend to sleep at the wheel when it comes to following up leads that might bring down those who represent their political interests. People in far-away lands whose doings may safely be reported—even if the doings, as in the case of Putin, often (albeit not always) come from sources who also have their interests, which involve being rid of Putin.

In any case, the influence of oligarchs is no less decisive in the United States than it is in Russia. Yes, there is a rule of law, but while we may find exceptions, money generally still makes the laws.

The decisive difference between the West now and the Russia in which Putin came to power and outplayed his enemies is not in the role played by those who have the greatest wealth/control of the nations resources, it is in the timing: the violence and usurpation which provided the original sources of great wealth occurred generations back (not that long really in the USA, generally longer in the UK). And then—yes, I am really happy to go left when it is true—there was the piracy, the slavery, the colonialism. And of course it is not all in the past, where modern US “interventions” fit may vary, energy (and I don’t mean solar and wind farms) is a major factor in the West’s strategic and geopolitical decisions involving the Middle East.

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The people Putin went after were amongst, or would become, the richest, the most influential people on the planet—not only financially, but also in terms of the importance of the resources they controlled for shaping the world; the other two most famous examples, apart from Berezovsky, being the media magnate Vladimir Gusinsky, who would go on to pose as a kind of religious and spiritual beacon by becoming the Vice-President of the World Jewish Congress (a gesture that would give all the Russian anti-Semites evidence to sit alongside their copies of The Protocols of Elders of Zion; he had previously cofounded and become President of the Russian Jewish Congress), and the banker, energy magnate, convicted, imprisoned and then pardoned criminal, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Like Berzovsky, they spend much time in exile, screaming loudly about Putin’s unprecedented wickedness (comparable, so they said to… yes, of course, who else? Adolf Hitler) to a media ready to quote them on the latest body or scandal that could be attributed to Putin and his henchmen. It seemed that Putin had nothing better than do to send out armed assassins all over the globe to silence all his critics and political opponents, because he was not only completely paranoid but his whole view of the world was picked up from KAOS in Get Smart.

Khodorkovsky has been lauded as a man of great principle by standing to face trial. This did present him with the opportunity to portray himself as a political martyr, going to prison for his belief in the sanctity of human rights and the future of democracy. The West lapped it up and lauds him still. I have a bridge with a spectacular harbour view to sell you at a discount price of ten million dollars if you actually believe Khodorkovsky has turned his life around to become a human rights activist from being a gangster and in all likelihood a murderer. It would be interesting to actually do a comparative body count between them if we could locate them.

As we skim over Putin and his “autocratic” government, let us keep before us what I consider the one issue that is both indisputable and all important—Putin drastically improved the lives of most Russians. No matter how much more peaceful and prosperous the Russians may have been under the political leadership of Tony Blair, or Boris Johnson, or Joe Biden, or George Bush Jr, or Bill Clinton—does anyone seriously think these men have the kind of competence that would mend a fallen state? Putin was the guy at the head who turned things round. If we were doing moral examinations of politicians, I am happy to concede that Vladimir would probably have to get an F—though among Western moral paragons, I don’t see any who would get a Pass in those circumstances.

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Given what we know about Russia’s rapid advances and modernization and economic growth just prior to the Great War, and given what we know about the scale of murder inflicted by the Bolsheviks, did the Czar’s failure of will (and that of his generals) contribute to the tens of millions who died after? The answer is not difficult—yes it did. Posed so starkly, the issue of the sheer ability to stomach the infliction of more violence upon “one’s own people” (there’s that phrase again) is irrelevant. Perhaps the failure of will came from a sense of moral horror at what world the Tzar was making and the choices he had to make, or perhaps it came from an inability to see who and what this new elite political elite were.

In any case, he relinquished power, to be sure not quite to those as violently wilful as Lenin, but still to those who themselves were not strong enough to do anything but pass the power that they had not come by legitimately to those with political wills of steel, though recall Lenin’s famous phrase that “found power lying in the streets and simply picked it up.” They were capable of killing more “of their own people” in a few months than the Czars had killed in a century. In short, tens of millions of lives might have been saved had the autocracy in Russia been prepared to kill more people, possibly hundreds of thousands more, possibly millions. In any case, the gap between body counts would have been huge, and the autocracy would have also spared Russia not only from the gulags but communism itself—which as an old joke goes was the longest way of getting from capitalism to capitalism.

Unlike philosophers in their classrooms and studies, rulers in times of great crisis, stand at crossroads where the alternate paths to the future, each with its own trials and troubles awaiting, are completely covered by the fog of the present– the consequences may be untold millions of deaths; the choice maybe—as it was for the Czar, then, as I think it is for Putin, certainly as I think he sees it. It is a choice between steeling one’s political will even though the circumstances of the time offer only differences in the amount of blood to be shed. And there is simply no way of knowing for sure how much blood there must be and where it will end.

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When rulers get it wrong they are but stepping names toward players and events which are recorded on account of the scale of their horror. The horrific event prevented, though, remains invisible, so the statesman who is successful in preventing the event rarely is recognized (Kennedy is one of the few perhaps who is renowned for a successful preventative call—but that call was on a palpably visible enemy with immediate consequence that were not hard to imagine). This is the situation of Putin now toward Ukraine, and it is another reason why the various moral denouncements bespeak a smugness and assuredness that comes from the safeness of the study or newsroom.

When considering Putin’s actual body count, on any possible measure—including the Chechen War which he can be credited with winning, and this one which is fading day by day from the West’s interests (Will Smith punching Chris Rock seems to be the big story of the moment), we can say without equivocation the numbers pale into insignificance when compared to the untold millions of dead in the Iraq and Afghan wars, in Yemen, and Syria, and in the bombing of Belgrade. My point was primarily that to believe that Putin has done more evil than the motley crew who rule over us, and who we are supposed to consider to be morally superior to Putin. That Putin is Hitler and our leaders are saints? In the case of the Bushes, Clinton, Blair et. al. they have achieved nothing; they have saved no people’ they have left behind more ruin. This is not even a moral judgment; it is merely a statement of fact that these men made disastrous geopolitical choices, that they, not Putin, are largely responsible for why China, Russia, Iran, etc. do not want to be part of the international order. Need I say they are all globalists? That their regime change dream/drive was a grotesque fantasy? And I am supposed to believe that Putin’s hostility to NATO is unwarranted? That he is really Hitler?

I know there were plenty of journalists who criticized the Bushes and Blair (Clinton bombing of Serbia not so much), though they generally cheered on Trump’s swift response to Assad supposedly using chemical weapons in Syria (I think Trump was really played on that one—see reports from Vanessa Beeley). But it is one thing to be anti-war on some moral principle because you have a conscience, as opposed to being the person dealing with the fate of nations. There the question is never answered by the principle: war is evil, therefore I should abolish the army along with prisons, and while at it take a knee. It is only answered by an ability that is a gift of few and is completely uncanny: knowing in spite of all the fog, all the hostility (consider Churchill), that one is right and that action must be taken. And when the action is taken, it must be successful. I may have seen the Afghan and Iraq Wars very differently if they were fought for people that shared a common sense of spiritual purpose with their “liberators” (which they never did) and if they really did assist in nation-building, which it did not know how to do because there was neither common purpose nor real plan.

Of the War in Ukraine I cannot be sure that Putin will come out well—I have no crystal ball; but it is not all in his hands. He has calculated that the West will not respond with nuclear weapons, or act in such a way that he sees that there is no other alternative. He shares common purpose with the breakaway republics and Crimea—it seems that as long as Ukraine becomes a buffer state, and does what that requires then war will stop. But that is no easy matter for those Ukrainians who since the Maidan have been able to fuel their dreams of a new nation devoid of its Russian presence and past, who have exercise influence in institutions they will no longer have: they either have to retreat back into the obscurity of every-day life, and hope they are not informed upon, or face imprisonment if not execution. They have much to fight for. But so does Russia.

Both the matters of Putin’s rise to power and this war and its meaning also serve to remind us of the importance of an idea that seems largely lost to the modern imagination with that entirely false “theolo-philosophical” doctrine that human beings are basically good. The untruth of this proposition has bought in its train the psychological malformation of so many modern youth who believing in their original innocence believe that all the sins of their forefather can be washed away by moral pronouncements and denunciations of the forefathers who helped accrue the ill-gotten gains that have contributed to the wealth of the nation in general, and their global “privilege.”

The culture wars, which as I have indicated are but a prelude to blood wars, are an example of what befalls a people when it fails to see what it is doing because of its ambition and pride. Had the children of the 1960s not believed in their own perfectness, and in their own innocence what we are living through in the West may not have come to pass. This sense of innocence and the existential privilege that has come from the doing of their forefathers is a major factor in t – The Postil Magazinehe shallowness of their perspective on every serious subject, including this one. They are a generation for whom moral decisions and appraisals on each and every topic come as natural as breathing.

And this generation has entered swiftly into the fray: Ukrainian flags abound on social media; anti-Russian sentiments and slogans along with pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian podcasts are everywhere. Mainstream media has finally found a topic where even Fox and CNN and the rest find complete common cause—sanctifying Zelensky/Ukraine; demonizing Putin/Russia. Making an eternal enemy of Russia will be on the head of this generation who holds power, but knows not how to exercise it, and a younger generation who only want to pull the nature of power ever more in a direction that makes the United States even more hateful to its enemies. All in all, it is done by a powerful idiocracy who do not know where they are heading, nor about what they speak—but they do know what pronoun they should be addressed by.

When considering Ukraine, we saw that it was one failed political leader after another; and to state what I think is obvious but which goes against the consensus of the moment, Zelensky is by far the worst because of his recklessness and failure to preserve the peace—which is one of the key variables of evaluation of political leadership.

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Given Russia’s conditions after the dismantling of the Soviet Union, and the state of the institutions still in operation, and the mentality of Russia’s population—and the crooks running the place—had it not been Putin it would have had to have been someone of much the same ilk who would have risen to power, if there were to be secure stability in Russia. If not Putin—Khodorkovsky? Would he have been a better political leader? Would someone more like the Ukrainian ineffectual and corrupt politicians be better?

Putin emerged out of the failed state—and the problems that he faced were not of his own making. Were his choices the best? I doubt that any politician would make the best choices. Even if it were the case that Putin may be guilty of all accusations against him—from plundering state funds to murder—in his political fights with oligarchs controlling media and energy and banks, I think it very understandable why the majority of Russians are prepared to look past the accusations levelled at him, and, Western media to the contrary, not think that they would be better off under the kind of “democracy” that a Khodorkovsky might engineer.

One might respond, but without an open society how would you know? And my only response is—an “open society” is a neat phrase, for each and every society has as much openness as its culture, institutional development, and social historicity, and political ruling class have.

After what I have witnessed in the West in the time of COVID, the mass destruction of small businesses here in Australia, the destruction of the livelihoods and right to protest by truckers in Canada, the toleration of mass burnings, and looting in the United State, on the one hand, with, what a mere few years back, would have been unimaginable with the draconian and haphazard treatment, charges and sentences of some of the January 6 protestors and rioters, and the extent of censorship and corporate and state control over speech.

And just as in Russia, large numbers of people support authoritarian decisions which they think suits their interests. To claim that the West is an “open society” is hard to take seriously. We live in a society that once was fairly open, but is now closing up, second by second, right before our eyes, Russians live in a society whose brief period of openness was one of plunder, assassinations and general mayhem.

Failed states don’t and indeed cannot simply turn into democracies—as if democracies, that are not just nominal facades for oligarchical vote-buying, election-rigging, paramilitaries, etc., are not themselves the result of the evolution of a sufficiently widespread dispersion of power blocks and class resource pooling. Consider how the working-class democratic parties evolved at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The damage that liberal democracies are now doing to themselves is shocking. But the damage the United States and its allies have done in countries, where the choice was not and could not have been between democracy and non-democracy but between one strong man or another, is even more shocking in the sheer number of deaths that it has facilitated, along with the battles and wars still raging.

Finally, failed states inevitably break down into war-lordism, and the securing of strong foundations is the result of the formation of bonds of social, economic, cultural, and political solidarity. These need time. Until then, the struggle between the warlords continues; and I do not deny for a second this is not happening—on the contrary, it is because it is happening that Russia—and countries with histories extremely different from the West, including Ukraine—will continue to get low scores on human rights and various other indices of freedom.

But to acknowledge that Putin has strong control over the media is not to say that the West should be spending billions trying to destabilize this regime. Yes Putin controls a media landscape formerly controlled by oligarchs wanting to destroy him (as now do Western media oligarchs). Prior to Trump’s election I would have agreed the United States safeguarded freedom of expression that made it a free country which Russia is not. When people now want to end this kind of equivocation and bluntly ask: where would you rather live? Leaving aside the obvious wealth gap between my country and Russia and the standard of living I enjoy here in Australia—which is a matter of very different political and economic histories—when it comes to where I would feel freer, I think it is really is a matter of what the issue is.

I believe that were I still employed by an Australian university and this paper came to light, I would most definitely lose my job. Indeed, certainly in Anglo speaking Western countries, there are now a far greater array of topics—all of which connect with a globalising-technocratic-identity based view of life—which now require strict conformity and compliance than I think is the case in Russia. But it is not only freedom of speech that has been lost.

Indeed, with the help of corporations, government reach has extended into ever space once considered part of one’s private property, extending from one’s bank account to one’s own body. Is it really any wonder why there is such a very large number of writings claiming the Pandemic was a “Plandemic?” Certainly, there is overwhelming evidence that the Bill Gates Foundation was preparing itself for a pandemic that would require a vaccine to stop it – and Peter McCulloch has plausibly asked why were so many resources put into vaccines rather than in the study of preventative methods and cures. Certainly, there are questions about the source of COVID. And the answer to anyone who want to dig away is: “You are a conspiracy theorist.”

Once upon a time when there was an old left (which I have always thought had more going for it in terms of critiquing geopolitical overreach, military overread, corporate criminality etcetera than identity progressivism), it was considered reasonable to ask questions about the machinations of corporations and the state. In today’s world, merely asking such questions in the West is evidence of being the dupe and purveyor of a conspiracy theory. Is this not a degree of mind control far beyond anything that occurs in Russia?

Russia, under Putin, is an obstacle to globalism and hence to the raison d’être of what the West has become (not what it is becoming, but what it is in essence now) for one main reason: it refuses to follow the globalist technocratic dream—as with China, where it is technocratic it is not globalist. That Russia has been seen by the United States Government as a patient in need of the cure of Westernization has never been a secret, but Victoria Nuland put a figure on the amount spent on the “cure” in 2015 when she said: “The United States alone has spent more than $20 billion dollars since 1992 to help Russia strengthen and open its economy.”

Would anyone other than a “factchecker” seriously think that a substantial amount of that money was not used for “regime change?” Which brings me to the final part of this lengthy essay—the lies. As Putin famously quipped the West is an “empire of lies.” I wish it were not so.

4. The Empire Of Lies

We are presently confronted with all sorts of images and reports about the war which are meant to convince that Russia is being outfought; the Russian state on the brink of regime change; its brutality almost beyond measure as it targets civilians and schools and hospitals; its soldiers despondent and on the verge of revolt; and that Russia indulges in false flag operations and sells fake news to its people; defeat is imminent.
Other sources, some of which I have mentioned above, tell a very different story, a story in which the Ukrainians are providing plenty of fake images and false narratives, lots of “wag the dog” to Western media outlets. These sources are inevitably countered with “that’s just Russian propaganda.” It is “us” versus “them,” and “they” are liars. The biggest lie thus far concerns the West and which the media, working in conjunction with politicians, have tried to cover. It has to do with the US funded biolabs operating in Ukraine.

A report in the Daily Mail (a real rag, I grant, but one that occasionally goes against the grain of consensus) reported yesterday that Hunter Biden’s laptop (remember that suppressed story that was supposed to be Russian disinformation, but, as anyone who digs around knows, was not) seems to confirm the claim that Hunter Biden helped finance a US military “bioweapons” research program in Ukraine. And there we were all thinking that between the coke, the hookers, that stuff with Beau’s widow, and some other fishy stuff that really riled up some family members about Hunter’s sexual transgressions, and the graft that Hunter was not up to much at all, except perhaps convincing his pop that blacks needed free crack pipes.

Whether this connection turns out to be true or not is not the main issue though, because whatever Hunter did to get the money for sitting on the board at Burisma (in any case most of those who knew what was on his laptop though was far less of a scandal than the Biden China money), the evidence for the existence of US funded biolabs is overwhelming—nothing less than official US documents. Their existence confirms the investigations of Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, who in 2018 reported that “The US Army regularly produces deadly viruses, bacteria and toxins in direct convention on the prohibition of Biological Weapons.”

Victoria Nuland—now the current Under Secretary of State—blew her chance Marco Rubio offered when fishing for her to give an unequivocal denial about the labs, when she said that it would be a very dangerous thing if the research from the labs were to fall into Russian hands. Honestly, it just goes to show what a brainless bunch are running this shitshow. Maybe they are just as dumb on Putin’s team. I have no clue. But let’s go back to the lies and murk surrounding the event that kicked off the Ukrainian civil war, the Maidan—or, for those wanting the whole thing to have amounted to something noble, “The Revolution of Dignity.”

Whatever one calls it and however one views it—the Maidan created far more problems than it solved. It was not really a step into Europe. You will recall that the EU had all manner of looming problems, including the rumbling discontents that led to Brexit; and the EU was in no position to embrace a country of such poverty, with such a sizable population. It was also not the 1980s, and, Russia aside, there was no Soviet empire, which was a serious threat as opposed to a fabricated one.

There were still consequences from the financial crisis, a debt problem spearheaded by Greece (who were starting to depict their German EU masters as Nazis), and Central and Eastern Europeans were often ungrateful and difficult members for an organization that had made Germany the geopolitical hegemon of Western Europe (even Mutti was such a sweety, how could anyone question her führerschaftliche—sorry we must use the English now—leadership skills). And that was not even taking into account the inevitable Russian response, which was also why, in spite of all the love between Ukraine and NATO, it is true, as critics of Russia’s invasion say, Ukraine was not, de jure at least, invited into NATO. It did oust one corrupt President only to replace him with another, and it raised the wrath of Russia, led to the secession of the Crimea (some prefer the word “invasion,” which I think is simply a misuse of a good word), and created an ongoing Civil War; as well the carrying out of various acts of persecution and media censorship of Russian-speaking media outlets. If that is a success, I don’t know what failure would be like.

In any case, if the Maidan were a “Revolution of Dignity,” it is difficult to see in what exactly that “Dignity” consisted of? Getting some bundles of money from foreign governments and foreign NGOs, money that disappeared into the vast coffers of the oligarchs and their political cronies? Yes, we have pictures of Victoria Nuland, then the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, and (at last check) wife of leading Republican neo-con, Robert Kagan (please tell me there is no swamp or political ruling class), handing out coffee and cookies, or sandwiches to the protestors in 2014. So maybe some people got something substantial out of it. But, in the main, what was acquired were slogans and a public image of a nation of “heroes” fighting for their “dignity.”

The event itself had many layers and players. The West primarily saw pictures of the floods of protestors “spontaneously” (as if any protest does not require communication, organization and when, it is protracted in nature, funding) seeking to overthrow an elected government—even if a corrupt one. But if the sheer scale of public protest were the critical issue, would any Western government that has had to deal with widespread protests have survived? Maggie Thatcher at the time of the Falklands War or the poll tax? Macron with the Yellow Vests? Trump or Biden with everyone on the other side? Trudeau with the truckers, etc.? Was Yanukovych really more vicious in suppressing the protestors than Trudeau or Macron? How one answers that very much depends on who one thinks was doing the sniping at the protestors that moved the event into another level of international outrage.

Given that most Westerners knew nothing about the event except what they had seen flickering on their screens, or possibly even read with more diligence in their daily newspapers, the answer was they did not know very much. And in the murky far-away land, the idea that the American government and George Soros, and neo-Nazis played an important role in the event was rarely reported by the mainstream media—and a year or two later even the main stream media released a trickle of stories about the pernicious institutional influence of the Azov Battalion.

But at the time of the Maidan, there was generally little interest in a media landscape still having a love-fest with Obama, and even less interest in a story that would expose a winner of the Nobel Prize for peace as the instigator of a coup. As for Soros, one is immediately consigned to the loony bin marked “conspiracy theorist,” if one merely mentions his name and his financing of the various front organizations he uses around the world to assist in his—very publicly expressed—endgame of creating “an open society.” Some of you may know how he likes to credit the philosopher Karl Popper for his vision and philosophy—poor Karl.

The Soros money-trail is important in the story, which does not mean that the hundreds of thousands of protestors were simply conjured out of thin air and were merely summoned by the dosh: yes the overwhelming number of the protestors were there spontaneously expressing their political will– some though, especially those involved in organizational tactics were on the pay roll. Events like these are occasions for interested players to seek to get their way. Though, invariably the instigators trying to direct the course of history get way, way more than they bargained for—“Hey, we wanted you to kill the Ruskies, Osama, not blow up our Twin Towers you ungrateful #&%^&%^!”

The following is from the Open Society web site, about one of its organizations, the International Renaissance Foundation, in Ukraine: “By 1994, the International Renaissance Foundation was the biggest international donor in the country, with an annual budget of roughly $12 million for projects that ranged from retraining tens of thousands of decommissioned soldiers to the creation of a contemporary arts center in Kyiv. In the early 2000s, the foundation oriented itself around European integration, while mobilizing resources to help those affected by conflict after Russia’s invasion and illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. Over its lifetime, the foundation has supported more than 18,000 projects, benefiting millions of people.”

Now, consider again the problems of GDP per capita, corruption, the oligarchs, and the neo-Nazis in Ukraine and ask: Has this foundation achieved anything of lasting value in the country? If your answer is yes, let me raise the bridge-sale prospect again. Also, what exactly does “mobilizing resources” mean? For a man dedicated to creating a more open society, there sure is lots of murk here.

There is plenty of information out there on Soros, though algorithms now make the digging harder. But one can commence with just going through his organizations, investigating what they do, and hunting around to see who are involved. Lee Stranahan, former Huntington Post and then Breitbart journalist, and now at Sputnik News, has done a lot of that digging on Soros and his organizations, and Ukraine, as well as the fake Russia narrative and Ukraine’s role in it. I suggest you dig it up and see for yourselves whether it is just Russian propaganda—his sources are open and checkable.

When the Maidan broke out, one genuinely intrepid journalist who was on the ground, and had a track record of uncovering stories, and not merely repeating what was picked up in press releases and official pronouncements. He had previously broken the Iran-Contra story and blown the lid on the involvement of the CIA in cocaine trafficking. He was Robert Parry (1949-2018). He could scarcely believe the misinformation and outright lies, the sheer propaganda that Western media was publishing. He was there watching it all unfold and wrote regular reports. This is from one the piece “Phony ‘Corruption’ Excuse for Ukraine Coup” (2016):

If Ukraine becomes a flashpoint for World War III with Russia, the American people might rue the day that their government pressed for the 2014 overthrow of Ukraine’s allegedly corrupt (though elected) president in favour of a coup regime led by Ukrainian lawmakers who now report amassing, on average, more than $1 million each, much of it as cash.

The New York Times, which served as virtually a press agent for the coup in February 2014, took note of this apparent corruption among the U.S.-favoured post-coup officials, albeit deep inside a story that itself was deep inside the newspaper (page A8). The lead angle was a bemused observation that Ukraine’s officialdom lacked faith in the country’s own banks (thus explaining why so much cash).”

There have since been other accounts of the event, most notably the documentaries directed by Igor Lopatonok and produced by Oliver Stone; Ukraine on Fire (that had briefly been de-platformed but now carries the “offensive/ inappropriate” warning, but is available on Rumble) that appeared in 2016; Revealing Ukraine (carries the “offensive/ inappropriate” warning on You Tube; see it on Rumble) in 2018; and most recently, The Everlasting Present. Ukraine: 30 Years of InDependence (sic.) There are numerous comments posted on You Tube saying that Lopatonok’s films are all Russian propaganda bs—though none supply any evidence to prove this.

That there was US meddling is impossible to refute, given Nuland’s infamous conversation with US ambassador to the Ukraine about who was the right man for the top job; and McCain standing alongside Svoboda (the neo-Nazi political party) leader Oleh Tyahnybok, as well as dining with other Neo-Nazis and addressing protestors in the square. Why? For “freedom” and “dignity,” of course.

Back to International Relations 101. Imagine, would the US not have seen the presence of a major Russian political figure publicly encouraging revolt in a country in its sphere as a sign of interference and aggression? Oh, and let’s not forget what was known back in 2016 for those who were following closely that Ukraine played a leading part in the whole Russia-gate lie—a suspicious man might think the Democrats were calling in favours. But how could that possibly be, the Democrats are the moral paragons?

To anyone unfamiliar with the role of Ukraine in what has been the great big porky pie of the Russian meddling in the 2016 US election, as told to the US public by the establishment media, and embellished by congressional hearings, false documents involving urinating prostitutes (apparently to pleasure one of the world’s most famous germaphobe), false testimonies of FBI and CIA agents, false FISA warrants, the spying of one regime upon a potential and then elected president and his team, and books about Trump being cultivated by the Russians, spawning a report—that it seems its overseer, Robert Mueller, did not even read very carefully—a report that came up with… nothing. Well, OK, it came up with the conclusion that the President may have obstructed justice, not bad given how that led to the imprisonment of retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn. But even that didn’t work.

...

The fact that FBI and CIA agents had been proven to have conspired against the president did not lead any reporters from the big print media to ask, “But what is being claimed here and what is happening exactly?” Given that it was also the media moguls who hated Trump and, most pertinently the anti-globalist direction he was trying to revive (even Rupert did not like him), reporters in most mainstream media (Fox was not all pro-Trump, but it was the one mainstream outlet where pro-Trumpers could tune into hosts expressing their views and concerns) simply did their bidding and skewed the news so that everything globalist was very good, and everything MAGA/populist was very, very bad.

I spoke earlier about IR requiring an understanding of interests—that also involves, in any serious analysis, placing oneself in the picture and identifying one’s own interests, so that one can see the limit of one’s own place in the world and start to comprehend that of others. Any sense of that, which is to say any sense that might have elevated an understanding of the political circumstances, issues, and choices of the hour by asking where the media and its owners and reporters fitted into the larger good of the country’s future was never asked by mainstream reporters themselves.

Thus, ignorance spawned arrogance on a monstrous scale—in part because of the amplificatory nature of the technologies which we now deploy to express our better or worse hearts and minds and souls. The better, more creative part led to the emergence of “citizen journalists” who were not aligned to old power-structures, and who were beholden only to their own sense of what they saw and wished for. It was to the media what the Reformation was to Christendom, but unfortunately there was no equivalent to the reforms, and reinvigoration of Catholicism that was the Counter-Reformation.

Thus, they never even tried to expose the players and machinations involved in a conspiracy infinitely bigger than Watergate (yes, back then one could say that people who conspired to spy on their political opponents had conspired to spy on their political opponents), and possibly even more intricate than the WMDs being a lie, belief in which probably had more to do with CIA incompetence, and a failure to vet sources (because of the desire to get the answer they wanted). They were happy to garner favour with their bosses and repeat whatever someone who was in on it or would benefit from it (the entire Democrat machine—which also, happily, included most reporters) told them.

The lie, though, was spotted very early on by a number of former intelligence officials aware of the technology involved in early parts of the hatching—people like William Binney, and Ray McGovern, who really hated Trump, but who did a ton of stuff having to do with servers and downloads and deliberately misleading server “prints.” Others followed the trails of many of the players—Lee Stranahan was right up there—which is why he turns up again in the documentary about Ukraine in 2018; so were journalists from the Epoch Times. There were also some writers from the Hill—of course, there were far more than I can now recall.

The politics of those doing the exposing varied and the aforementioned leftist journalists also joined in: what they saw and what I saw went far beyond divisions concerning policy. It was horror at the recklessness of what the rulers of commerce, technology, ideas, were doing—it was nothing less than a threat to world peace. Putin had, as if from nowhere become the evilest man on the planet. So much so that even Fox presenters, who hated the Democrats and who night after night denounced and brought on guests exposing the lie, made sure that they established their anti-Putin bona fides.

All this created a completely unnecessary enemy of a man they knew next to nothing about; whose sphere of influence and, more importantly, whose geopolitical priorities were on the other side of the world. And it had done so at a time when people, who only a few years earlier were complaining about their political opponents, now spoke of the coming civil war, or the prospect of state secession. It had succeeded in completely breaking up the spirit of the nation, and with it contributed hugely to the cracks and fractures in the rest of the Western world, produced by the same polarised forces and elite mindset.

Need I repeat the obvious—this had nothing to do with Putin.

I have no way of knowing whether the intention, dated back to before 2014, was always to provoke Russia into a war, as an excuse to try and bring its economy down and bog Russia in another, albeit closer to home, dispute that might eventually bring down that “crook Putin.” I would not put it pass them. It has all the hallmarks of other great disastrous plans. In any case, the fact is that the claim was a lie that the majority of those who voted for the Democrats still think is the truth. And none of the journalists/ talk show people who spread it have ever apologized for misinformation—and of course YouTube, Twitter, Facebook don’t censor the people who continue to tell this Russia lie—a lie which rebooted the Cold War.

One of the people who could barely believe the scale of the “Russia stole the election” lie and who saw that this was an act of madness that would have a disastrous impact upon US/Russian relations was the former Soviet expert and historian (and, incidentally, a Democrat who utterly disliked Trump) Stephen Cohen. He went from being a regular commentator on Russian affairs at CNN to persona non-grata, after initially trying to explain why the expansion of NATO was a bad thing and why what the West was reporting about Ukraine in 2014 was also wrong.

To make matters worse for himself, Cohen had publicly expressed his doubts about some of the crimes that the West had blamed on Putin. He pointed out that even the family of Anna Politkovskay, (author of Putin’s Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy), who were personal friends of his, were certain it was Chechen gangsters not Putin behind her death. Cohen also drew attention to the fact that the other death the media always present as an open-and-shut case of a Putin assassination, Litvenenko, was most likely not one of his either—which was also what Litvenenko’s father said. But the climate was and remains such that any claim can be made about Putin, which involves oodles of cash and bodies, must be true.

Speaking of which, enter William Browder, self-proclaimed Number 1 enemy of Putin. As he tells the story, Putin can’t sleep at night scheming and plotting to get Browder. One wonders how Putin manages to run a country, in between the schemes and dreams of revenge and the poker games with his cronies. Browder is a best-selling author of two books, Red Notice, A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice, and (for those who found the previous title just a little too bland) Freezing Order : A True Story of Russian Money Laundering, State-Sponsored Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath. He is also a regular commentator on all the media outlets (Fox loves him), where he pontificates on all things Putin, including the war. According to him, he knows Putin’s mind inside out; he knows where the bodies are buried, and where the cash is stashed. Oh, and he is also a serial liar, hence he fits right into our story and the media empire of lies.

Browder, the grandson of Earl Browder, the general secretary of the US communist party, made a fortune by sweeping up the assets for a fraction of their real prices in the country his grandfather had seen as the future land of hope and plenty. When Bill visited that future in those Wild West days of the 1990s, he had his hopes fulfilled and got plenty. He set up an “investment” company and made so much money that he made himself an Irish citizen (cheaper taxes—America, the land of free enterprise, demands that if its overseas citizens are working, then any gap between the tax paid to their country of residence and the United States must go to Uncle Sam). He was also done for tax evasion in Russia.

In his meeting with Trump in 2018, it was Browder whom Putin was talking about when he spoke of 400 million dollars illegally being sent from Russia to the Clinton campaign. Politifact, in the typical ham-fisted manner that is meant to pass as genuine factchecking, does a meticulously stupid piece wanting to disprove the claim by focusing upon publicly declared monies that were donated to the Clintons. It does not address the really important part, that the 400 millions dollars were unpaid taxes on profits made by Browder’s company. Politifact also assumes Putin must be lying because Browder and the Clintons (who like Putin are also said have buried bodies (see the View’s response to Norm MacDonald on that one). But even saying that is a conspiracy theory, while everything you think you know about bad Vlad must be true) would be incapable of finding ways to launder the money—that is evil Vlad’s specialty.

Though Trump probably did not pick it up, Putin was referring to the money and the event that is at the centre not only of Browder’s Red Notice, but the impetus behind an Act that had already set Russia and the US on a path of serious conflict, the Magnitsky Act, a bi-partisan Bill that came into being under the Obama regime in 2012. It allowed for the freezing and confiscation of assets of those deemed to be violators of human rights—funnily enough, at the time of its implementation, all Russians, and all on the wrong side of Putin versus Khodorkovsky, Lebedev and the other ‘victims’ of Putin’s grand larceny and persecution. Though, what is really funny, is that this bunch of extremely wealthy Russians had managed to get an Irishman to lobby on their behalf. Moreover, however much wealth they had lost, had not made them paupers. The idea that maybe they were just tax frauds never seemed to bother anyone – anyway what right did Putin have to prosecute anyone for tax evasion? It was introduced by Benjamin Cardin and John McCain.

One might recall that back in 2008, when he was running for President, all sorts of dirt had been dug up by the Democrats to the effect McCain had done a lot of singing in the Vietnam cage. The hatred of Vietnam toward McCain blocking their efforts to recover and bring home missing and dead service men is still intense. Trump’s notorious quip about preferring heroes who hadn’t been captured was his nod to the Vets. Dan Bongino from Fox—very anti-Putin—also claimed that Russia-got-Trump-elected elected was a replay of a plan initially hatched back in 2007 in case McCain got in. That might be true or complete nonsense. I have read his book, but not checked his sources; but if true, I don’ think that they would have needed to unload that fabrication because McCain had already become very tight with what the Democrats were brewing up in terms of foreign policy (which was not that different from the neo-con derangement syndrome stuff). He was also sidling up to Browder and Khodorkovsky (who also pushed for the bill) by using his political influence to join the task of taking Putin down. Apart from his stint in the Maidan, Browder’s (and McCain’s) success in crafting and implementing The Act, which was initially limited to the USA and Russian nationals, has since been adopted in the EU, Canada and several other countries. Need I say it, Browder may be a liar, but he is a very powerful man.

One would be very naïve to underestimate the importance of the Magnitsky Act in the straining of international relations between the Western world and Russia, though as it turns out it was but a prelude to the present decision by the US government to freeze assets and impose sanctions on Russia because of its invasion. But I should just mention that we get into some pretty murky stuff when we start looking at US political legislation and Russia.

First, isn’t it weird that the US would introduce legislation instigated by an Irish citizen who has no government position? Browder, by the way is also a business associate of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and isn’t it also interesting that it was Joe Biden who introduced S.Res.322—”A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate on the trial, sentencing and imprisonment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev.”

Back in 2010, Hilary was also very vocally denouncing Russia for finding poor Mikhail and other oligarchs guilty of plundering the country—tax fraud was a topic near and dear to her heart, as was the cause of saving and recruiting billionaire clients for hers and Bill’s noble Foundation. Is it really far-fetched to believe that people as wealthy as Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, would be buying power and influence in the US government and leaving money trails so that politicians will help them bring down their enemy? Like Browder, Khodorkovsky is also talking to anyone who will listen and publishing about Putin’s tyranny and how this war will lead to regime collapse and overthrow—he is calling for demonstrations against the war, and using his considerable media machine influence to prepare Russians for him—or his man— as the next leader of Russia.

Whether orchestrated or not, the players who are intent on taking down Putin stand the most to benefit from Ukraine being in civil war; or, as now, outright war with Russia. Anyone who knows the least bit about the region and its history knows that the fate of Russia is inextricably tied to that of Ukraine (another thing Putin has stated repeatedly). And the US interference in the Maidan was above all a means of destabilizing the region in order to curb the power of Putin, and dismantle the reach of the regime—and, gain is it far-fetched to think that the stated objectives of Putin’s oligarch enemies, regime change, might not be what is the real end-game?

Maybe Khodorkovsky and co. have been trying to spell out the strategy for Joe in ways that he could say it without looking like he was saying it, yet making sure it was being said. If that sounds convoluted, it is because it is and Joe’s recent summersaults around the matter of “regime change” sure sounded convoluted. Besides, crafting legislation to redress the wrongs done to two non-American citizens, Joe also took such a personal interest in Ukraine that he threatened to withhold a billion dollars in military aid if the Ukrainian President did not change his prosecutor in the case against Burisma who also happened to employ his son. Joe’s smirking braggadocio, as he recounts the tale to fawning journalists is available for all to see on YouTube—and again the factchecking on this is as laughable as the idea that Hunter’s lost laptop is a Russian fabrication. Intrigue and murk? I think so.

But what any of us know, who are not actually in the game, is little. Still, there are questions aplenty that need to be asked, and our mainstream reporters are not asking them; and given the connection between the Magnitsky Act and the timing of the Maidan, questions about the Irish man behind an Act that has spread around the globe, and was the prelude to what is now a proxy weapons war and outright economic war against Russia, are definitely worth asking.

One person who ended up digging into that story through his firsthand acquaintance with Browder was the Russian filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, a friend and sometime collaborator with Politkovskay. His CV also includes a string of critical documentaries on Putin and the FSB. Nekrasov was so inspired by Browder’s first book, he decided to do a feature film of it. But as work on the film progressed, he came to the realization that Browder’s fiction wagged the tail of any truth the dog might have had. Nekrasov had intended to tell the story of Browder’s heroism in the face of rogue officials robbing the titles of his business and murdering his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky. In the making, it transformed into a documentary about Browder’s lies.

Nekrasov’s loss of faith in the Browder story started with his attempt to recreate the scene in the cell in which Magnitsky had ostensibly been murdered—and which he had received official access to—and discovered that the details, beginning with the size of the cell and number of police involved in the murder, could not possibly have been true. As he gathered more evidence, he reluctantly concluded that the official report about the cause of Magnitsky’s death (natural causes from a pre-existing health condition) was probably accurate. One would think any journalist familiar with how the Magnitsky Act had come into being and has been sold, and what it has meant to US (now Western) Russian relations, might be interested in following up on the fact that the martyr to the story was not, in fact, a martyr. Nor, as it turns out, is another claim about Magnitsky, a claim that is repeated wherever and to whomever Browder tells his story, was Sergei Magnitsky Moscow’s finest lawyer – he wasn’t a lawyer at all but an accountant – assisting Browder in tax fraud.

Watch the numerous videos of Browder’s talks and see how scripted they are. Also note the way in which the pauses and asides come with rehearsed regularity. They are not the gestures and manners of speech of a man whose mind is flooded by the associations that have come from persecution, whose feelings go into turmoil whenever these painful memories come up. They are the manners and gestures of a calculative man, a man who once he has plotted out the story sticks rigidly to the script, lest someone notice the loose threads that may unravel it. Note too, if you can watch this movie that Browder has attempted to banish from ever being publicly shown, like Khodorkovsky he can go from sweet charmer to deadly harmer in the blink of an eye. He is a bully as well as a liar; and as the film unfolds—it begins as a film about the making of the film—Nekrasov is on the receiving end of Browder’s early threatening glares and stares when he seeks clarification about the anomalies in Browder’s story—that also include the location and nature of this great corporation that he has built up.

The film then explosively addresses the centre-piece of Browder’s claim about the raiding and seizure of the deeds of registration and ownership when Nekrasov tracks down the ostensible policeman, supposedly living a life like Browder himself and his friend Mikhail, but who drives an old bomb and lives in a very modest flat, closer to what Browder’s “business dwellings” look like than the swanky places Browder lives in. (The film is worth watching just for the comedy of the scene where Nekrasov “discovers” the exact location of this billion-dollar plus operation, and the “staff” running it).

None with an open mind could watch this film, The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes (available only through a website of that name) and think that Browder’s story was anything other than fake—unless one is either on Browder’s payroll or a hack journalist. The film was denounced as a piece of “agit-prop” by the Washington Post.

For further information discrediting claims that Bill Browder was an innocent victim of crooked Putin, and that he is a great example of Western enterprise and moral courage apart from Lee Stranahan’s many podcasts on the topic, Lucy Komisar written major exposés of Browder’s porky pies.

If Browder is, as he and his publishers, love to tell us, Putin’s Number 1 enemy, it might be worth pausing on the claim: that the Number 1 enemy of Putin are Western lies; and in the broader picture that is also the case for Ukrainians now fleeing a country in which those who have told the lies to induce the war are nowhere to be seen. I might have been pretty scathing of Zelensky, but anyone who has been deceived this badly and who is living in the midst of such a horror—including those who were previously left to suffer in media silence—deserved our pity, and for us to at least try and speak some truth.

Conclusion

I may very well have lost readers on the way through these thickets thinking it is a mere ramble and haphazard rummage and roaming. My digressions about the craziness of our times are intended to highlight the relationships between the events and interests that either are essential to understand the war’s background, foreground, or what is at stake in it. I have merely scratched the surface. I know how little I know—there is so much more than main players know, that we don’t, as well as so much more that they don’t know- like how it will all play out in the immediate and distant future.

I have attempted to express why I cannot help but see this war as but one more “item” in a world divided between those seeking to fabricate a technocratic future and those who fear the mind-numbing conformity and spiritless nature that is required for its creation, as well as the vacuity of its destination. This would be truly an end of history, and an end of man—to use formulae from two ostensibly opposed enablers of this brave new world.

The forces at work both in the making and in the reaction are great; and as I have said throughout, most of those involved do not see exactly what they are doing or making. Hence too it is not unreasonable to fear the explosive consequences that are ever the inevitable accompaniment of great and rapid demographic upheaval through mass waves of immigration and the swift juxtaposition of different cultures.

I mentioned Karl Popper’s influence on George Soros; and to those who think they are being clever by not seeing how powerful this man is, all I can say is read up. Leaving aside Popper’s contribution to the philosophy of science and more generally how knowledge is best gathered and developed for the benefit of society, his great omission, which tends to be an oversight of most liberals, certainly of those in the “idea-ist” camp, is a failure to give sufficient importance to traditions. That is Soros’ failure, and the failure of globalists more generally. The failure is generally hidden, as I have also said, by a dialectical web of enlightened progressivism and Disney-styled romanticism, which wants Muslims, Confucian based tradition, tribal peoples, Hindus, Orthodox and all the world to live like Western, sexually-fluid undergraduates, celebrities and the mega rich. How this horrible stupidity plays, has already been seen in the disastrous attempts at regime change that the US and NATO have precipitated.

It is also being played out in Western Europe between an “indigenous” population, itself deeply divided between those who wish to trade the traditions of millennia for the globalist one depicted above, and a much more recent group of migrants whose appeals and spiritual commitments come from an entirely different set of circumstances and historical memory—these people themselves have their own divisions and pressures coming from the overspill and fallout of conflicts coming out of their former lands.

The problems back in their homelands are many, as are the causes, but the West’s collaboration in their making is something that intensifies the hatred of the West from people and organizations which hope that they may escape the intolerable present by leaping back into the past and hanging on ever more tightly. Only by living ever more faithfully to the stricture of their traditions can they escape the cursed world that they dwell within and they see as caused by the Western devils, whose own worlds are very hell.

This problem, like all serious political problems, is not a moral problem—morals certainly won’t solve it. It is Europe’s inevitable problem. The US, on the other hand, has made for itself another problem, the problem of racial strife. Race is a dangerous genie, when combined with seeing people primarily as racial types, and the world as a place in which there are only the privileged and the oppressed; and when the privileged themselves teach that they are not deserving of their privilege, then they are welcoming their demise. Again, none of my objections to critical race theory are to some kind of moral ideal standard—it is simply to see that the ideas behind it, and identity politics generally, are as stupid as the implications are deadly. Throw in open borders and the rest of the craziness I have touched upon—it is definitely “Good Night Irene.”

I repeat. I do not like what I see. Please convince me otherwise. But I will add one last thing. In any time or place, where serious matters are being discussed, if you are ever tempted, please pause before you reach for the kinds of platitudinous formulae that seem to be manufactured by Globalist Inc. for nincompoops—they who gave you such gems of thoughtlessness as “99 percent of scientists agree that…”; “trust the science;” “our X strives for excellence;” “we are committed to diversity;” “the discredited claim that;” “conspiracy theorists hold that”—and so on. Such formulae, stupid as they all are, do serve a purpose—to stop people asking awkward questions which might destabilize the consensuses required by globalizing technocrats and their minions to bring us all into their future, with them doing the leading. To such formulae we can add: “This war has happened because of the evil Putin;” “We must stop this evil madman;” and “That is just Russian propaganda.”

**

Plenary session moderator Margarita Simonyan: Good afternoon, or almost evening.

As you may know, we had a minor technical issue. Thankfully, it has been dealt with quickly. We are grateful to those who resolved this.

We are also grateful to the audience.

We are grateful to our leader, President Vladimir Putin, for traditionally fitting this forum into his schedule so that he can tell us about economic prospects and other plans.

We are grateful to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev for attending our forum. We know that it is not an easy thing to do. Thank you for supporting our forum and our country. We really appreciate this.

We will have a lot of questions today. You may not like some of them, and I may not be happy to ask some of them. We would be much happier to speak only about good things, but this is impossible today.

Mr President, I would like to ask you to take the stand and to tell us what lies in store for us all. Thank you.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much. President Tokayev, friends and colleagues,

I welcome all participants and guests of the 25th St Petersburg International Economic Forum.

It is taking place at a difficult time for the international community when the economy, markets and the very principles of the global economic system have taken a blow. Many trade, industrial and logistics chains, which were dislocated by the pandemic, have been subjected to new tests. Moreover, such fundamental business notions as business reputation, the inviolability of property and trust in global currencies have been seriously damaged. Regrettably, they have been undermined by our Western partners, who have done this deliberately, for the sake of their ambitions and in order to preserve obsolete geopolitical illusions.

Today, our – when I say “our,” I mean the Russian leadership – our own view of the global economic situation. I would like to speak in greater depth about the actions Russia is taking in these conditions and how it plans to develop in these dynamically changing circumstances.

When I spoke at the Davos Forum a year and a half ago, I also stressed that the era of a unipolar world order has come to an end. I want to start with this, as there is no way around it. This era has ended despite all the attempts to maintain and preserve it at all costs. Change is a natural process of history, as it is difficult to reconcile the diversity of civilisations and the richness of cultures on the planet with political, economic or other stereotypes – these do not work here, they are imposed by one centre in a rough and no-compromise manner.

The flaw is in the concept itself, as the concept says there is one, albeit strong, power with a limited circle of close allies, or, as they say, countries with granted access, and all business practices and international relations, when it is convenient, are interpreted solely in the interests of this power. They essentially work in one direction in a zero-sum game. A world built on a doctrine of this kind is definitely unstable.

After declaring victory in the Cold War, the United States proclaimed itself to be God’s messenger on Earth, without any obligations and only interests which were declared sacred. They seem to ignore the fact that in the past decades, new powerful and increasingly assertive centres have been formed. Each of them develops its own political system and public institutions according to its own model of economic growth and, naturally, has the right to protect them and to secure national sovereignty.

These are objective processes and genuinely revolutionary tectonic shifts in geopolitics, the global economy and technology, in the entire system of international relations, where the role of dynamic and potentially strong countries and regions is substantially growing. It is no longer possible to ignore their interests.

To reiterate, these changes are fundamental, groundbreaking and rigorous. It would be a mistake to assume that at a time of turbulent change, one can simply sit it out or wait it out until everything gets back on track and becomes what it was before. It will not.

However, the ruling elite of some Western states seem to be harbouring this kind of illusions. They refuse to notice obvious things, stubbornly clinging to the shadows of the past. For example, they seem to believe that the dominance of the West in global politics and the economy is an unchanging, eternal value. Nothing lasts forever.

Our colleagues are not just denying reality. More than that; they are trying to reverse the course of history. They seem to think in terms of the past century. They are still influenced by their own misconceptions about countries outside the so-called “golden billion”: they consider everything a backwater, or their backyard. They still treat them like colonies, and the people living there, like second-class people, because they consider themselves exceptional. If they are exceptional, that means everyone else is second rate.

Thereby, the irrepressible urge to punish, to economically crush anyone who does not fit with the mainstream, does not want to blindly obey. Moreover, they crudely and shamelessly impose their ethics, their views on culture and ideas about history, sometimes questioning the sovereignty and integrity of states, and threatening their very existence. Suffice it to recall what happened in Yugoslavia, Syria, Libya and Iraq.

If some “rebel” state cannot be suppressed or pacified, they try to isolate that state, or “cancel” it, to use their modern term. Everything goes, even sports, the Olympics, bans on culture and art masterpieces just because their creators come from the “wrong” country.

This is the nature of the current round of Russophobia in the West, and the insane sanctions against Russia. They are crazy and, I would say, thoughtless. They are unprecedented in the number of them or the pace the West churns them out at.

The idea was clear as day – they expected to suddenly and violently crush the Russian economy, to hit Russia’s industry, finance, and people's living standards by destroying business chains, forcibly recalling Western companies from the Russian market, and freezing Russian assets.

This did not work. Obviously, it did not work out; it did not happen. Russian entrepreneurs and authorities have acted in a collected and professional manner, and Russians have shown solidarity and responsibility.

Step by step, we will normalise the economic situation. We have stabilised the financial markets, the banking system and the trade network. Now we are busy saturating the economy with liquidity and working capital to maintain the stable operation of enterprises and companies, employment and jobs.

The dire forecasts for the prospects of the Russian economy, which were made in early spring, have not materialised. It is clear why this propaganda campaign was fuelled and all the predictions of the dollar at 200 rubles and the collapse of our economy were made. This was and remains an instrument in an information struggle and a factor of psychological influence on Russian society and domestic business circles.

Incidentally, some of our analysts gave in to this external pressure and based their forecasts on the inevitable collapse of the Russian economy and a critical weakening of the national currency – the ruble.

Real life has belied these predictions. However, I would like to emphasise that to continue being successful, we must be explicitly honest and realistic in assessing the situation, be independent in reaching conclusions, and of course, have a can-do spirit, which is very important. We are strong people and can deal with any challenge. Like our predecessors, we can resolve any task. The entire thousand-year history of our country bears this out.

Within just three months of the massive package of sanctions, we have suppressed inflation rate spikes. As you know, after peaking at 17.8 percent, inflation now stands at 16.7 percent and continues dropping. This economic dynamic is being stabilised, and state finances are now sustainable. I will compare this to other regions further on. Yes, even this figure is too much for us – 16.7 percent is high inflation. We must and will work on this and, I am sure, we will achieve a positive result.

After the first five months of this year, the federal budget has a surplus of 1.5 trillion rubles and the consolidated budget – a surplus of 3.3 trillion rubles. In May alone, the federal budget surplus reached almost half a trillion rubles, surpassing the figure for May 2021 more than four times over.

Today, our job us to create conditions for building up production and increasing supply in the domestic market, as well as restoring demand and bank financing in the economy commensurately with the growth in supply.

I mentioned that we have taken measures to reestablish the floating assets of companies. In most sectors, businesses have received the right to suspend insurance premiums for the second quarter of the year. Industrial companies have even more opportunities – they will be able to delay them through the third quarter as well. In effect, this is like getting an interest-free loan from the state.

In the future, companies will not have to pay delayed insurance premiums in a single payment. They will be able to pay them in equal installments over 12 months, starting in June next year.

Next. As of May the subsidised mortgage rate has been reduced. It is now 9 percent, while the programme has been extended till the end of the year. As I have mentioned, the programme is aimed at helping Russians improve their housing situation, while supporting the home building industry and related industries that employ millions of people.

Following a spike this spring, interest rates have been gradually coming down, as the Central Bank lowers the key rate. I believe that that this allows the subsidised mortgage rate to be further cut to 7 percent.

What is important here? The programme will last until the end of the year without change. It means that our fellow Russians seeking to improve their living conditions should take advantage of the subsidy before the end of the year.

The lending cap will not change either, at 12 million roubles for Moscow and St Petersburg and 6 million for the rest of Russia.

I should add that we must make long-term loans for businesses more accessible. The focus must shift from budget subsidies for businesses to bank lending as a means to spur business activity.

We need to support this. We will allocate 120 billion rubles from the National Wealth Fund to build up the capacity of the VEB Project Financing Factory. This will provide for additional lending to much-needed initiatives and projects worth around half a trillion roubles.

Colleagues,

Once again, the economic blitzkrieg against Russia was doomed to fail from the beginning. Sanctions as a weapon have proved in recent years to be a double-edged sword damaging their advocates and architects just a much, if not more.

I am not talking about the repercussions we see clearly today. We know that European leaders informally, so to say, furtively, discuss the very concerning possibility of sanctions being levelled not at Russia, but at any undesirable nation, and ultimately anyone including the EU and European companies.

So far this is not the case, but European politicians have already dealt their economies a serious blow all by themselves. We see social and economic problems worsening in Europe, and in the US as well, food, electricity and fuel prices rising, with quality of life in Europe falling and companies losing their market edge.

According to experts, the EU’s direct, calculable losses from the sanctions fever could exceed $400 billion this year. This is the price of the decisions that are far removed from reality and contradict common sense.

These outlays fall directly on the shoulders of people and companies in the EU. The inflation rate in some Eurozone countries has exceeded 20 percent. I mentioned inflation in Russia, but the Eurozone countries are not conducting special military operations, yet the inflation rate in some of them has reached 20 percent. Inflation in the United States is also unacceptable, the highest in the past 40 years.

Of course, inflation in Russia is also in the double digits so far. However, we have adjusted social benefits and pensions to inflation, and increased the minimum and subsistence wages, thereby protecting the most vulnerable groups of the population. At the same time, high interest rates have helped people keep their savings in the Russian banking system.

Businesspeople know, of course, that a high key rate clearly slows economic development. But it is a boon for the people in most cases. They have reinvested a substantial amount of money in banks due to higher interest rates.

This is our main difference from the EU countries, where rising inflation is directly reducing the real incomes of the people and eating up their savings, and the current manifestations of the crisis are affecting, above all, low-income groups.

The growing outlays of European companies and the loss of the Russian market will have lasting negative effects. The obvious result of this will be the loss of global competitiveness and a system-wide decline in the European economies’ pace of growth for years to come.

Taken together, this will aggravate the deep-seated problems of European societies. Yes, we have many problems as well, yet I have to speak about Europe now because they are pointing the finger at us although they have enough of their own problems. I mentioned this at Davos. A direct result of the European politicians’ actions and events this year will be the further growth of inequality in these countries, which will, in turn, split their societies still more, and the point at issue is not only the well-being but also the value orientation of various groups in these societies.

Indeed, these differences are being suppressed and swept under the rug. Frankly, the democratic procedures and elections in Europe and the forces that come to power look like a front, because almost identical political parties come and go, while deep down things remain the same. The real interests of people and national businesses are being pushed further and further to the periphery.

Such a disconnect from reality and the demands of society will inevitably lead to a surge in populism and extremist and radical movements, major socioeconomic changes, degradation and a change of elites in the short term. As you can see, traditional parties lose all the time. New entities are coming to the surface, but they have little chance for survival if they are not much different from the existing ones.

The attempts to keep up appearances and the talk about allegedly acceptable costs in the name of pseudo-unity cannot hide the main thing: the European Union has lost its political sovereignty, and its bureaucratic elites are dancing to someone else’s tune, doing everything they are told from on high and hurting their own people, economies, and businesses.

There are other critically important matters here. The worsening of the global economic situation is not a recent development. I will now go over things that I believe are extremely important. What is happening now does not stem from what happened during recent months, of course not. Moreover, it is not the result of the special military operation carried out by Russia in Donbass. Saying so is an unconcealed, deliberate distortion of the facts.

Surging inflation in product and commodity markets had become a fact of life long before the events of this year. The world has been driven into this situation, little by little, by many years of irresponsible macroeconomic policies pursued by the G7 countries, including uncontrolled emission and accumulation of unsecured debt. These processes intensified with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, when supply and demand for goods and services drastically fell on a global scale.

This begs the question: what does our military operation in Donbass have to do with this? Nothing whatsoever.

Because they could not or would not devise any other recipes, the governments of the leading Western economies simply accelerated their money-printing machines. Such a simple way to make up for unprecedented budget deficits.

I have already cited this figure: over the past two years, the money supply in the United States has grown by more than 38 percent. Previously, a similar rise took decades, but now it grew by 38 percent or 5.9 trillion dollars in two years. By comparison, only a few countries have a bigger gross domestic product.

The EU's money supply has also increased dramatically over this period. It grew by about 20 percent, or 2.5 trillion euros.

Lately, I have been hearing more and more about the so-called – please excuse me, I really would not like to do this here, even mention my own name in this regard, but I cannot help it – we all hear about the so-called ‘Putin inflation’ in the West. When I see this, I wonder who they expect would buy this nonsense – people who cannot read or write, maybe. Anyone literate enough to read would understand what is actually happening.

Russia, our actions to liberate Donbass have absolutely nothing to do with this. The rising prices, accelerating inflation, shortages of food and fuel, petrol, and problems in the energy sector are the result of system-wide errors the current US administration and European bureaucracy have made in their economic policies. That is where the reasons are, and only there.

I will mention our operation, too: yes, it could have contributed to the trend, but the root cause is precisely this – their erroneous economic policies. In fact, the operation we launched in Donbass is a lifeline they are grabbing at to be able to blame their own miscalculations on others, in this case, on Russia. But everyone who has at least completed primary school would understand the true reasons for today's situation.

So, they printed more money, and then what? Where did all that money go? It was obviously used to pay for goods and services outside Western countries – this is where the newly-printed money flowed. They literally began to clean out, to wipe out global markets. Naturally, no one thought about the interests of other states, including the poorest ones. They were left with scraps, as they say, and even that at exorbitant prices.

While at the end of 2019, imports of goods to the United States amounted to about 250 billion dollars a month, by now, it has grown to 350 billion. It is noteworthy that the growth was 40 percent – exactly in proportion to the unsecured money supply printed in recent years. They printed and distributed money, and used it to wipe out goods from third countries’ markets.

This is what I would like to add. For a long time, the United States was a big food supplier in the world market. It was proud, and with good reason, of its achievements, its agriculture and farming traditions. By the way, this is an example for many of us, too. But today, America’s role has changed drastically. It has turned from a net exporter of food into a net importer. Loosely speaking, it is printing money and pulling commodity flows its way, buying food products all over the world.

The European Union is building up imports even faster. Obviously, such a sharp increase in demand that is not covered by the supply of goods has triggered a wave of shortages and global inflation. This is where this global inflation originates. In the past couple of years, practically everything – raw materials, consumer goods and particularly food products – has become more expensive all over the world.

Yes, of course, these countries, including the United States continue importing goods, but the balance between exports and imports has been reversed. I believe imports exceed exports by some 17 billion. This is the whole problem.

According to the UN, in February 2022, the food price index was 50 percent higher than in May 2020, while the composite raw materials index has doubled over this period.

Under the cloud of inflation, many developing nations are asking a good question: why exchange goods for dollars and euros that are losing value right before our eyes? The conclusion suggests itself: the economy of mythical entities is inevitably being replaced by the economy of real values and assets.

According to the IMF, global currency reserves are at $7.1 trillion and 2.5 trillion euros now. These reserves are devalued at an annual rate of about 8 percent. Moreover, they can be confiscated or stolen any time if the United States dislikes something in the policy of the states involved. I think this has become a very real threat for many countries that keep their gold and foreign exchange reserves in these currencies.

According to analyst estimates, and this is an objective analysis, a conversion of global reserves will begin just because there is no room for them with such shortages. They will be converted from weakening currencies into real resources like food, energy commodities and other raw materials. Other countries will be doing this, of course. Obviously, this process will further fuel global dollar inflation.

As for Europe, their failed energy policy, blindly staking everything on renewables and spot supplies of natural gas, which have caused energy price increases since the third quarter of last year – again, long before the operation in Donbass – have also exacerbated price hikes. We have absolutely nothing to do with this. It was due to their own actions that prices have gone through the roof, and now they are once again looking for somebody to blame.

Not only did the West’s miscalculations affect the net cost of goods and services but they also resulted in decreased fertiliser production, mainly nitrogen fertilisers made from natural gas. Overall, global fertiliser prices have jumped by over 70 percent from mid-2021 through February 2022.

Unfortunately, there are currently no conditions that can overcome these pricing trends. On the contrary, aggravated by obstacles to the operation of Russian and Belarusian fertiliser producers and disrupted supply logistics, this situation is approaching a deadlock.

It is not difficult to foresee coming developments. A shortage of fertiliser means a lower harvest and a higher risk of an undersupplied global food market. Prices will go even higher, which could lead to hunger in the poorest countries. And it will be fully on the conscience of the US administration and the European bureaucracy.

I want to emphasise once again: this problem did not arise today or in the past three or four months. And certainly, it is not Russia’s fault as some demagogues try to declare, shifting the responsibility for the current state of affairs in the world economy to our country.

Maybe it would even be nice to hear that we are so powerful and omnipotent that we can blow up inflation in the West, in the United States and Europe, or that we can do things to throw everything into disorder. Maybe it would be nice to feel this power, if only there were truth in it. This situation has been brewing for years, spurred by the short-sighted actions of those who are used to solving their problems at somebody else’s expense and who have relied and still rely on the mechanism of financial emission to outbid and draw trade flows, thus escalating deficits and provoking humanitarian disasters in certain regions of the world. I will add that this is essentially the same predatory colonial policy as in the past, but of course in a new iteration, a more subtle and sophisticated edition. You might not even recognise it at first.

The current priority of the international community is to increase food deliveries to the global market, notably, to satisfy the requirements of the countries that need food most of all.

While ensuring its domestic food security and supplying the domestic market, Russia is also able to scale up its food and fertiliser exports. For example, our grain exports in the next season can be increased to 50 million tonnes.

As a priority, we will supply the countries that need food most of all, where the number of starving people could increase, first of all, African countries and the Middle East.

At the same time, there will be problems there, and not through our fault either. Yes, on paper Russian grain, food and fertilisers… Incidentally, the Americans have adopted sanctions on our fertilisers, and the Europeans followed suit. Later, the Americans lifted them because they saw what this could lead to. But the Europeans have not backed off. Their bureaucracy is as slow as a flour mill in the 18th century. In other words, everyone knows that they have done a stupid thing, but they find it difficult to retrace their steps for bureaucratic reasons.

As I have said, Russia is ready to contribute to balancing global markets of agricultural products, and we see that our UN colleagues, who are aware of the scale of the global food problem, are ready for dialogue. We could talk about creating normal logistical, financial and transport conditions for increasing Russian food and fertiliser exports.

As for Ukrainian food supplies to global markets – I have to mention this because of numerous speculations – we are not hindering them. They can do it. We did not mine the Black Sea ports of Ukraine. They can clear the mines and resume food exports. We will ensure the safe navigation of civilian vessels. No problem.

But what are we talking about? According to the US Department of Agriculture, the matter concerns 6 million tonnes of wheat (we estimate it at 5 million tonnes) and 7 million tonnes of maize. This is it, altogether. Since global production of wheat stands at 800 million tonnes, 5 million tonnes make little difference for the global market, as you can see.

Anyway, Ukrainian grain can be exported, and not only via Black Sea ports. Another route is via Belarus, which is, incidentally, the cheapest way. Or via Poland or Romania, whichever you prefer. In fact, there are five or six export routes.

The problem is not with us, the problem is with the adequacy of the people in control in Kiev. They can decide what to do, and, at least in this particular case, they should not take their lead from their foreign bosses, their masters across the ocean.

But there is also the risk that grain will be used as payment for arms deliveries. This would be regrettable.

Friends,

Once again, the world is going through an era of drastic change. International institutions are breaking down and faltering. Security guarantees are being devalued. The West has made a point of refusing to honour its earlier commitments. It has simply been impossible to reach any new agreements with them.

Given these circumstances and against the backdrop of mounting risks and threats, Russia was forced to go ahead with the special military operation. It was a difficult but necessary decision, and we were forced to make it.

This was the decision of a sovereign country, which has еру unconditional right to uphold its security, which is based on the UN Charter. This decision was aimed at protecting our people and the residents of the people's republics of Donbass who for eight long years were subjected to genocide by the Kiev regime and the neo-Nazis who enjoyed the full protection of the West.

The West not only sought to implement an “anti-Russia” scenario, but also engaged in the active military development of Ukrainian territory, flooding Ukraine with weapons and military advisers. And it continues to do so now. Frankly, no one is paying any attention to the economy or well-being of the people living there, they just do not care about it at all, but they have never spared money to create a NATO foothold in the east that is directed against Russia and to cultivate aggression, hatred and Russophobia.

Today, our soldiers and officers, as well as the Donbass militia, are fighting to protect their people. They are fighting for Russia's future as a large, free and secure multiethnic country that makes its own decisions, determines its own future, relies on its history, culture and traditions, and rejects any and all outside attempts to impose pseudo-values steeped in dehumanisation and moral degradation.

No doubt, our special military operation goals will be fulfilled. The key to this is the courage and heroism of our soldiers, consolidated Russian society, whose support gives strength and confidence to the Russian Army and Navy and a deep understanding of the truth and historical justice of our cause which is to build and strengthen Russia as a strong sovereign power.

My point is that sovereignty cannot be segmented or fragmented in the 21st century. The components of sovereignty are equally important, and they reinvigorate and complement each other.

So, what matters to us is not only the defence of our political sovereignty and national identity, but also strengthening everything that determines our country’s economic, financial, professional and technological independence.

The very structure of Western sanctions rested on the false premise that economically Russia is not sovereign and is critically vulnerable. They got so carried away spreading the myth of Russia’s backwardness and its weak positions in the global economy and trade that apparently, they started believing it themselves.

While planning their economic blitzkrieg, they did not notice, simply ignored the real facts of how much our country had changed in the past few years.

These changes are the result of our planned efforts to create a sustainable macroeconomic structure, ensure food security, implement import substitution programmes and create our own payment system, to name a few.

Of course, sanction restrictions created many challenges for the country. Some companies continue having problems with spare parts. Our companies have lost access to many technological solutions. Logistics are in disarray.

But, on the other hand, all this opens up new opportunities for us – we often talk about this but it really is so. All this is an impetus to build an economy with full rather than partial technological, production, human and scientific potential and sovereignty.

Naturally, it is impossible to resolve such a comprehensive challenge instantly. It is necessary to continue working systematically with an eye to the future. This is exactly what Russia is doing by implementing its long-term plans for the development of branches of the economy and strengthening the social sphere. The current trials are merely resulting in adjustments and modifications of the plans without changing their strategic orientation.

Today, I would like to talk about the key principles on which our country, our economy will develop.

The first principle is openness. Genuinely sovereign states are always interested in equal partnership and in contributing to global development. On the contrary, weak and dependent countries are usually looking for enemies, fuelling xenophobia or losing the last remnants of their identity and independence, blindly following in the wake of their suzerain.

Russia will never follow the road of self-isolation and autarky although our so-called Western friends are literally dreaming about this. Moreover, we are expanding cooperation with all those who are interested in it, who want to work with us, and will continue to do so. There are many of them. I will not list them at this point. They make up the overwhelming majority of people on Earth. I will not list all these countries now. It is common knowledge.

I will say nothing new when I remind you that everyone who wants to continue working or is working with Russia is subjected to blatant pressure from the United States and Europe; it goes as far as direct threats. However, this kind of blackmail means little when it comes to countries headed by true leaders who know the difference between their own national interests, the interests of their people – and someone else’s.

Russia will build up economic cooperation with these states and promote joint projects. At the same time, we will certainly continue to cooperate with Western companies that have remained in the Russian market despite the unprecedented arm-twisting – such companies exist, too.

We believe the development of a convenient and independent payment infrastructure in national currencies is a solid and predictable basis for deepening international cooperation. To help companies from other countries develop logistical and cooperation ties, we are working to improve transport corridors, increase the capacity of railways, transshipment capacity at ports in the Arctic, and in the eastern, southern and other parts of the country, including in the Azov-Black Sea and Caspian basins – they will become the most important section of the North-South Corridor, which will provide stable connectivity with the Middle East and Southern Asia. We expect freight traffic along this route to begin growing steadily in the near future.

But foreign trade is not our only priority. Russia intends to increase scientific, technological, cultural, humanitarian and sports cooperation based on equality and mutual respect between partners. At the same time, our country will strive for responsible leadership in all these areas.

The second principle of our long-term development is a reliance on entrepreneurial freedom. Every private initiative aimed at benefiting Russia should receive maximum support and space for implementation.

The pandemic and the more recent events have confirmed how important flexibility and freedom are in the economy. Russian private businesses – in tough conditions, amid attempts to restrain our development by any means – have proved they can compete in global markets. Private businesses should also be credited for Russia’s adaptation to rapidly changing external conditions. Russia needs to ensure the dynamic development of the economy – naturally, relying on private business.

We will continue to reduce administrative hurdles. For example, in 2016–2018, we imposed a moratorium on routine audits of small businesses. Subsequently, it was extended through 2022. In 2020, this moratorium was extended to cover mid-sized companies. Also, the number of unscheduled audits decreased approximately fourfold.

We did not stop at that, and last March, we cancelled routine audits for all entrepreneurs, regardless of the size of their businesses, provided their activities do not put people or the environment at high risk. As a result, the number of routine audits has declined sixfold compared to last year.

Why am I giving so many details? The point is that after the moratorium on audits was imposed, the number of violations by entrepreneurs – this was the result – has not increased, but rather it has gone down. This testifies to the maturity and responsibility of Russian businesses. Of course, they should be offered motivation rather than being forced to observe regulations and requirements.

So, there is every reason to take another radical step forward, that is, to abandon, for good and on a permanent basis, the majority of audits for all Russian businesses, except on risky or potentially dangerous activities. Everyone has long since understood that there was no need to check on everyone without exception. A risk-oriented approach should be at work. I ask the Government to develop the specific parameters of such a reform in the next few months.

There is another very sensitive topic for business, which has also become important today for our national security and economic resilience. To reduce and bring to a minimum all sorts of abuse and loopholes to exert pressure on entrepreneurs, we are consistently removing loose regulations from criminal law that are applied to economic crimes.

Last March, a law was signed, under which tax-related criminal cases against entrepreneurs shall only be brought before a court by the tax service – there is no other way. Soon a draft law will be passed on reducing the statute of limitations for tax-related crimes and on rejecting lawsuits to initiate criminal proceedings after tax arrears have been paid off.

Working comprehensively, although prudently, we need to decriminalise a wide range of economic offenses, for instance, those that punish businesses without a licence or accreditation. This is a controversial practice today because our Western partners illegitimately refuse to provide such licenses.

Our own agencies must not single-handedly make our businesses criminally liable for actually doing nothing wrong. The problem is this, and small businesses understand it very well – if a licence has expired, and Western partners refuse to extend it, what are businesses to do, wrap up operations? By no means, let them work. State oversight should continue, but there should be no undue interference in business.

It also makes sense to think about raising the threshold of criminal liability for unpaid customs duties and other such taxes. Additionally, we have not for a long time reconsidered the parameters of the terms ‘large’ and ‘very large’ economic loss for the purposes of economic offences despite inflation accruing 50 percent since 2016. The law now fails to reflect the current realities and needs to be corrected.

We need to reconsider the conditions for detaining entrepreneurs and for extending preliminary investigations. It is no secret that these practices have long been used inappropriately.

Businesses have been forced to cease operations or go bankrupt even before the investigation is over. The reputation of the owners and of the brand name suffers as a result, not to mention the direct financial loss, loss of market share and jobs.

I want to ask law enforcement to put an end to these practices. I also ask the Government and the Supreme Court to draft appropriate legislation before October 1 of this year.

In addition, at the Security Council, a special instruction was given to look into criminal cases being opened without later proceeding to court. The number of such cases has grown in recent years. We know the reasons. A case is often opened without sufficient grounds or to put pressure on individuals. We will discuss this in autumn to take legislative action and change the way our law enforcement agencies work.

It goes without saying that regional governments play a major role in creating a modern business environment. As is customary during the St Petersburg Forum, I highlight the regions that have made significant progress in the National Investment Climate Rankings compiled by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives.

There have been changes in the top three. Moscow and Tatarstan have remained at the top and were joined by the Moscow Region which, in a span of one year, went from eighth place to the top three. The leaders of the rankings also include the Tula, Nizhny Novgorod, Tyumen, Novgorod, and Sakhalin regions, St Petersburg and Bashkortostan.

Separately, I would like to highlight the regions that have made the greatest strides such as the Kurgan Region, which moved up 36 spots; the Perm Territory and the Altai Territory, up 26 spots; Ingushetia, up 24 spots; and the Ivanovo Region which moved up 17 spots.

I want to thank and congratulate our colleagues in the regions for their good work.

The federal government and regional and municipal governments should focus on supporting individual business initiatives in small towns and remote rural communities. We are aware of such stories of success. That includes developing popular software and marketing locally produced organic food and environmentally friendly products nationwide using domestic websites.

It is important to create new opportunities, to introduce modern retail formats, including e-commerce platforms, as I mentioned above, and to cut the logistics, transportation and other costs, including by using upgraded Russian Post offices.

It is also important to help small business employees, self-employed individuals and start-up entrepreneurs acquire additional skills and competencies. Please include corresponding measures tailored specifically to small towns and rural and remote areas as a separate line in the national project for promoting small and medium-sized businesses.

Today I would like to address our officials, owners of large companies, our business leaders and executives.

Colleagues, friends,

Real, stable success and a sense of dignity and self-respect only come when you link your future and the future of your children with your Fatherland. We have maintained ties with many people for a long time, and I am aware of the sentiments of many of the heads and owners of our companies. You have told me many times that business is much more than just making a profit, and I fully agree. It is about changing life around you, contributing to the development of your home cities, regions and the country as a whole, which is extremely important for self-fulfilment. There is nothing like serving the people and society. This is the meaning of your life and work.

Recent events have reaffirmed what I have always said: it is much better at home. Those who refused to hear that clear message have lost hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars in the West, in what looked like a safe haven for their assets.

I would like to once again say the following to our colleagues, those who are both in this audience and those who are not here: please, do not fall into the same trap again. Our country has huge potential, and there are more than enough tasks that need your contribution. Invest here, in the creation of new enterprises and jobs, in the development of the tourism infrastructure, support schools, universities, healthcare and the social sphere, culture and sport. I know that many of you are doing this. I know this, but I wanted to say it again.

This is how the Bakhrushin, Morozov, Shchukin, Ryabushinsky, Akchurin, Galeyev, Apanayev, Matsiyev, Mamontov, Tretyakov, Arsanov, Dadashev and Gadzhiyev families understood their noble mission. Many Russian, Tatar, Buryat, Chechen, Daghestani, Yakutian, Ossetian, Jewish, Armenian and other merchant and entrepreneurial families did not deprive their heirs of their due share, and at the same time they etched their names in the history of our country.

Incidentally, I would like to note once again that it remains to be seen what is more important for potential heirs: money and property or their forefathers’ good name and service to the country. The latter is something that cannot be squandered or, pardon my language, wasted on drink.

A good name is something that will always belong to your descendants, to future generations. It will always be part of their lives, going from one generation to another, helping them and making them stronger than the money or property they might inherit can make them.

Colleagues,

A responsible and well-balanced macroeconomic policy is the third guiding principle of our long-term development. In fact, this policy has largely enabled us to withstand the unprecedented pressure brought on by sanctions. Let me reiterate that this is an essential policy in the long term, not just for responding to the current challenges. We will not follow in the footsteps of our Western colleagues by replicating their bitter experience setting off an inflation spiral and disrupting their finances.

Our goal is to ensure robust economic growth for years to come, reducing the inflation burden on our people and businesses and achieving the mid- and long-term target inflation rate of four percent. Inflation was one of the first things I mentioned during my remarks, so let me tell you this: we remain committed to this target of a four-percent inflation rate.

I have already instructed the Government to draft proposals regarding the new budget guidelines. They must ensure that our budget policy is predictable and enables us to make the best use of the external economic conditions. Why do we need all this? To put economic growth on a more stable footing, while also delivering on our infrastructure and technological objectives, which provide a foundation for improving the wellbeing of our people.

True, some international reserve currencies have set themselves on a suicidal path lately, which is an obvious fact. In any case, they clearly have suicidal intentions. Of course, using them to ‘sterilise’ our money supply does not make any sense. Still, the principle of planning one’s spending based on how much you earn remains relevant. This is how it works, and we understand this.

Social justice is the fourth principle underpinning our development. There must be a powerful social dimension when it comes to promoting economic growth and business initiatives. This development model must reduce inequality instead of deepening it, unlike what is happening in other countries. To be honest, we have not been at the forefront when it comes to delivering on these objectives. We have yet to resolve many issues and problems in this regard.

Reducing poverty and inequality is all about creating demand for Russian-made products across the country, bridging the gap between regions in terms of their capabilities, and creating new jobs where they are needed the most. These are the core economic development drivers.

Let me emphasise that generating positive momentum in terms of household income growth and poverty reduction are the main performance indicators for government agencies and the state in general. We need to achieve tangible results in this sphere already this year, despite all the objective challenges we face. I have already assigned this task to the Government.

Again, we provide targeted support to the most vulnerable groups – pensioners, families with children, and people in difficult life situations.

Pensions are indexed annually at a rate higher than inflation. This year, they have been raised twice, including by another 10 percent on June 1.

The minimum wage was also increased by 10 percent at the same time, and so was the subsistence minimum – a reference figure used to calculate many social benefits and payments – accordingly, these benefits should also grow, increasing the incomes of about 15 million people.

In recent years, we have built a holistic system to support low-income families with children. Women are entitled to state support from the early stages of pregnancy and until the child reaches the age of 17.

People’s living standards and prosperity are the most important demographic factors; the current situation is quite challenging due to several negative demographic waves that have recently overlapped. In April, less than a hundred thousand children were born in Russia, almost 13 percent less than in April 2020.

I ask the Government to continue to keep the development of additional support measures for families with children under review. They must be far-reaching and commensurate with the magnitude of the extraordinary demographic challenge we are facing.

Russia’s future is ensured by families with two, three and more children. Therefore, we need to do more than provide direct financial support – we need to target and direct the healthcare system, education, and all areas that determine the quality of people's lives towards the needs of families with children.

This problem is addressed, among other approaches, by the national social initiatives, which regional teams and the Agency for Strategic Initiatives are implementing together. This autumn, we will assess the results of their work, review and rank the Russian regions by quality of life in order to apply the best experiences and practices as widely as possible throughout the country.

To be continued.

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on February 15, 2017, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Phoenix, Arizona.

Vladimir Putin is a powerful ideological symbol and a highly effective ideological litmus test. He is a hero to populist conservatives around the world and anathema to progressives. I don’t want to compare him to our own president, but if you know enough about what a given American thinks of Putin, you can probably tell what he thinks of Donald Trump.

Let me stress at the outset that this is not going to be a talk about what to think about Putin, which is something you are all capable of making up your minds on, but rather how to think about him. And on this, there is one basic truth to remember, although it is often forgotten. Our globalist leaders may have deprecated sovereignty since the end of the Cold War, but that does not mean it has ceased for an instant to be the primary subject of politics.

Vladimir Vladimirovich is not the president of a feminist NGO. He is not a transgender-rights activist. He is not an ombudsman appointed by the United Nations to make and deliver slide shows about green energy. He is the elected leader of Russia—a rugged, relatively poor, militarily powerful country that in recent years has been frequently humiliated, robbed, and misled. His job has been to protect his country’s prerogatives and its sovereignty in an international system that seeks to erode sovereignty in general and views Russia’s sovereignty in particular as a threat.

By American standards, Putin’s respect for the democratic process has been fitful at best. He has cracked down on peaceful demonstrations. Political opponents have been arrested and jailed throughout his rule. Some have even been murdered—Anna Politkovskaya, the crusading Chechnya correspondent shot in her apartment building in Moscow in 2006; Alexander Litvinenko, the spy poisoned with polonium-210 in London months later; the activist Boris Nemtsov, shot on a bridge in Moscow in early 2015. While the evidence connecting Putin’s own circle to the killings is circumstantial, it merits scrutiny.

Yet if we were to use traditional measures for understanding leaders, which involve the defense of borders and national flourishing, Putin would count as the pre-eminent statesman of our time. On the world stage, who can vie with him? Only perhaps Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey.

When Putin took power in the winter of 1999-2000, his country was defenseless. It was bankrupt. It was being carved up by its new kleptocratic elites, in collusion with its old imperial rivals, the Americans. Putin changed that. In the first decade of this century, he did what Kemal Atatürk had done in Turkey in the 1920s. Out of a crumbling empire, he rescued a nation-state, and gave it coherence and purpose. He disciplined his country’s plutocrats. He restored its military strength. And he refused, with ever blunter rhetoric, to accept for Russia a subservient role in an American-run world system drawn up by foreign politicians and business leaders. His voters credit him with having saved his country.

***

Why are American intellectuals such ideologues when they talk about the “international system”? Probably because American intellectuals devised that system, and because they assume there can never be legitimate historic reasons why a politician would arise in opposition to it. They denied such reasons for the rise of Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines. They do the same with Donald Trump. And they have done it with Putin. They assume he rose out of the KGB with the sole purpose of embodying an evil for our righteous leaders to stamp out.

Putin did not come out of nowhere. Russian people not only tolerate him, they revere him. You can get a better idea of why he has ruled for 17 years if you remember that, within a few years of Communism’s fall, average life expectancy in Russia had fallen below that of Bangladesh. That is an ignominy that falls on Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin’s reckless opportunism made him an indispensable foe of Communism in the late 1980s. But it made him an inadequate founding father for a modern state. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose writings about Communism give him some claim to be considered the greatest man of the twentieth century, believed the post-Communist leaders had made the country even worse. In the year 2000 Solzhenitsyn wrote: “As a result of the Yeltsin era, all the fundamental sectors of our political, economic, cultural, and moral life have been destroyed or looted. Will we continue looting and destroying Russia until nothing is left?” That was the year Putin came to power. He was the answer to Solzhenitsyn’s question.

There are two things Putin did that cemented the loyalty of Solzhenitsyn and other Russians—he restrained the billionaires who were looting the country, and he restored Russia’s standing abroad. Let us take them in turn.

Russia retains elements of a kleptocracy based on oligarchic control of natural resources. But we must remember that Putin inherited that kleptocracy. He did not found it. The transfer of Russia’s natural resources into the hands of KGB-connected Communists, who called themselves businessmen, was a tragic moment for Russia. It was also a shameful one for the West. Western political scientists provided the theft with ideological cover, presenting it as a “transition to capitalism.” Western corporations, including banks, provided the financing.

Let me stress the point. The oligarchs who turned Russia into an armed plutocracy within half a decade of the downfall in 1991 of Communism called themselves capitalists. But they were mostly men who had been groomed as the next generation of Communist nomenklatura­—people like Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky. They were the people who understood the scope and nature of state assets, and they controlled the privatization programs. They had access to Western financing and they were willing to use violence and intimidation. So they took power just as they had planned to back when they were in Communist cadre school—but now as owners, not as bureaucrats. Since the state had owned everything under Communism, this was quite a payout. Yeltsin’s reign was built on these billionaires’ fortunes, and vice-versa.

Khodorkovsky has recently become a symbol of Putin’s misrule, because Putin jailed him for ten years. Khodorkovsky’s trial certainly didn’t meet Western standards. But Khodorkovsky’s was among the most obscene privatizations of all. In his recent biography of Putin, Steven Lee Myers, the former Moscow correspondent for the New York Times, calculates that Khodorkovsky and fellow investors paid $150 million in the 1990s for the main production unit of the oil company Yukos, which came to be valued at about $20 billion by 2004. In other words, they acquired a share of the essential commodity of Russia—its oil—for less than one percent of its value. Putin came to call these people “state-appointed billionaires.” He saw them as a conduit for looting Russia, and sought to restore to the country what had been stolen from it. He also saw that Russia needed to reclaim control of its vast reserves of oil and gas, on which much of Europe depended, because that was the only geopolitical lever it had left.

The other thing Putin did was restore the country’s position abroad. He arrived in power a decade after his country had suffered a Vietnam-like defeat in Afghanistan. Following that defeat, it had failed to halt a bloody Islamist uprising in Chechnya. And worst of all, it had been humiliated by the United States and NATO in the Serbian war of 1999, when the Clinton administration backed a nationalist and Islamist independence movement in Kosovo. This was the last war in which the United States would fight on the same side as Osama Bin Laden, and the U.S. used the opportunity to show Russia its lowly place in the international order, treating it as a nuisance and an afterthought. Putin became president a half a year after Yeltsin was maneuvered into allowing the dismemberment of Russia’s ally, Serbia, and as he entered office Putin said: “We will not tolerate any humiliation to the national pride of Russians, or any threat to the integrity of the country.”

The degradation of Russia’s position represented by the Serbian War is what Putin was alluding to when he famously described the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” This statement is often misunderstood or mischaracterized: he did not mean by it any desire to return to Communism. But when Putin said he’d restore Russia’s strength, he meant it. He beat back the military advance of Islamist armies in Chechnya and Dagestan, and he took a hard line on terrorism—including a decision not to negotiate with hostage-takers, even in secret.

***

One theme runs through Russian foreign policy, and has for much of its history. There is no country, with the exception of Israel, that has a more dangerous frontier with the Islamic world. You would think that this would be the primary lens through which to view Russian conduct—a good place for the West to begin in trying to explain Russian behavior that, at first glance, does not have an obvious rationale. Yet agitation against Putin in the West has not focused on that at all. It has not focused on Russia’s intervention against ISIS in the war in Syria, or even on Russia’s harboring Edward Snowden, the fugitive leaker of U.S. intelligence secrets.

The two episodes of concerted outrage about Putin among Western progressives have both involved issues trivial to the world, but vital to the world of progressivism. The first came in 2014, when the Winter Olympics, which were to be held in Sochi, presented an opportunity to damage Russia economically. Most world leaders attended the games happily, from Mark Rutte (Netherlands) and Enrico Letta (Italy) to Xi Jinping (China) and Shinzo Abe (Japan). But three leaders—David Cameron of Britain, François Hollande of France, and Barack Obama of the United States—sent progressives in their respective countries into a frenzy over a short list of domestic causes. First, there was the jailed oil tycoon, Khodorkovsky; Putin released him before the Olympics began. Second, there were the young women who called themselves Pussy Riot, performance artists who were jailed for violating Russia’s blasphemy laws when they disrupted a religious service with obscene chants about God (translations were almost never shown on Western television); Putin also released them prior to the Olympics. Third, there was Russia’s Article 6.21, which was oddly described in the American press as a law against “so-called gay propaganda.” A more accurate translation of what the law forbids is promoting “non-traditional sexual relations to children.” Now, some Americans might wish that Russia took religion or homosexuality less seriously and still be struck by the fact that these are very local issues. There is something unbalanced about turning them into diplomatic incidents and issuing all kinds of threats because of them.

The second campaign against Putin has been the attempt by the outgoing Obama administration to cast doubt on the legitimacy of last November’s presidential election by implying that the Russian government somehow “hacked” it. This is an extraordinary episode in the history of manufacturing opinion. I certainly will not claim any independent expertise in cyber-espionage. But anyone who has read the public documentation on which the claims rest will find only speculation, arguments from authority, and attempts to make repetition do the work of logic.

In mid-December, the New York Times ran an article entitled “How Moscow Aimed a Perfect Weapon at the U.S. Election.” Most of the assertions in the piece came from unnamed administration sources and employees of CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm hired by the Democrats to investigate a hacked computer at the Democratic National Committee. They quote those who served on the DNC’s secret anti-hacking committee, including the party chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and the party lawyer, Michael Sussmann. Then a National Intelligence Council report that the government released in January showed the heart of the case: more than half of the report was devoted to complaints about the bias of RT, the Russian government’s international television network.

Again, we do not know what the intelligence agencies know. But there is no publicly available evidence to justify Arizona Senator John McCain’s calling what the Russians did “an act of war.” If there were, the discussion of the evidence would have continued into the Trump administration, rather than simply evaporating once it ceased to be useful as a political tool.

There were two other imaginary Putin scandals that proved to be nothing. In November, the Washington Post ran a blacklist of news organizations that had published “fake news” in the service of Putin, but the list turned out to have been compiled largely by a fly-by-night political activist group called PropOrNot, which had placed certain outlets on the list only because their views coincided with those of RT on given issues. Then in December, the Obama administration claimed to have found Russian computer code it melodramatically called “Grizzly Steppe” in the Vermont electrical grid. This made front-page headlines. But it was a mistake. The so-called Russian code could be bought commercially, and it was found, according to one journalist, “in a single laptop that was not connected to the electric grid.”

Democrats have gone to extraordinary lengths to discredit Putin. Why? There really is such a thing as a Zeitgeist or spirit of the times. A given issue will become a passion for all mankind, and certain men will stand as symbols of it. Half a century ago, for instance, the Zeitgeist was about colonial liberation. Think of Martin Luther King, traveling to Norway to collect his Nobel Peace Prize, stopping on the way in London to give a talk about South African apartheid. What did that have to do with him? Practically: Nothing. Symbolically: Everything. It was an opportunity to talk about the moral question of the day.

We have a different Zeitgeist today. Today it is sovereignty and self-determination that are driving passions in the West. The reason for this has a great deal to do with the way the Cold War conflict between the United States and Russia ended. In the 1980s, the two countries were great powers, yes; but at the same time they were constrained. The alliances they led were fractious. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, their fates diverged. The United States was offered the chance to lay out the rules of the world system, and accepted the offer with a vengeance. Russia was offered the role of submitting to that system.

Just how irreconcilable those roles are is seen in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine two years ago. According to the official United States account, Russia invaded its neighbor after a glorious revolution threw out a plutocracy. Russia then annexed Ukrainian naval bases in the Crimea. According to the Russian view, Ukraine’s democratically elected government was overthrown by an armed uprising backed by the United States. To prevent a hostile NATO from establishing its own naval base in the Black Sea, by this account, Russia had to take Crimea, which in any case is historically Russian territory. Both of these accounts are perfectly correct. It is just that one word can mean something different to Americans than it does to Russians. For instance, we say the Russians don’t believe in democracy. But as the great journalist and historian Walter Laqueur put it, “Most Russians have come to believe that democracy is what happened in their country between 1990 and 2000, and they do not want any more of it.”

The point with which I would like to conclude is this: we will get nowhere if we assume that Putin sees the world as we do. One of the more independent thinkers about Russia in Washington, D.C., is the Reaganite California congressman Dana Rohrabacher. I recall seeing him scolded at a dinner in Washington a few years ago. A fellow guest told him he should be ashamed, because Reagan would have idealistically stood up to Putin on human rights. Rohrabacher disagreed. Reagan’s gift as a foreign policy thinker, he said, was not his idealism. It was his ability to set priorities, to see what constituted the biggest threat. Today’s biggest threat to the U.S. isn’t Vladimir Putin.

So why are people thinking about Putin as much as they do? Because he has become a symbol of national self-determination. Populist conservatives see him the way progressives once saw Fidel Castro, as the one person who says he won’t submit to the world that surrounds him. You didn’t have to be a Communist to appreciate the way Castro, whatever his excesses, was carving out a space of autonomy for his country.

In the same way, Putin’s conduct is bound to win sympathy even from some of Russia’s enemies, the ones who feel the international system is not delivering for them. Generally, if you like that system, you will consider Vladimir Putin a menace. If you don’t like it, you will have some sympathy for him. Putin has become a symbol of national sovereignty in its battle with globalism. That turns out to be the big battle of our times. As our last election shows, that’s true even here.

Note: Alternative video link.

The text of this speech was published on the official Kremlin website, which is currently inaccessible outside of Russia due to wartime censorship. The English text is copied below:

February 21, 2022 22:35
Moscow, Kremlin
Address by the President of the Russian Federation

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Dear citizens of Russia, Dear friends!

The topic of my speech is the events in Ukraine and why it is so important for us, for Russia. Of course, my appeal is addressed to our compatriots in Ukraine.

We will have to talk in detail and in detail. This is a very serious matter.

The situation in the Donbas has once again acquired a critical and acute character. And today I appeal to you directly to not only assess what is happening, but also to inform you about the decisions being made, about possible further steps in this direction.

I would like to stress once again that Ukraine is not just a neighbouring country for us. It is an integral part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space. These are our comrades, relatives, including not only colleagues, friends, former colleagues, but also relatives, people connected with us by blood and family ties.

For a long time, the inhabitants of the south-western historical ancient Russian lands called themselves Russian and Orthodox. This was the case before the XVII century, when part of these territories were reunited with the Russian state, and after.

It seems to us that, in principle, we all know about this, that we are talking about well-known facts. At the same time, in order to understand what is happening today, to explain the motives for Russia's actions and the goals that we set for ourselves, it is necessary to say at least a few words about the history of the issue.

So, I will begin with the fact that modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia, more precisely, bolshevik, communist Russia. This process began almost immediately after the revolution of 1917, and Lenin and his associates did it in a very rude way towards Russia itself – by separating, separating from it part of its own historical territories. Of course, no one asked the millions of people who lived there about anything.

Then, on the eve and after the Great Patriotic War, Stalin annexed to the USSR and transferred to Ukraine some lands that previously belonged to Poland, Romania and Hungary. At the same time, as a kind of compensation, Stalin endowed Poland with part of the original German territories, and in 1954 Khrushchev for some reason took the Crimea from Russia and also gave it to Ukraine. Actually, this is how the territory of Soviet Ukraine was formed.

But now I would like to draw special attention to the initial period of the creation of the USSR. I think this is extremely important for us. You will have to go, as they say, from afar.

Let me remind you that after the October Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent Civil War, the Bolsheviks began to build a new statehood, and quite sharp disagreements arose between them. Stalin, who in 1922 combined the posts of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP (Bolshevik) and the People's Commissar for Nationalities, proposed to build the country on the principles of autonomization, that is, giving the republics - future administrative-territorial units - broad powers when they join a single state.

Lenin criticized this plan and offered to make concessions to the nationalists, as he called them then – "independents". It was these Leninist ideas, in fact, of a confederal state structure and the slogan about the right of nations to self-determination up to secession that were the basis of Soviet statehood: first, in 1922, they were enshrined in the Declaration on the Formation of the Union of the SSR, and then, after Lenin's death, in the Constitution of the USSR of 1924.

Many questions immediately arise here. And the first of them, in fact, the main one: why was it necessary to satisfy any infinitely growing nationalist ambitions on the outskirts of the former empire from the lord's shoulder? To transfer to newly formed, and often arbitrarily formed, administrative units – union republics – huge territories that often had nothing to do with them at all. I repeat, to pass it on together with the population of historical Russia.

Moreover, in fact, these administrative units were given the status and form of national state formations. I ask myself again: why was it necessary to make such generous gifts, which the most ardent nationalists had not even dreamed of before, and even to give the republics the right to secede from a single state without any conditions?

At first glance, this is generally incomprehensible, some kind of madness. But this is only at first glance. There is an explanation. After the revolution, the main task of the Bolsheviks was to stay in power at any cost, precisely at any cost. For the sake of this, they went to everything: to the humiliating conditions of the Brest Peace Treaty at a time when the Kaiser's Germany and its allies were in a difficult military and economic situation, and the outcome of the First World War was actually predetermined, and to the satisfaction of any demands, any desires on the part of nationalists inside the country.

From the point of view of the historical destinies of Russia and its peoples, Lenin's principles of state-building turned out to be not just a mistake, it was, as they say, much worse than a mistake. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, this became absolutely obvious.

Of course, the events of the past cannot be changed, but we must at least say about them directly and honestly, without any reservations and without any political coloring. I can only add that the considerations of the current political situation, no matter how spectacular and advantageous they may seem at a particular time, should under no circumstances and cannot be used as the basis for the basic principles of statehood.

I do not accuse anyone of anything now, the situation in the country at that time and after the Civil War, the day before, was incredibly difficult and critical. Today I just want to say that everything was just like that. This is a historical fact. Actually, as I have already said, as a result of the Bolshevik policy, Soviet Ukraine arose, which today can be rightly called "Ukraine named after Vladimir Ilyich Lenin". He is its author and architect. This is fully confirmed by archival documents, including Lenin's tough directives on the Donbass, which was literally squeezed into Ukraine. And now "grateful descendants" demolished monuments to Lenin in Ukraine. They call it decommunization.

Do you want decommunization? Well, we're fine with that. But there is no need, as they say, to stop halfway. We are ready to show you what real decommunization means for Ukraine.

Returning to the history of the issue, I repeat that in 1922 the USSR was formed in the space of the former Russian Empire. But life itself immediately showed that it is simply impossible to preserve such a huge and complex territory, or to manage it on the proposed amorphous, in fact confederal principles. They were completely divorced from both reality and historical tradition.

It is natural that the Red Terror and the rapid transition to the Stalinist dictatorship, the domination of communist ideology and the Monopoly of the Communist Party on power, nationalization and the planned system of the national economy – all this in fact turned into a simple declaration, into a formality the declared, but not working principles of the state structure. In reality, the Union republics did not have any sovereign rights, they simply did not exist. And in practice, a strictly centralized, absolutely unitary state was created.

In fact, Stalin fully implemented in practice not Lenin's, but his own ideas of the state structure. But he did not make corresponding changes to the system-forming documents to the Constitution of the country, and did not formally revise the proclaimed Leninist principles of building the USSR. Yes, apparently, it seemed that this was not necessary – in the conditions of a totalitarian regime, everything worked anyway, and outwardly looked beautiful, attractive and even super-democratic.

And yet it is a pity, it is a pity, that from the basic, formally legal foundations on which all our statehood was built, odious, utopian, inspired by the revolution, but absolutely destructive for any normal country fantasies were not cleaned up in a timely manner. About the future, as it often happened to us before, no one thought.

The leaders of the Communist Party seemed confident that they had managed to form a solid system of government, that through their policy they had finally solved the national question. But falsifications, substitution of concepts, manipulation of public consciousness and deception are expensive. The bacillus of nationalist ambitions has not disappeared, and the initial mine, undermining state immunity against the contagion of nationalism, was just waiting in the wings. Such a mine, I repeat, was the right to withdraw from the USSR.

In the mid-1980s, against the backdrop of growing socio-economic problems and the obvious crisis of the planned economy, the national question, the essence of which was not some expectations and unfulfilled aspirations of the peoples of the Union, but above all the growing appetites of local elites, became increasingly acute.

However, the leadership of the CPSU, instead of a deep analysis of the situation, taking adequate measures, primarily in the economy, as well as a gradual, thoughtful, balanced transformation of the political system and state structure, limited itself to frank verbiage about the restoration of the Leninist principle of national self-determination.

Moreover, in the course of the unfolding struggle for power within the Communist Party itself, each of the warring parties in order to expand the base of support began to mindlessly stimulate, encourage nationalist sentiments, play on them, promising their potential supporters everything they wanted. Against the background of superficial and populist chatter about democracy and a bright future built on the basis of either a market or a planned economy, but in conditions of real impoverishment of people and total shortages, none of the powers that be thought about the inevitable tragic consequences for the country.

And then they completely followed the path trodden at the dawn of the creation of the USSR to satisfy the ambitions of nationalist elites grown up in their own party ranks, while forgetting that the CPSU no longer has, and thank God, such tools for retaining power and the country itself as state terror, a Stalinist-type dictatorship. And that even the notorious leadership role of the party, like the morning fog, disappears without a trace right before their eyes.

And in September 1989, at the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, a fateful document was adopted – the so-called national policy of the party in modern conditions, the platform of the CPSU. It contained the following provisions, to quote: "The Union republics have all the rights corresponding to their status as sovereign socialist states."

Another point: "The supreme representative bodies of power of the Union republics may protest and suspend the effect of resolutions and orders of the Union Government on their territory."

And finally: "Each Union republic has its own citizenship, which applies to all its inhabitants."

Wasn't it obvious what such wording and decisions would lead to?

Now is not the time, not the place to go into the issues of state or constitutional law, to define the very concept of citizenship. But the question still arises: why in those already difficult conditions was it necessary to rock the country even more in this way? The fact remains.

Two years before the collapse of the USSR, his fate was actually predetermined. It is now radicals and nationalists, including and above all in Ukraine, who attribute to themselves the merit of gaining independence. As we can see, this is not the case at all. The disintegration of our united country was caused by the historical, strategic mistakes of the leaders of the Bolsheviks, the leadership of the CPSU, made at different times in state-building, economic and national policy. The collapse of historical Russia under the name of the USSR on their conscience.

Despite all these injustices, deception and outright robbery of Russia, our people, namely the people, recognized the new geopolitical realities that arose after the collapse of the USSR, recognized the newly independent states. And not only did he admit that Russia itself, being in a difficult situation at that time, helped its partners in the CIS, including Ukrainian colleagues, from whom numerous requests for material support began to come right from the moment of declaring independence. And our country provided such support with respect for the dignity and sovereignty of Ukraine.

According to expert estimates, which are confirmed by a simple calculation of prices for our energy resources, the volume of preferential loans, economic and trade preferences that Russia provided to Ukraine, the total benefit for the Ukrainian budget for the period from 1991 to 2013 amounted to about $ 250 billion.

But that's not all. By the end of 1991, the USSR's debt obligations to foreign countries and international funds amounted to about $ 100 billion. And initially it was assumed that these loans would be returned by all the republics of the former USSR in solidarity, in proportion to their economic potential. However, Russia assumed the repayment of the entire Soviet debt and paid it in full. Finally completed this process in 2017.

In return, the newly independent states had to give up their share of Soviet foreign assets, and appropriate agreements were reached with Ukraine in December 1994. However, Kiev did not ratify these agreements and later simply refused to comply, putting forward claims to the diamond fund, gold reserves, as well as property and other assets of the former USSR abroad.

And yet, despite the well-known problems, Russia has always cooperated with Ukraine openly, honestly and, I repeat, with respect for its interests, our ties in various fields have developed. Thus, in 2011, bilateral trade turnover exceeded $50 billion. I would like to note that the volume of Ukraine's trade with all EU countries in 2019, that is, even before the pandemic, was inferior to this indicator.

At the same time, it was striking that the Ukrainian authorities preferred to act in such a way as to have all the rights and advantages in relations with Russia, but not to bear any obligations.

Instead of partnership, dependency began to prevail, which on the part of the Kiev official authorities sometimes acquired an absolutely unceremonious character. Suffice it to recall the permanent blackmail in the field of energy transit and the banal theft of gas.

I will add that Kiev tried to use the dialogue with Russia as a pretext for bargaining with the West, blackmailed it with rapprochement with Moscow, knocking out preferences for itself: they say, otherwise, Russian influence on Ukraine will grow.

At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities initially, I want to emphasise this, began to build their statehood on the denial of everything that unites us, sought to distort the consciousness and historical memory of millions of people, entire generations living in Ukraine. Not surprisingly, Ukrainian society is faced with the rise of extreme nationalism, which quickly took the form of aggressive Russophobia and neo-Nazism. Hence the participation of Ukrainian nationalists and neo-Nazis in terrorist gangs in the North Caucasus, and the increasingly loud territorial claims against Russia.

External forces also played a role, which, with the help of an extensive network of NGOs and special services, grew their clientele in Ukraine and promoted its representatives to power.

It is also important to understand that Ukraine, in fact, has never had a stable tradition of its true statehood. And since 1991, she has followed the path of mechanical copying of other people's models, divorced from both history and Ukrainian realities. Political state institutions were constantly redrawn in favor of rapidly formed clans with their own selfish interests that had nothing to do with the interests of the people of Ukraine.

The whole point of the so-called pro-Western civilizational choice of the Ukrainian oligarchic authorities was and is not to create better conditions for the well-being of the people, but to obsequiously provide services to Russia's geopolitical rivals and save billions of dollars stolen from Ukrainians and hidden by oligarchs in accounts in Western banks.

Some industrial financial groups, taken by them for the maintenance of the party and politics, initially relied on nationalists and radicals. Others paid lip service to good relations with Russia, to cultural and linguistic diversity, and to come to power through the voices of citizens who genuinely supported such aspirations, including millions of people in the southeast. But, having received posts, positions, they immediately betrayed their voters, abandoned their election promises, and the real policy was carried out under the dictation of radicals, sometimes persecuting their yesterday's allies – those public organizations that advocated bilingualism, for cooperation with Russia. They took advantage of the fact that people who supported them, as a rule, law-abiding, moderate views, accustomed to trusting the authorities, they, unlike radicals, will not show aggression, resort to illegal actions.

In turn, the radicals became arrogant, their claims grew year after year. It was not difficult for them to impose their will time after time on a weak government, which itself was struck by the virus of nationalism and corruption and skillfully replaced the true cultural, economic, social interests of the people, the real sovereignty of Ukraine with various kinds of speculation on national grounds and external ethnographic attributes.

Stable statehood in Ukraine has not developed, and political and electoral procedures serve only as a cover, a screen for the redistribution of power and property between various oligarchic clans.

Corruption, which, no doubt, is a challenge and problem for many countries, including Russia, has already acquired a special character in Ukraine. It literally permeated and corroded ukrainian statehood, the entire system, all branches of government. Radicals took advantage of people's righteous discontent, rode the protest and in 2014 brought the Maidan to a coup d'état. At the same time, they received direct assistance from foreign countries. According to reports, the material support of the so-called protest camp on Independence Square in Kiev from the US Embassy amounted to one million dollars a day. Additional very large sums were brazenly transferred directly to the bank accounts of opposition leaders. And it was about tens of millions of dollars. And how many truly injured people, the families of those who died in clashes provoked in the streets and squares of Kiev and other cities, have received in the end? It's best not to ask about it.

The radicals who seized power organized persecution, a real terror against those who opposed unconstitutional actions. Politicians, journalists, public figures were mocked, they were publicly humiliated. Ukrainian cities were swept by a wave of pogroms and violence, a series of high-profile and unpunished murders. It is impossible without shuddering to recall the terrible tragedy in Odessa, where the participants of the peaceful protest action were brutally murdered, burned alive in the House of Trade Unions. The criminals who committed this atrocity are not punished, no one is looking for them. But we know them by name and will do everything to punish them, find them and bring them to justice.

The Maidan did not bring Ukraine closer to democracy and progress. Having carried out a coup d'état, the nationalists and those political forces that supported them finally brought the situation to a dead end, pushed Ukraine into the abyss of civil war. Eight years after those events, the country is divided. Ukraine is experiencing an acute socio-economic crisis.

According to international organizations, in 2019, almost six million Ukrainians, I emphasize, this is about 15 percent, not from the able-bodied, namely from the entire population of the country were forced to go abroad in search of work. And often, as a rule, on daily unskilled earnings. The following fact is also indicative: since 2020, more than 60,000 doctors and other health workers have left the country amid the pandemic.

Since 2014, tariffs for water supply have increased by almost a third, for electricity - several times, for gas for households - dozens of times. Many people simply do not have the money to pay for utilities, they literally have to survive.

What happened? Why is all this happening? The answer is obvious: because the dowry received not only from the Soviet era, but also from the Russian Empire, was squandered and stolen from the pockets. Tens and hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost, which, thanks to close cooperation with Russia, gave people a stable income and brought taxes to the treasury. Such industries as mechanical engineering, instrument making, electronics industry, shipbuilding and aircraft construction, either lie on their side, or are destroyed altogether, and in fact they were once proud not only of Ukraine, but also of the entire Soviet Union.

In 2021, the Black Sea Shipyard in Nikolaev was liquidated, where the first shipyards were laid down under Catherine II. The famous Antonov concern has not produced a single serial aircraft since 2016, and the Yuzhmash plant, specializing in the production of rocket and space technology, was on the verge of bankruptcy, like the Kremenchug Steel Plant. The sad list goes on.

As for the gas transmission system that the entire Soviet Union was creating, it has become so dilapidated that its operation is associated with great risks and environmental costs.

And in this regard, the question arises: poverty, hopelessness, loss of industrial and technological potential – this is the very pro-Western civilizational choice that has been fooled and dumbed down by millions of people for many years, promising them heavenly tabernacles?

In fact, it all boiled down to the fact that the collapse of the Ukrainian economy is accompanied by an outright robbery of the country's citizens, and Ukraine itself was simply driven under external control. It is carried out not only at the behest of Western capitals, but also, as they say, directly on the spot – through a whole network of foreign advisers, NGOs and other institutions deployed in Ukraine. They have a direct impact on all the most important personnel decisions, on all branches and levels of government: from the central and even to the municipal, on the main state-owned companies and corporations, including Naftogaz, Ukrenergo, Ukrainian Railways, Ukroboronprom, Ukrposhta, the Administration of Seaports of Ukraine.

There is simply no independent court in Ukraine. At the request of the West, the Kiev authorities gave representatives of international organizations the preferential right to select members of the highest judicial bodies - the Council of Justice and the Qualification Commission of Judges.

In addition, the U.S. Embassy directly controls the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, and the High Anti-Corruption Court. All this is done under a plausible pretext to increase the effectiveness of the fight against corruption. Well, okay, but where are the results? Corruption has blossomed and is still flourishing.

Are Ukrainians themselves aware of all these management methods? Do they understand that their country is not even under a political and economic protectorate, but reduced to the level of a colony with a puppet regime? The privatization of the state has led to the fact that the government, which calls itself the "power of patriots", has lost its national character and consistently leads to the complete de-sovereignization of the country.

The policy of de-Russification and forced assimilation continues. The Verkhovna Rada is non-stop issuing new discriminatory acts, the law on the so-called indigenous peoples is already in force. People who consider themselves Russians and would like to preserve their identity, language, culture, were directly made to understand that they are strangers in Ukraine.

In accordance with the laws on education and on the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language, Russian is expelled from schools, from all public spheres, up to ordinary shops. The law on the so-called lustration, "purification" of power made it possible to deal with unwanted civil servants.

Acts are proliferating that give the Ukrainian security forces grounds for a harsh suppression of freedom of speech, dissent, and persecution of the opposition. The world knows the sad practice of unilateral illegitimate sanctions against other states, foreign individuals and legal entities. In Ukraine, they outdid their Western curators and invented such a tool as sanctions against their own citizens, enterprises, TV channels, other media and even members of parliament.

In Kiev, they continue to prepare a massacre of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. And this is not an emotional assessment, this is evidenced by specific decisions and documents. The tragedy of the church schism of the Ukrainian authorities was cynically turned into an instrument of state policy. The current leadership of the country does not respond to the requests of the citizens of Ukraine to abolish laws that infringe on the rights of believers. Moreover, the Rada has registered new bills against the clergy and millions of parishioners of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.

I will talk separately about Crimea. The inhabitants of the peninsula have made their free choice – to be together with Russia. The Kiev authorities have nothing to counter this clear, precise will of the people, so the stake is on aggressive actions, on activating extremist cells, including radical Islamic organizations, on the deployment of sabotage groups to commit terrorist acts at critical infrastructure facilities, to kidnap Russian citizens. We have direct evidence that such aggressive actions are carried out with the support of foreign special services.

In March 2021, Ukraine adopted a new Military Strategy. This document is almost entirely devoted to the confrontation with Russia, aims to draw foreign states into a conflict with our country. The strategy proposes the organization in the Russian Crimea and on the territory of the Donbass, in fact, of a terrorist underground. It also spells out the contours of the proposed war, and it should end, as today's Kiev strategists think, I will quote further – "with the assistance of the international community on favorable terms for Ukraine." And also, as they say today in Kiev, I also quote here, please listen more carefully – "with the military support of the world community in the geopolitical confrontation with the Russian Federation." In fact, this is nothing more than preparation for military operations against our country – against Russia.

We also know that there have already been statements that Ukraine is going to create its own nuclear weapons, and this is not empty bravado. Indeed, Ukraine still has Soviet nuclear technology and means of delivering such weapons, including aviation, as well as operational-tactical missiles "Tochka-U", also of Soviet design, the range of which exceeds 100 kilometers. But they will do more, it is only a matter of time. There are reserves from the Soviet era.

Thus, it will be much easier for Ukraine to acquire tactical nuclear weapons than for some other states, I will not call them now, actually leading such developments, especially in the case of technological support from abroad. And we should not rule this out either.

With the advent of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Ukraine, the situation in the world, in Europe, especially for us, for Russia, will change dramatically. We cannot but react to this real danger, especially since, I repeat, Western patrons can contribute to the emergence of such weapons in Ukraine in order to create another threat to our country. We see how persistently the military pumping of the Kiev regime is carried out. Since 2014, the United States alone has allocated billions of dollars for these purposes, including the supply of weapons, equipment, and training of specialists. In recent months, Western weapons have been coming to Ukraine in a continuous stream, demonstratively, in front of the eyes of the whole world. The activities of the armed forces and special services of Ukraine are led by foreign advisers, we know this well.

In recent years, under the pretext of exercises, military contingents of NATO countries have been almost constantly present on the territory of Ukraine. The command and control system of Ukrainian troops has already been integrated with NATO's. This means that the command of the Ukrainian armed forces, even individual units and subdivisions, can be carried out directly from NATO headquarters.

The United States and NATO have embarked on the shameless development of Ukraine's territory as a theater of potential military operations. Regular joint exercises have a clear anti-Russian orientation. Last year alone, more than 23,000 troops and over a thousand pieces of equipment participated in them.

A law has already been adopted on the admission in 2022 of the armed forces of other states to the territory of Ukraine to participate in multinational exercises. It is clear that we are talking primarily about NATO troops. And in the coming year, at least ten such joint maneuvers are planned.

Obviously, such events serve as a cover for the rapid build-up of the NATO military grouping on the territory of Ukraine. Moreover, the network of airfields modernized with the help of the Americans – Boryspil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chuhuiv, Odessa, and so on – is able to ensure the transfer of military units in the shortest possible time. The airspace of Ukraine is open for flights of strategic and reconnaissance aircraft of the United States, unmanned aerial vehicles that are used to monitor the territory of Russia.

I would like to add that the Maritime Operations Center in Ochakov, built by the Americans, makes it possible to ensure the actions of NATO ships, including their use of high-precision weapons against the Russian Black Sea Fleet and our infrastructure on the entire Black Sea coast.

At one time, the United States intended to create similar facilities in the Crimea, but the Crimeans and Sevastopolians thwarted these plans. We will always remember that.

Let me repeat that today such a centre has been deployed and has already been deployed in Ochakiv. Let me remind you that in the XVIII century the soldiers of Alexander Suvorov fought for this city. Thanks to their courage, it became part of Russia. At the same time, in the XVIII century, the lands of the Black Sea region, annexed to Russia as a result of wars with the Ottoman Empire, were called Novorossiya. Now these milestones of history are trying to be forgotten, as well as the names of state military figures of the Russian Empire, without whose works modern Ukraine would not have many large cities and even the very access to the Black Sea.

Recently, a monument to Alexander Suvorov was demolished in Poltava. What can I say? Giving up on your own past? From the so-called colonial legacy of the Russian Empire? Well, then be consistent here.

Further. I note that Article 17 of the Constitution of Ukraine does not allow the deployment of foreign military bases on its territory. But it turned out that this is only a convention that can be easily circumvented.

Training missions of NATO countries have been deployed in Ukraine. These, in fact, are already foreign military bases. They just called the base a "mission" and it's about the hat.

Kiev has long proclaimed a strategic course for joining NATO. Yes, of course, each country has the right to choose its own security system, to conclude military alliances. And everything seems to be so, if not for one "but". International instruments explicitly enshrine the principle of equal and indivisible security, which, as you know, includes obligations not to strengthen one's security at the expense of the security of other States. I can refer here to the 1999 OSCE Charter for European Security, adopted in Istanbul, and to the OSCE Astana Declaration of 2010.

In other words, the choice of ways to ensure security should not pose a threat to other states, and Ukraine's accession to NATO is a direct threat to Russia's security.

Let me remind you that back in April 2008, at the Bucharest summit of the North Atlantic Alliance, the United States pushed through the decision that Ukraine and, by the way, Georgia would become nato members. Many European allies of the United States were already well aware of all the risks of such a prospect, but were forced to accept the will of the senior partner. The Americans simply used them to pursue a pronounced anti-Russian policy.

A number of member states of the Alliance are still very skeptical about the appearance of Ukraine in NATO. At the same time, we receive a signal from some European capitals, saying: "What are you going through? It's not going to happen literally tomorrow." Actually, our American partners are also talking about this. "Okay," we reply, "not tomorrow, so the day after tomorrow. What does this change from a historical perspective? Basically, nothing."

Moreover, we are aware of the position and words of the leadership of the United States that active hostilities in the east of Ukraine do not exclude the possibility of this country's accession to NATO, if it can meet the criteria of the North Atlantic Alliance and defeat corruption.

At the same time, they are trying to convince us time after time that NATO is a peace-loving and purely defensive alliance. Like, there are no threats to Russia. Again, they offer to take their word for it. But we are well aware of the real price of such words. In 1990, when the question of German reunification was discussed, the Soviet leadership was promised by the United States that there would be no extension of NATO's jurisdiction or military presence by a single inch in the eastern direction. And that the unification of Germany will not lead to the expansion of the NATO military organization to the East. It's a quote.

They spoke, gave verbal assurances, and everything turned out to be empty words. Later, we were assured that the accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to NATO would only improve relations with Moscow, rid these countries of fears of a difficult historical legacy and even, moreover, create a belt of states friendly to Russia.

Everything turned out to be exactly the opposite. The authorities of some Eastern European countries, trading russophobia, brought to the Alliance their complexes and stereotypes about the Russian threat, insisted on building up the potentials of collective defense, which should be deployed primarily against Russia. And this happened in the 1990s and early 2000s, when, thanks to openness and our goodwill, relations between Russia and the West were at a high level.

Russia has fulfilled all its obligations, including the withdrawal of troops from Germany, from the states of Central and Eastern Europe and thereby made a huge contribution to overcoming the legacy of the Cold War. We have consistently proposed various options for cooperation, including in the format of the NATO-Russia Council and the OSCE.

Moreover, I will say now something that I have never said publicly, I will say this for the first time. In 2000, during a visit to Moscow by outgoing U.S. President Bill Clinton, I asked him, "How will America react to admitting Russia to NATO?"

I will not disclose all the details of that conversation, but the reaction to my question looked, let's say, very restrained, and how the Americans really reacted to this possibility can actually be seen in their practical steps towards our country. This is open support for terrorists in the North Caucasus, a dismissive attitude to our demands and security concerns in the expansion of NATO, withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, and so on. So I want to ask: why, why all this, for what? Okay, you don't want to see us as a friend and ally, but why make us an enemy?

There is only one answer: it's not about our political regime, it's not about anything else, they just don't need such a large independent country as Russia. That's the answer to all the questions. This is the source of traditional American policy towards Russia. Hence the attitude to all our proposals in the field of security.

Today, one glance at the map is enough to see how Western countries have "kept" their promise to prevent NATO from advancing to the east. They just cheated. We got five waves of NATO enlargement one after another. In 1999, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary were admitted to the Alliance, in 2004 - Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, in 2009 - Albania and Croatia, in 2017 - Montenegro, in 2020 - North Macedonia.

As a result, the Alliance and its military infrastructure went directly to Russia's borders. This was one of the key causes of the crisis of European security, had the most negative impact on the entire system of international relations, led to the loss of mutual trust.

The situation continues to deteriorate, including in the strategic sphere. Thus, in Romania and Poland, within the framework of the US project to create a global missile defense system, positional areas for anti-missiles are being deployed. It is well known that the launchers stationed here can be used for Tomahawk cruise missiles - offensive strike systems.

In addition, the United States is developing a universal missile "Standard-6", which, along with solving the tasks of air and missile defense, can hit both above-ground and surface targets. That is, the allegedly defensive system of the US missile defense system is expanding and new offensive capabilities are emerging.

The information available to us gives every reason to believe that Ukraine's accession to NATO and the subsequent deployment of the Facilities of the North Atlantic Alliance here is a foregone conclusion, it is a matter of time. We clearly understand that in such a scenario, the level of military threats to Russia will increase dramatically, significantly. And I would like to draw your special attention to the fact that the danger of a sudden strike on our country will increase many times over.

Let me explain that the US strategic planning documents (in the documents!) enshrine the possibility of a so-called preemptive strike on enemy missile systems. And we also know who the main adversary is for the United States and NATO. This is Russia. In NATO documents, our country is officially explicitly declared the main threat to Euro-Atlantic security. And Ukraine will serve as a forward springboard for such a strike. If our ancestors had heard about it, they probably just wouldn't have believed it. And we don't want to believe it today, but it is. I want both Russia and Ukraine to understand this.

Many Ukrainian airfields are located near our borders. NATO tactical aviation stationed here, including carriers of high-precision weapons, will be able to hit our territory to a depth of up to the Volgograd-Kazan-Samara-Astrakhan border. The deployment of radar reconnaissance equipment on the territory of Ukraine will allow NATO to tightly control the airspace of Russia up to the Urals.

Finally, after the United States broke the Treaty on Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles, the Pentagon is already openly developing a number of ground-based strike weapons, including ballistic missiles capable of reaching targets at a distance of up to 5.5 thousand kilometers. If such systems are deployed in Ukraine, they will be able to hit objects throughout the European territory of Russia, as well as beyond the Urals. The flight time to Moscow of Tomahawk cruise missiles will be less than 35 minutes, ballistic missiles from the Kharkov area - 7-8 minutes, and hypersonic strike aircraft - 4-5 minutes. It's called, right, "knife to the throat." And I have no doubt that they expect to implement these plans in the same way as they have repeatedly done in past years, expanding NATO to the east, promoting military infrastructure and equipment to the Russian borders, completely ignoring our concerns, protests and warnings. Sorry, they just spit on them and did whatever they wanted, whatever they saw fit.

And of course, they also assume to behave further according to the well-known saying - "The dog barks, and the caravan goes." I will say right away, we did not agree to this and will never agree. At the same time, Russia has always advocated resolving the most complex problems by political and diplomatic methods, at the negotiating table.

We are well aware of our enormous responsibility for regional and global stability. Back in 2008, Russia put forward an initiative to conclude a Treaty on European Security. Its meaning was that no state and no international organization in the Euro-Atlantic could strengthen its security at the expense of the security of others. However, our proposal was rejected from the outset: it is impossible, they say, to allow Russia to limit the activities of NATO.

Moreover, we were explicitly told that only members of the North Atlantic Alliance can have legally binding security guarantees.

Last December, we handed over to our Western partners a draft treaty between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on security assurances, as well as a draft agreement on security measures for the Russian Federation and NATO member states.

In response, there were many common words from the United States and NATO. Rational seeds were also contained, but all this concerned secondary points and looked like an attempt to twist the issue, to divert the discussion to the side.

We reacted accordingly and stressed that we are ready to follow the path of negotiations, but on the condition that all issues are considered in a comprehensive manner, as a package, without interruption from the main, basic Russian proposals. And they contain three key points. The first is to prevent further expansion of NATO. The second is the refusal of the Alliance to deploy strike weapons systems on the Russian borders. And finally, the return of the military potential and infrastructure of the bloc in Europe to the state of 1997, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed.

It is these fundamental proposals of ours that have been ignored. I repeat, our Western partners once again voiced memorized language that every state has the right to freely choose how to ensure its security and to join any military alliances and alliances. That is, nothing has changed in their position, all the same references to the notorious policy of "open doors" of NATO are heard. Moreover, they are again trying to blackmail us, again threatening us with sanctions, which, by the way, they will still introduce as Russia's sovereignty strengthens and the power of our Armed Forces grows. And the pretext for another sanctions attack will always be found or simply fabricated, regardless of the situation in Ukraine. There is only one goal – to restrain the development of Russia. And they will do it as they did before, even without any formal pretext at all, just because we are and will never give up our sovereignty, national interests and our values.

I want to say clearly, frankly, in the current situation, when our proposals for an equal dialogue on fundamental issues have actually remained unanswered by the United States and NATO, when the level of threats to our country is significantly increasing, Russia has every right to take retaliatory measures to ensure its own security. That's what we're going to do.

As for the situation in the Donbas, we see that the ruling elite in Kiev constantly and publicly declares its unwillingness to implement the Minsk package of measures to resolve the conflict, is not interested in a peaceful solution. On the contrary, it is trying to organize a blitzkrieg in the Donbas again, as it was already in 2014 and 2015. How these adventures ended then, we remember.

Now almost not a single day is complete without shelling the settlements of Donbass. The formed large military group constantly uses attack drones, heavy equipment, missiles, artillery and multiple launch rocket systems. The killing of civilians, the blockade, the abuse of people, including children, women and the elderly, does not stop. As we say, there is no end in sight.

And the so-called civilized world, the only representatives of which our Western colleagues have self-proclaimed themselves, prefers not to notice this, as if there is no horror, genocide to which almost 4 million people are subjected, and only because these people did not agree with the Western-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014, opposed the state movement elevated to the rank of cave and aggressive nationalism and neo-Nazism. And they are fighting for their elementary rights – to live on their land, to speak their language, to preserve their culture and traditions.

How long can this tragedy last? How much longer can we tolerate this? Russia has done everything to preserve the territorial integrity of Ukraine, all these years persistently and patiently fought for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2202 of February 17, 2015, which consolidated the Minsk Package of Measures of February 12, 2015 to resolve the situation in the Donbas.

All in vain. Presidents and deputies of the Rada are changing, but the essence, the aggressive, nationalist nature of the regime itself, which seized power in Kiev, does not change. It is entirely a product of the 2014 coup d'état, and those who then embarked on the path of violence, bloodshed, lawlessness, did not and do not recognize any other solution to the Donbass issue, except for the military one.

In this regard, I consider it necessary to make a long-overdue decision to immediately recognize the independence and sovereignty of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic.

I ask the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation to support this decision and then ratify the Treaties of Friendship and Mutual Assistance with both republics. These two documents will be prepared and signed in the very near future.

And from those who have seized and hold power in Kiev, we demand an immediate cessation of hostilities. Otherwise, all responsibility for the possible continuation of the bloodshed will be entirely on the conscience of the ruling regime on the territory of Ukraine.

Announcing the decisions taken today, I am confident in the support of Russian citizens and all patriotic forces of the country.

Thank you for your attention.

This year’s theme is Global Shake-up in the 21st Century: The Individual, Values and the State. The four-day programme includes over 15 in-person and online sessions.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Ladies and gentlemen,

To begin with, I would like to thank you for coming to Russia and taking part in the Valdai Club events.

As always, during these meetings you raise pressing issues and hold comprehensive discussions of these issues that, without exaggeration, matter for people around the world. Once again, the key theme of the forum was put in a straightforward, I would even say, point-blank manner: Global Shake-up in the 21st Century: The Individual, Values and the State.

Indeed, we are living in an era of great change. If I may, by tradition, I will offer my views with regard to the agenda that you have come up with.

In general, this phrase, “to live in an era of great change,” may seem trite since we use it so often. Also, this era of change began quite a long time ago, and changes have become part of everyday life. Hence, the question: are they worth focusing on? I agree with those who made the agenda for these meetings; of course they are.

In recent decades, many people have cited a Chinese proverb. The Chinese people are wise, and they have many thinkers and valuable thoughts that we can still use today. One of them, as you may know, says, “God forbid living in a time of change.” But we are already living in it, whether we like it or not, and these changes are becoming deeper and more fundamental. But let us consider another Chinese wisdom: the word “crisis” consists of two hieroglyphs – there are probably representatives of the People's Republic of China in the audience, and they will correct me if I have it wrong – but, two hieroglyphs, “danger” and “opportunity.” And as we say here in Russia, “fight difficulties with your mind, and fight dangers with your experience.”

Of course, we must be aware of the danger and be ready to counter it, and not just one threat but many diverse threats that can arise in this era of change. However, it is no less important to recall a second component of the crisis – opportunities that must not be missed, all the more so since the crisis we are facing is conceptual and even civilisation-related. This is basically a crisis of approaches and principles that determine the very existence of humans on Earth, but we will have to seriously revise them in any event. The question is where to move, what to give up, what to revise or adjust. In saying this, I am convinced that it is necessary to fight for real values, upholding them in every way.

Humanity entered into a new era about three decades ago when the main conditions were created for ending military-political and ideological confrontation. I am sure you have talked a lot about this in this discussion club. Our Foreign Minister also talked about it, but nevertheless I would like to repeat several things.

A search for a new balance, sustainable relations in the social, political, economic, cultural and military areas and support for the world system was launched at that time. We were looking for this support but must say that we did not find it, at least so far. Meanwhile, those who felt like the winners after the end of the Cold War (we have also spoken about this many times) and thought they climbed Mount Olympus soon discovered that the ground was falling away underneath even there, and this time it was their turn, and nobody could “stop this fleeting moment” no matter how fair it seemed.

In general, it must have seemed that we adjusted to this continuous inconstancy, unpredictability and permanent state of transition, but this did not happen either.

I would like to add that the transformation that we are seeing and are part of is of a different calibre than the changes that repeatedly occurred in human history, at least those we know about. This is not simply a shift in the balance of forces or scientific and technological breakthroughs, though both are also taking place. Today, we are facing systemic changes in all directions – from the increasingly complicated geophysical condition of our planet to a more paradoxical interpretation of what a human is and what the reasons for his existence are.

Let us look around. And I will say this again: I will allow myself to express a few thoughts that I sign on to.

Firstly, climate change and environmental degradation are so obvious that even the most careless people can no longer dismiss them. One can continue to engage in scientific debates about the mechanisms behind the ongoing processes, but it is impossible to deny that these processes are getting worse, and something needs to be done. Natural disasters such as droughts, floods, hurricanes, and tsunamis have almost become the new normal, and we are getting used to them. Suffice it to recall the devastating, tragic floods in Europe last summer, the fires in Siberia – there are a lot of examples. Not only in Siberia – our neighbours in Turkey have also had wildfires, and the United States, and other places on the American continent. It sometimes seems that any geopolitical, scientific and technical, or ideological rivalry becomes pointless in this context, if the winners will have not enough air to breathe or nothing to drink.

The coronavirus pandemic has become another reminder of how fragile our community is, how vulnerable it is, and our most important task is to ensure humanity a safe existence and resilience. To increase our chance of survival in the face of cataclysms, we absolutely need to rethink how we go about our lives, how we run our households, how cities develop or how they should develop; we need to reconsider economic development priorities of entire states. I repeat, safety is one of our main imperatives, in any case it has become obvious now, and anyone who tries to deny this will have to later explain why they were wrong and why they were unprepared for the crises and shocks whole nations are facing.

Second. The socioeconomic problems facing humankind have worsened to the point where, in the past, they would trigger worldwide shocks, such as world wars or bloody social cataclysms. Everyone is saying that the current model of capitalism which underlies the social structure in the overwhelming majority of countries, has run its course and no longer offers a solution to a host of increasingly tangled differences.

Everywhere, even in the richest countries and regions, the uneven distribution of material wealth has exacerbated inequality, primarily, inequality of opportunities both within individual societies and at the international level. I mentioned this formidable challenge in my remarks at the Davos Forum earlier this year. No doubt, these problems threaten us with major and deep social divisions.

Furthermore, a number of countries and even entire regions are regularly hit by food crises. We will probably discuss this later, but there is every reason to believe that this crisis will become worse in the near future and may reach extreme forms. There are also shortages of water and electricity (we will probably cover this today as well), not to mention poverty, high unemployment rates or lack of adequate healthcare.

Lagging countries are fully aware of that and are losing faith in the prospects of ever catching up with the leaders. Disappointment spurs aggression and pushes people to join the ranks of extremists. People in these countries have a growing sense of unfulfilled and failed expectations and the lack of any opportunities not only for themselves, but for their children, as well. This is what makes them look for better lives and results in uncontrolled migration, which, in turn, creates fertile ground for social discontent in more prosperous countries. I do not need to explain anything to you, since you can see everything with your own eyes and are, probably, versed on these matters even better than I.

As I noted earlier, prosperous leading powers have other pressing social problems, challenges and risks in ample supply, and many among them are no longer interested in fighting for influence since, as they say, they already have enough on their plates. The fact that society and young people in many countries have overreacted in a harsh and even aggressive manner to measures to combat the coronavirus showed – and I want to emphasise this, I hope someone has already mentioned this before me at other venues – so, I think that this reaction showed that the pandemic was just a pretext: the causes for social irritation and frustration run much deeper.

I have another important point to make. The pandemic, which, in theory, was supposed to rally the people in the fight against this massive common threat, has instead become a divisive rather than a unifying factor. There are many reasons for that, but one of the main ones is that they started looking for solutions to problems among the usual approaches – a variety of them, but still the old ones, but they just do not work. Or, to be more precise, they do work, but often and oddly enough, they worsen the existing state of affairs.

By the way, Russia has repeatedly called for, and I will repeat this, stopping these inappropriate ambitions and for working together. We will probably talk about this later but it is clear what I have in mind. We are talking about the need to counter the coronavirus infection together. But nothing changes; everything remains the same despite the humanitarian considerations. I am not referring to Russia now, let’s leave the sanctions against Russia for now; I mean the sanctions that remain in place against those states that badly need international assistance. Where are the humanitarian fundamentals of Western political thought? It appears there is nothing there, just idle talk. Do you understand? This is what seems to be on the surface.

Furthermore, the technological revolution, impressive achievements in artificial intelligence, electronics, communications, genetics, bioengineering, and medicine open up enormous opportunities, but at the same time, in practical terms, they raise philosophical, moral and spiritual questions that were until recently the exclusive domain of science fiction writers. What will happen if machines surpass humans in the ability to think? Where is the limit of interference in the human body beyond which a person ceases being himself and turns into some other entity? What are the general ethical limits in the world where the potential of science and machines are becoming almost boundless? What will this mean for each of us, for our descendants, our nearest descendants – our children and grandchildren?

These changes are gaining momentum, and they certainly cannot be stopped because they are objective as a rule. All of us will have to deal with the consequences regardless of our political systems, economic condition or prevailing ideology.

Verbally, all states talk about their commitment to the ideals of cooperation and a willingness to work together for resolving common problems but, unfortunately, these are just words. In reality, the opposite is happening, and the pandemic has served to fuel the negative trends that emerged long ago and are now only getting worse. The approach based on the proverb, “your own shirt is closer to the body,” has finally become common and is now no longer even concealed. Moreover, this is often even a matter of boasting and brandishing. Egotistic interests prevail over the notion of the common good.

Of course, the problem is not just the ill will of certain states and notorious elites. It is more complicated than that, in my opinion. In general, life is seldom divided into black and white. Every government, every leader is primarily responsible to his own compatriots, obviously. The main goal is to ensure their security, peace and prosperity. So, international, transnational issues will never be as important for a national leadership as domestic stability. In general, this is normal and correct.

We need to face the fact the global governance institutions are not always effective and their capabilities are not always up to the challenge posed by the dynamics of global processes. In this sense, the pandemic could help – it clearly showed which institutions have what it takes and which need fine-tuning.

The re-alignment of the balance of power presupposes a redistribution of shares in favour of rising and developing countries that until now felt left out. To put it bluntly, the Western domination of international affairs, which began several centuries ago and, for a short period, was almost absolute in the late 20th century, is giving way to a much more diverse system.

This transformation is not a mechanical process and, in its own way, one might even say, is unparalleled. Arguably, political history has no examples of a stable world order being established without a big war and its outcomes as the basis, as was the case after World War II. So, we have a chance to create an extremely favourable precedent. The attempt to create it after the end of the Cold War on the basis of Western domination failed, as we see. The current state of international affairs is a product of that very failure, and we must learn from this.

Some may wonder, what have we arrived at? We have arrived somewhere paradoxical. Just an example: for two decades, the most powerful nation in the world has been conducting military campaigns in two countries that it cannot be compared to by any standard. But in the end, it had to wind down operations without achieving a single goal that it had set for itself going in 20 years ago, and to withdraw from these countries causing considerable damage to others and itself. In fact, the situation has worsened dramatically.

But that is not the point. Previously, a war lost by one side meant victory for the other side, which took responsibility for what was happening. For example, the defeat of the United States in the Vietnam War, for example, did not make Vietnam a “black hole.” On the contrary, a successfully developing state arose there, which, admittedly, relied on the support of a strong ally. Things are different now: no matter who takes the upper hand, the war does not stop, but just changes form. As a rule, the hypothetical winner is reluctant or unable to ensure peaceful post-war recovery, and only worsens the chaos and the vacuum posing a danger to the world.

Colleagues,

What do you think are the starting points of this complex realignment process? Let me try to summarise the talking points.

First, the coronavirus pandemic has clearly shown that the international order is structured around nation states. By the way, recent developments have shown that global digital platforms – with all their might, which we could see from the internal political processes in the United States – have failed to usurp political or state functions. These attempts proved ephemeral. The US authorities, as I said, have immediately put the owners of these platforms in their place, which is exactly what is being done in Europe, if you just look at the size of the fines imposed on them and the demonopolisation measures being taken. You are aware of that.

In recent decades, many have tossed around fancy concepts claiming that the role of the state was outdated and outgoing. Globalisation supposedly made national borders an anachronism, and sovereignty an obstacle to prosperity. You know, I said it before and I will say it again. This is also what was said by those who attempted to open up other countries’ borders for the benefit of their own competitive advantages. This is what actually happened. And as soon as it transpired that someone somewhere is achieving great results, they immediately returned to closing borders in general and, first of all, their own customs borders and what have you, and started building walls. Well, were we supposed to not notice, or what? Everyone sees everything and everyone understands everything perfectly well. Of course, they do.

There is no point in disputing it anymore. It is obvious. But events, when we spoke about the need to open up borders, events, as I said, went in the opposite direction. Only sovereign states can effectively respond to the challenges of the times and the demands of the citizens. Accordingly, any effective international order should take into account the interests and capabilities of the state and proceed on that basis, and not try to prove that they should not exist. Furthermore, it is impossible to impose anything on anyone, be it the principles underlying the sociopolitical structure or values that someone, for their own reasons, has called universal. After all, it is clear that when a real crisis strikes, there is only one universal value left and that is human life, which each state decides for itself how best to protect based on its abilities, culture and traditions.

In this regard, I will again note how severe and dangerous the coronavirus pandemic has become. As we know, more than 4.9 million have died of it. These terrifying figures are comparable and even exceed the military losses of the main participants in World War I.

The second point I would like to draw your attention to is the scale of change that forces us to act extremely cautiously, if only for reasons of self-preservation. The state and society must not respond radically to qualitative shifts in technology, dramatic environmental changes or the destruction of traditional systems. It is easier to destroy than to create, as we all know. We in Russia know this very well, regrettably, from our own experience, which we have had several times.

Just over a century ago, Russia objectively faced serious problems, including because of the ongoing World War I, but its problems were not bigger and possibly even smaller or not as acute as the problems the other countries faced, and Russia could have dealt with its problems gradually and in a civilised manner. But revolutionary shocks led to the collapse and disintegration of a great power. The second time this happened 30 years ago, when a potentially very powerful nation failed to enter the path of urgently needed, flexible but thoroughly substantiated reforms at the right time, and as a result it fell victim to all kinds of dogmatists, both reactionary ones and the so-called progressives – all of them did their bit, all sides did.

These examples from our history allow us to say that revolutions are not a way to settle a crisis but a way to aggravate it. No revolution was worth the damage it did to the human potential.

Third. The importance of a solid support in the sphere of morals, ethics and values is increasing dramatically in the modern fragile world. In point of fact, values are a product, a unique product of cultural and historical development of any nation. The mutual interlacing of nations definitely enriches them, openness expands their horizons and allows them to take a fresh look at their own traditions. But the process must be organic, and it can never be rapid. Any alien elements will be rejected anyway, possibly bluntly. Any attempts to force one’s values on others with an uncertain and unpredictable outcome can only further complicate a dramatic situation and usually produce the opposite reaction and an opposite from the intended result.

We look in amazement at the processes underway in the countries which have been traditionally looked at as the standard-bearers of progress. Of course, the social and cultural shocks that are taking place in the United States and Western Europe are none of our business; we are keeping out of this. Some people in the West believe that an aggressive elimination of entire pages from their own history, “reverse discrimination” against the majority in the interests of a minority, and the demand to give up the traditional notions of mother, father, family and even gender, they believe that all of these are the mileposts on the path towards social renewal.

Listen, I would like to point out once again that they have a right to do this, we are keeping out of this. But we would like to ask them to keep out of our business as well. We have a different viewpoint, at least the overwhelming majority of Russian society – it would be more correct to put it this way – has a different opinion on this matter. We believe that we must rely on our own spiritual values, our historical tradition and the culture of our multiethnic nation.

The advocates of so-called ‘social progress’ believe they are introducing humanity to some kind of a new and better consciousness. Godspeed, hoist the flags as we say, go right ahead. The only thing that I want to say now is that their prescriptions are not new at all. It may come as a surprise to some people, but Russia has been there already. After the 1917 revolution, the Bolsheviks, relying on the dogmas of Marx and Engels, also said that they would change existing ways and customs and not just political and economic ones, but the very notion of human morality and the foundations of a healthy society. The destruction of age-old values, religion and relations between people, up to and including the total rejection of family (we had that, too), encouragement to inform on loved ones – all this was proclaimed progress and, by the way, was widely supported around the world back then and was quite fashionable, same as today. By the way, the Bolsheviks were absolutely intolerant of opinions other than theirs.

This, I believe, should call to mind some of what we are witnessing now. Looking at what is happening in a number of Western countries, we are amazed to see the domestic practices, which we, fortunately, have left, I hope, in the distant past. The fight for equality and against discrimination has turned into aggressive dogmatism bordering on absurdity, when the works of the great authors of the past – such as Shakespeare – are no longer taught at schools or universities, because their ideas are believed to be backward. The classics are declared backward and ignorant of the importance of gender or race. In Hollywood memos are distributed about proper storytelling and how many characters of what colour or gender should be in a movie. This is even worse than the agitprop department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Countering acts of racism is a necessary and noble cause, but the new ‘cancel culture’ has turned it into ‘reverse discrimination’ that is, reverse racism. The obsessive emphasis on race is further dividing people, when the real fighters for civil rights dreamed precisely about erasing differences and refusing to divide people by skin colour. I specifically asked my colleagues to find the following quote from Martin Luther King: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by their character.” This is the true value. However, things are turning out differently there. By the way, the absolute majority of Russian people do not think that the colour of a person's skin or their gender is an important matter. Each of us is a human being. This is what matters.

In a number of Western countries, the debate over men’s and women’s rights has turned into a perfect phantasmagoria. Look, beware of going where the Bolsheviks once planned to go – not only communalising chickens, but also communalising women. One more step and you will be there.

Zealots of these new approaches even go so far as to want to abolish these concepts altogether. Anyone who dares mention that men and women actually exist, which is a biological fact, risk being ostracised. “Parent number one” and “parent number two,” “'birthing parent” instead of “mother,” and “human milk” replacing “breastmilk” because it might upset the people who are unsure about their own gender. I repeat, this is nothing new; in the 1920s, the so-called Soviet Kulturtraegers also invented some newspeak believing they were creating a new consciousness and changing values that way. And, as I have already said, they made such a mess it still makes one shudder at times.

Not to mention some truly monstrous things when children are taught from an early age that a boy can easily become a girl and vice versa. That is, the teachers actually impose on them a choice we all supposedly have. They do so while shutting the parents out of the process and forcing the child to make decisions that can upend their entire life. They do not even bother to consult with child psychologists – is a child at this age even capable of making a decision of this kind? Calling a spade a spade, this verges on a crime against humanity, and it is being done in the name and under the banner of progress.

Well, if someone likes this, let them do it. I have already mentioned that, in shaping our approaches, we will be guided by a healthy conservatism. That was a few years ago, when passions on the international arena were not yet running as high as they are now, although, of course, we can say that clouds were gathering even then. Now, when the world is going through a structural disruption, the importance of reasonable conservatism as the foundation for a political course has skyrocketed – precisely because of the multiplying risks and dangers, and the fragility of the reality around us.

This conservative approach is not about an ignorant traditionalism, a fear of change or a restraining game, much less about withdrawing into our own shell. It is primarily about reliance on a time-tested tradition, the preservation and growth of the population, a realistic assessment of oneself and others, a precise alignment of priorities, a correlation of necessity and possibility, a prudent formulation of goals, and a fundamental rejection of extremism as a method. And frankly, in the impending period of global reconstruction, which may take quite long, with its final design being uncertain, moderate conservatism is the most reasonable line of conduct, as far as I see it. It will inevitably change at some point, but so far, do no harm – the guiding principle in medicine – seems to be the most rational one. Noli nocere, as they say.

Again, for us in Russia, these are not some speculative postulates, but lessons from our difficult and sometimes tragic history. The cost of ill-conceived social experiments is sometimes beyond estimation. Such actions can destroy not only the material, but also the spiritual foundations of human existence, leaving behind moral wreckage where nothing can be built to replace it for a long time.

Finally, there is one more point I want to make. We understand all too well that resolving many urgent problems the world has been facing would be impossible without close international cooperation. However, we need to be realistic: most of the pretty slogans about coming up with global solutions to global problems that we have been hearing since the late 20th century will never become reality. In order to achieve a global solution, states and people have to transfer their sovereign rights to supra-national structures to an extent that few, if any, would accept. This is primarily attributable to the fact that you have to answer for the outcomes of such policies not to some global public, but to your citizens and voters.

However, this does not mean that exercising some restraint for the sake of bringing about solutions to global challenges is impossible. After all, a global challenge is a challenge for all of us together, and to each of us in particular. If everyone saw a way to benefit from cooperation in overcoming these challenges, this would definitely leave us better equipped to work together.

One of the ways to promote these efforts could be, for example, to draw up, at the UN level, a list of challenges and threats that specific countries face, with details of how they could affect other countries. This effort could involve experts from various countries and academic fields, including you, my colleagues. We believe that developing a roadmap of this kind could inspire many countries to see global issues in a new light and understand how cooperation could be beneficial for them.

I have already mentioned the challenges international institutions are facing. Unfortunately, this is an obvious fact: it is now a question of reforming or closing some of them. However, the United Nations as the central international institution retains its enduring value, at least for now. I believe that in our turbulent world it is the UN that brings a touch of reasonable conservatism into international relations, something that is so important for normalising the situation.

Many criticise the UN for failing to adapt to a rapidly changing world. In part, this is true, but it is not the UN, but primarily its members who are to blame for this. In addition, this international body promotes not only international norms, but also the rule-making spirit, which is based on the principles of equality and maximum consideration for everyone’s opinions. Our mission is to preserve this heritage while reforming the organisation. However, in doing so we need to make sure that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater, as the saying goes.

This is not the first time I am using a high rostrum to make this call for collective action in order to face up to the problems that continue to pile up and become more acute. It is thanks to you, friends and colleagues, that the Valdai Club is emerging or has already established itself as a high-profile forum. It is for this reason that I am turning to this platform to reaffirm our readiness to work together on addressing the most urgent problems that the world is facing today.

Friends,

The changes mentioned here prior to me, as well as by yours truly, are relevant to all countries and peoples. Russia, of course, is not an exception. Just like everyone else, we are searching for answers to the most urgent challenges of our time.

Of course, no one has any ready-made recipes. However, I would venture to say that our country has an advantage. Let me explain what this advantage is. It is to do with our historical experience. You may have noticed that I have referred to it several times in the course of my remarks. Unfortunately, we had to bring back many sad memories, but at least our society has developed what they now refer to as herd immunity to extremism that paves the way to upheavals and socioeconomic cataclysms. People really value stability and being able to live normal lives and to prosper while confident that the irresponsible aspirations of yet another group of revolutionaries will not upend their plans and aspirations. Many have vivid memories of what happened 30 years ago and all the pain it took to climb out of the ditch where our country and our society found themselves after the USSR fell apart.

The conservative views we hold are an optimistic conservatism, which is what matters the most. We believe stable, positive development to be possible. It all depends primarily on our own efforts. Of course, we are ready to work with our partners on common noble causes.

I would like to thank all participants once more, for your attention. As the tradition goes, I will gladly answer or at least try to answer your questions.

Thank you for your patience.

Moderator of the 18th annual meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club closing session Fyodor Lukyanov: Thank you very much, Mr President, for your detailed remarks covering not only and not so much the current political problems, but fundamental issues. Following up on what you said, I cannot fail to ask you about the historical experience, traditions, conservatism and healthy conservatism that you have mentioned on several occasions in your remarks.

Does unhealthy conservatism frighten you? Where does the boundary separating the healthy from the unhealthy lie? At what point does a tradition turn from something that binds society together into a burden?

Vladimir Putin: Anything can become a burden, if you are not careful. When I speak about healthy conservatism, Nikolai Berdyayev always springs to mind, and I have already mentioned him several times. He was a remarkable Russian philosopher, and as you all know he was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1922. He was as forward-thinking as a man can be, but also sided with conservatism. He used to say, and you will excuse me if I do not quote his exact words: “Conservatism is not something preventing upward, forward movement, but something preventing you from sliding back into chaos.” If we treat conservatism this way, it provides an effective foundation for further progress.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Speaking of traditions, you also tend to mention traditional values quite frequently, and this is a hot topic in our society. In particular, you have proposed relying on traditional values as a foundation for bringing the world together. However, traditions are destined to be unique for every nation. How can everyone come together around the same traditional values, if they have their own traditions?

Vladimir Putin: Do you know what the trick is? The trick is that of course there is a lot of diversity and every nation around the world is different. Still, something unites all people. After all, we are all people, and we all want to live. Life is of absolute value.

In my opinion, the same applies to family as a value, because what can be more important than procreation? Do we want to be or not to be? If we do not want to be, fine. You see, adoption is also a good and important thing, but to adopt a child someone has to give birth to that child. This is the second universal value that cannot be contested.

I do not think that I need to list them all. You are all smart people here, and everyone understands this, including you. Yes, we do need to work together based on these shared, universal values.

Fyodor Lukyanov: You made a powerful statement when you said that the current model of capitalism has run its course and no longer offers a solution to international issues. One hears this a lot these days, but you are referring to our country’s unfortunate experience in the 20th century when we were actually rejecting capitalism, but this did not work out for us either. Does this mean that this is where we want to return? Where are we headed with this dysfunctional capitalist model?

Vladimir Putin: I also said that there were no ready-made recipes. It is true that what we are currently witnessing, for example on the energy markets, as we will probably discuss later, demonstrates that this kind of capitalism does not work. All they do is talk about the “invisible hand” of the market, only to get $1,500 or $2,000 per 1,000 cubic metres. Is this market-based approach to regulation any good?

When everything goes well and there is stability, economic actors around the world demand more freedom for themselves and a smaller role for the state in the economy. However, when challenges arise, especially at a global scale, they want the government to interfere.

I remember 2008 and 2009 and the global financial crisis very well. I was Prime Minister at the time, and spoke to many Russian business leaders, who were viewed as successful up to that point, and everything is fine with them now, by the way. They came to me and were ready to give up their companies that were worth tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, for a ruble. Why? They had to assume responsibility for their workforce and for the future of these companies. It was easier for them just to keep what they earned and shift their responsibility to others.

At the time, we agreed that the state would lend them its shoulder: they kept their businesses, while the state paid off their margin loans and assumed responsibility, to a certain extent. Together with the businesses, we found a solution. As a result, we saved Russia’s largest private companies, and enabled the state to make a profit afterwards. We actually made money because when the companies were back on their feet, they paid back what they owed the state. The state made quite a profit.

In this regard, we do need to work together and explore each other’s experience. Other countries also had positive experiences in making the state and the market work in tune with each other. The People’s Republic of China is a case in point. While the Communist Party retains its leading role there, the country has a viable market and its institutions are quite effective. This is an obvious fact.

For this reason, there are no ready-made recipes. Wild capitalism does not work either, as I have already said, and I am ready to repeat this, as I have just demonstrated using these examples.

In a way, this is like art. You need to understand when to place a bigger emphasis on something: when to add more salt, and when to use more sugar. You see? While being guided by the general principles as articulated by international financial institutions such as the IMF, the OECD, etc., we need to understand where we are. To act, we need to understand how our capabilities compare with the plans we have. By the way, here in Russia we have been quite effective over the past years, including in overcoming the consequences of the epidemic. Other countries also performed quite well, as we can see.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Do you mean that we are moving not only towards an optimistic conservatism but also towards an optimistic capitalism?

Vladimir Putin: You see, we need to build a social welfare state. Truth be said, Europe, especially the Nordic countries, have been advocating a social welfare state for a long time. This is essential for us, considering the income gap between various social groups, even if this problem exists in all the leading economies of the world. Just look at the United States and Europe, although the income gap is smaller in Europe compared to the United States.

As I have said on multiple occasions, only a small group of people who were already rich to begin with benefited from the preferences that became available over the past years. Their wealth increased exponentially compared to the middle class and the poor. This problem clearly exists there, even if it is not as pressing in Europe, but it still exists.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Thank you.

I will ask the last question so that we do not keep the audience waiting. You mentioned the UN’s invaluable role. We can understand this, since the UN is a fundamental institution, and so on. However, many now criticise the UN, and you have mentioned this in your remarks.

Just a few days ago, President of Turkey Erdogan, whom you know well, said that the Security Council must be reformed because a group of WWII victor countries monopolised power, which is not the way it should be. Do you agree with this statement?

Vladimir Putin: I do not. He has recently visited Russia, as you know, and I had a meeting with him. I raised this question myself, saying that I saw his main points. I have to admit that I did not read the entire book, but I did look at some of the ideas. I agree with some of them. This is a good analysis. We can understand why a Turkish leader raises this issue. He probably believes that Turkey could become a permanent Security Council member. It is not up to Russia to decide, though. Matters of this kind must be decided by consensus. There are also India and South Africa. You see, this is a question of fairness, of striking a balance.

Different solutions are possible here. I would rather not talk about this now, getting ahead of things and preempting Russia's position on this discussion. But what is important (I just said so in my opening remarks, and I also said this to President Erdogan), if we dismantle the permanent members’ veto, the United Nations will die on the same day, will degrade into the League of Nations, and that will be it. It will be just a platform for discussion, Valdai Club number two. But there is only one Valdai Club, and it is here. (Laughter.)

Fyodor Lukyanov: We are ready to step in.

Vladimir Putin: Valdai Club number two will be in New York.

Fyodor Lukyanov: We will go and replace it with pleasure.

Vladimir Putin: But this is the point – we would rather not change anything. That is, some change might be necessary, but we would rather not destroy the basis – this is the whole point of the UN today, that there are five permanent members, and they have the power of veto. Other states are represented on the Security Council, but they are non-permanent members.

We need to think how we could make this organisation more balanced, because indeed – this is true, and in this sense, President Erdogan is right – it emerged after World War II, when there was a certain balance of power. Now it is changing; it has already changed.

We are well aware that China has overtaken the United States in purchasing power parity. What do you think that is? These are global changes.

And India? Another nation of almost 1.5 billion people, a rapidly developing economy, and so on. And why is Africa not represented? Where is Latin America? We definitely need to consider this – a growing giant there such as Brazil. These are all topics for discussion. Only, we must not rush. We must not make any mistakes on the path of reform.

Fyodor Lukyanov: The leaders of the Valdai Club will consider holding a meeting in New York. Only, they might not issue visas to all of us, I am afraid, but no problem, we will work on that.

Vladimir Putin: By the way, why not? The Valdai Club might as well meet in New York.

Fyodor Lukyanov: After you and Biden agree on the visas. (Laughter.)

Vladimir Putin: I do not think the heads of state will need to step in. Just ask Sergei Lavrov, he will speak with his colleagues there.

Why not? I am serious. Why not hold a Valdai Club session on a neutral site, outside the Russian Federation? Why not? I think it might be interesting.

We have important people here in this room, good analysts who are well known in their countries. More people can be invited in the host country to join these discussions. What is wrong with that? This is good.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Well, we have just set a goal.

Vladimir Putin: It is not a goal; it is a possibility.

Fyodor Lukyanov: A possibility. Like a crisis. It is also a possibility.

Vladimir Putin: Yes.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Please, Piotr Dutkiewicz.

Piotr Dutkiewicz: Mr President, I would like to return to the words you have just said, that Russia should rely on Russian values. By the way, we were talking about this at a Valdai Club meeting the day before yesterday.

I would like to ask you which Russian thinkers, scholars, anthropologists and writers do you regard as your closest soul-mates, helping you to define for yourself the values that will later become those of all Russians?

Vladimir Putin: You know, I would prefer not to say that this is Ivan Ilyin alone. I read Ilyin, I read him to this day. I have his book lying on my shelf, and I pick it up and read it from time to time. I have mentioned Berdiayev, there are other Russian thinkers. All of them are people who were thinking about Russia and its future. I am fascinated by the train of their thought, but, of course, I make allowances for the time when they were working, writing and formulating their ideas. The well-known idea about the passionarity of nations is a very interesting idea. It could be challenged – arguments around it continue to this day. But if there are debates over the ideas they formulated, these are obviously not idle ideas to say the least.

Let me remind you about nations’ passionarity. According to the author of this idea, peoples, nations, ethnic groups are like a living organism: they are born, reach the peak of their development, and then quietly grow old. Many countries, including those on the American continent, say today’s Western Europe is ageing. This is the term they use. It is hard to say whether this is right or not. But, to my mind, the idea that a nation should have an inner driving mechanism for development, a will for development and self-assertion has a leg to stand on.

We are observing that certain countries are on the rise even though they have a lot of unsolved problems. They resemble erupting volcanoes, like the one on the Spanish island, which is disgorging its lava. But there are also extinguished volcanoes, where fires are long dead and one can only hear birds singing.

You, please.

Piotr Dutkiewicz: Mr President, you have referred to Lev Gumilyov, who presented me with a samizdat edition of his first book in St Petersburg in 1979. I will pass this samizdat on to you.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Samizdat, a tradition.

Dear friends, please introduce yourselves, when you take the floor.

Alexei Miller: Good afternoon, Mr President.

I am Alexei Miller, a historian from the European University at St Petersburg.

Vladimir Putin: There are two Alexei Millers. Russia is a rich country. (Laughter)

Alexei Miller: Two years ago, you were asked during a meeting at the Valdai Club about the European Parliament’s resolution, which made the Soviet Union (and hence Russia) and Nazi Germany equally responsible for the outbreak of WWII. Since then, you have commented on this issue several times in your statements and in the article published in the summer of 2020.

In particular, during the ceremony to unveil a monument to the victims of the siege of Leningrad at the Yad Vashem memorial complex in January 2020, you said you would like to propose a meeting of the Big Five leaders to discuss this issue as well, so that we could overcome the current confrontation and end the war on memory. I believe the situation has not improved since then. Or maybe you know something the general public is not aware of, maybe there have been some improvements? It would be great if you could tell us about this.

My second question follows on from the first one. When there is such confrontation in the countries that are involved in the war on memory, some forces may be tempted to join ranks and to restrict, to a greater or lesser degree, the freedom of discussion, including among historians. Such discussions always involve a difference of opinions and some risqué or even wrong views. Do you envision the threat of such restrictions in our country?

Vladimir Putin: No, I do not believe there is such a threat in our country. We sometimes see the danger of not being responsible for what some people say, indeed, but then this is the reverse side of the freedom you have mentioned.

As for my initiative to hold a meeting of the heads of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, it has been supported by everyone, in principle, and such a meeting could have been organised. The problems that arose are not connected with Russia but with some disputes within this group of five countries. As I have said, they are not connected with Russia. This is the first point.

And the second is that the pandemic began soon after that, and the situation has become really complicated.

The idea of the meeting received a highly positive response, and I hope it will be held eventually. This definitely will be beneficial. We are discussing this with our American partners, with our Chinese friends, with France – incidentally, the French President supported it immediately, as well as with Britain. They have their own ideas and proposals on additional subjects that can be discussed at such a meeting. I hope the necessary conditions will develop and we will hold this meeting.

As for historical memory, the memory of WWII, you know, of course, that I am ready to talk about this with arguments in hand. We have many complaints about the country’s leadership between 1917 and 1990, which is obvious. However, placing the Nazis and the Communists before WWII on the same level and dividing responsibility between them equally is absolutely unacceptable. It is a lie.

I am saying this not only because I am Russian and, currently, the head of the Russian state, which is the legal successor of the Soviet Union. I am saying this now, in part or at least in part, as a researcher. I have read the documents, which I retrieved from the archives. We are publishing them now in increasingly large amounts.

Trust me, when I read them, the picture in my mind started changing. You can think about Stalin differently, blaming him for the prison camps, persecution campaigns and the like. But I have seen his instructions on documents. The Soviet government was genuinely doing its best to prevent WWII, even if for different reasons. Some people would say that the country was not ready for the war, which is why they tried to prevent it. But they did try to prevent it. They fought for the preservation of Czechoslovakia, providing arguments to protect its sovereignty. I have read, I have really read – this is not a secret, and we are declassifying these archives now – about France’s reaction to those events, including regarding the meeting of the leading politicians with Hitler in Munich in 1938.

When you read this, when you see it, you understand that attempts can indeed be made to distort these facts. But you can at least read these documents. I can understand the current Polish leadership’s attitude to the 1939 events, but when you tell them: Just take a look at what happened slightly before that, when Poland joined Germany in the division of Czechoslovakia. You lit the fuse, you pulled the cork, the genie came out, and you cannot put it back into the bottle.”

I also read the archival documents which we received after the Red Army entered Europe: we have German and also Polish and French documents, we have them. They directly discussed the division of Czechoslovakia and the time for the invasion. And then to blame it on the Soviet Union? This simply does not correspond to reality and facts.

Simply put, who attacked who? Did the Soviet Union attack Germany? No, it did not. Yes, there were secret agreements between Germany and the Soviet Union. Incidentally, I would like to note that the Soviet troops entered Brest when the German troops had been already deployed there; the Germans simply moved back a little and the Red Army moved in. Do you see?

There is no point adding a political dimension here. Let us act calmly at the expert level, read the documents and sort things out. Nobody is accusing the Polish leadership. But we will not allow anyone to accuse Russia or the Soviet Union of what they did not do.

And lastly, I would like to say that there are some perfectly obvious things. Firstly, it was Germany that attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, and not vice versa, and secondly, let us not forget who stormed Berlin. Was it the Americans, the British or the French? No, it was the Red Army. Have you forgotten this? It is easy to recall, for it is an obvious fact.

As many as 1.1 million of our people died in the Battle of Stalingrad alone. How many casualties can Britain claim? 400,000. And the United States, less that 500,000. A total of 75 percent, and probably even 80 percent of the German military potential was destroyed by the Soviet army. Are you a little rusty on this?

No, you are not rusty at all. These events are being used to deal with the current internal political matters in an opportunistic manner. This is wrong, because nothing good will come of manipulating history. At the very least, this does not promote mutual understanding, which we need so badly now.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Orietta Moscatelli, go ahead please.

Orietta Moscatelli: Orietta Moscatelli, Italy. Thank you for the meeting.

As you mentioned, different things have been said about Homo sovieticus over the 30 years since the Soviet Union’s disintegration. Was there really a person like that? Here is my question: Do you think it was true? Do you believe Russia has fully overcome Soviet experience as a society? What are the main features of the Soviet times that you have kept in your life?

Vladimir Putin: I, as well as many people of my generation certainly remember this idea and this formula – a new community, Soviet people, the Soviet person. Of course, all of us remember this. In reality, this definition is not at all bad. This is my first point.

The second point. Look, the whole world and the United States describe the US as a “melting pot,” in which people of different nations, ethnicities and religions are melting together. What is bad about this? They are all proud – the Irish, people of European and East European origin, you name it, as well as Latin Americans and Africans by their initial descent – many of them are proud to be US citizens and this is wonderful. This is what “the melting pot” is about.

Russia is also “a melting pot.” Since the formation of a united Russian state – the first steps were made, probably in the 8th-9th centuries, and also after Conversion of Rus’, the Russian nation and a centralised Russian state began to take shape with a common market, common language, the power of a prince and common spiritual values. The Russian state began to be established and later expanded. This was also a “melting pot.”

Nothing particularly new was created in the Soviet Union except one very important circumstance: this new community, the Soviet person, the Soviet people acquired an ideological tinge. Of course, there was nothing good about this because this narrows the horizons of the possible. This is the first point.

The second point. Positive features of the Soviet times reflected on the Soviet people. What were they? Patriotism inherent in our peoples, supremacy of the spiritual dimension over material things, all these values I mentioned, including family ones. But negative things in the life and destiny of the Soviet Union also stuck to the Soviet people. Thus, they were deprived of property as such. Private property was embodied in a household plot, but this is quite a different category. Hence, their attitude to labour, the one-size-fits-all approach and so on.

The Soviet Union had many problems. They triggered the events that led to the collapse of the USSR. However, it is wrong, crude and inappropriate to paint everything black. Yes, I know we have people that paint everything black. Hence, they deserve to be put into something that smells bad.

There are both pluses and minuses, as for “the melting pot,” I think it was good to have it because it enriches the people, enriches the nation.

You know, what is typical of Russia, something you can find in all historical documents: when expanding its territory Russia never made life difficult for the people who became part of the united Russian state. This applied to religion, traditions and history. Look at the decrees of Catherine the Great who issued her instruction in clear terms: treat with respect. This was the attitude towards those who preached Islam, for instance. This has always been the case. This is a tradition. In terms of preserving these traditions, the new community of the Soviet people had nothing bad about it except the ideologisation of this melting pot and the results of its functioning.

I think I have described everything linked with the Soviet period of our history. Now I have mentioned this again and I do not think it is worth discussing this topic again.

As for me, like the overwhelming majority of people of my generation, I faced the problems of that period, but I also remember its positive features that should not be forgotten. Being from a family of workers, yours truly graduated from Leningrad State University. This is something, right? At that time, education played the role of a real social lift. On the whole, the egalitarian approach was very widespread and we encountered its negative impact, such as income levelling and a related attitude to work, but a lot of people still used the preferences of social lifts I mentioned. Maybe, it was simply the legacy of past generations or even cultivated in the Soviet Union to some extent. This is also important.

I have now recalled my family. My mum and dad were simple people. They did not talk in slogans but I remember very well that discussing different problems at home, in the family, they always, I would like to emphasise this, treated their country with respect, speaking about it in their own manner, in simple terms, in the folk style. This was not demonstrative patriotism. It was inside our family.

I think I have the right to say that the overwhelming majority of the Russian people and the other peoples of the USSR cultivated these positive features. It is no accident that over 70 percent of the population voted for preserving the Soviet Union on the eve of its collapse. Many people in the union republics that gained independence regretted what had happened. But now life is different and we believe it is going its own way and generally recognise current realities.

As for the Soviet person, the new formation, as they said then, I believe I have already said enough on this subject.

Fyodor Lukyanov: This year’s Valdai Club meeting is special in part because we have a Nobel Peace Prize laureate here with us for the first time in our history.

I would like to give the floor to Dmitry Muratov.

Dmitry Muratov: Thank you. Good afternoon.

Mr President, Valdai Club guests, Fyodor, I want to let everyone know that the prize money has been distributed.

Thanks go to the Circle of Kindness Foundation. Furthermore, we hope that our modest contribution will help everyone realise that the Circle of Kindness Foundation helps young people under 18, but then after they are 18, they are left without guidance. It is like saying, “Thank you, we saved you, and now goodbye.” We look forward to the Circle of Kindness Foundation (they appear ready to do this) expanding its mandate. There is the children's hospice Lighthouse, the First Moscow Charity Hospice Foundation Vera, the Podari Zhizn Foundation, the Anna Politkovskaya Award, and the Foundation for Medical Aid for Media Members. That is all.

Of course, I also think that, to some extent, probably, this is a prize for our country as well, although I consider myself an impostor. I will do my best to make sure it benefits our people.

Now, if I may, a brief remark and a question.

Mr President, I have very carefully studied the answer you gave during Moscow Energy Week regarding foreign agents, where you said that we were not the first to adopt this law, that the United States did so back in the 1930s.

But, Mr President, since we do not adopt every law that is adopted in the United States, my question about foreign agents remains. After all, I believe this concerns not only dozens and dozens of journalists and human rights activists who are listed in the register, but also hundreds of thousands and even millions of readers. Therefore, I believe it is a serious matter.

Most importantly, you have just mentioned Leningrad University and I think your subject of study will help us understand each other well. This law does not provide for any court recourse. You are designated a foreign agent and there is no argument of the parties, no provision of evidence, no verdict. It is a stain. Let me remind you of our favourite childhood book. This is the same kind of brand Milady in The Three Musketeers had. But before Milady was beheaded, the executioner of Lille read the verdict to her at dawn whereas in our case there is no verdict whatsoever.

Furthermore, it is impossible to get away from this law. There is not even a warning that you become a foreign agent starting, say, tomorrow. For many, this status undoubtedly means they are an enemy of the Motherland. I remember from my days of army service that under the guard service regulations, the sentry first fires a warning shot in the air. Excuse me, but only security guards at prison camps shoot to kill without a warning shot.

I believe we need to sort this out, since the criteria are woefully vague. Take, for example, receiving organisational and methodological assistance. What does this mean? If I am asking a member of the Valdai Club for a comment, and they come from another country, does that make me a foreign agent? They make their announcements on Fridays. I want to remind you that tomorrow is Friday.

I would like to ask you to respond to the way this issue is presented. Perhaps, you, Mr President and, for example, the State Duma Chairman, could hold an extraordinary meeting with the editors from various media in order discuss the issues at hand.

Thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: First, I would like to congratulate you on the Nobel Prize. I would like to draw your attention to one fact: Nikolai Berdyayev, whom I have mentioned, was expelled by the Bolsheviks on the well-known Philosophy Steamer in 1922. Nominated for a Nobel Prize more than once, he never received this award.

Dmitry Muratov: That was about literature.

Vladimir Putin: No difference, but yes, I agree. The first Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Barrack Obama also received Nobel peace prizes. So, you are in good company. Congratulations! But we really know. You have just spoken about a hospice. I would give you a prize for that because you are doing this good work. It is truly noble work, the Circle of Kindness, and the like.

Your concern about foreign agents; I will not deviate to the right or left. Look, you said that here when these decisions are made… firstly, American laws. Do we have to copy everything from the Americans? No, we do not need to copy everything. Yet many liberals in Russia still think we should copy almost everything. But I agree with you: not everything.

You said this is not decided in court. This is not done in the United States either. They summon people to the Department of Justice. Ask Russia Today about what they are doing. Do you know how tough they are? Up to and including criminal liability. We do not have this. This is not about the position of some public figure, some public organisation, or a media outlet. Their position does not matter. This law does not ban anyone from having one’s own opinion on an issue. It is about receiving financial aid from abroad during domestic political activities. That is the point. The law does not even keep them from continuing these political activities. The money that comes from abroad, from over there, should simply be identified as such. Russian society should know what position someone comes from or what they think about internal political processes or something else, but it should also realise that they receive money from abroad. This is the right of Russian society. In fact, this is the whole point of this law. There are no restrictions in it at all.

So, when you said there is no verdict, that is right. There is no verdict. There was a verdict for Milady – her head was cut off. Here nobody is cutting off anything. So, just continue working like you did before.

But you are right about one thing. I will not even argue with you, because this is true. Of course, we probably need to go over these vague criteria again and again. I can promise you that we will take another look at them. I know it happens occasionally. Even my personal acquaintances who engage in charitable activities were telling me that cases were being made against them portraying them as foreign agents. I am aware of the fact that our colleagues discuss this at the Human Rights Council. I keep issuing instructions on that score to the Presidential Administration and the State Duma deputies so that they go over it again and again, improve this tool, and in no way abuse it.

So, thank you for bringing this up. We will look into it.

Thank you very much.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Just a quick follow-up on that. Mr President, are you not afraid of excessive acts?

Vladimir Putin: I am not afraid of anything, why is everyone trying to scare me?

Fyodor Lukyanov: Okay, then we are afraid, and you tell us about excessive acts, since you know your former security service colleagues well.

Vladimir Putin: Not everyone, this is a mass organisation, how can I know everyone?

Fyodor Lukyanov: Well, not everyone, but many.

Vladimir Putin: When I was [FSB]director, I sometimes even summoned operatives with specific cases and read them myself. And now I do not know everyone there. I left it a long time ago.

Fyodor Lukyanov: I am talking about specific cases. Their psychological makeup is that overdoing things is a safer approach than missing things. Will there be no blanket approach to identifying foreign agents?

Vladimir Putin: What?

Fyodor Lukyanov: Will they not use a blanket approach to identifying foreign agents?

Vladimir Putin: Is there anything there that looks like a blanket approach? How many do we have? Every second, or what? I believe there is no such thing as widespread branding of people as foreign agents.

I think the danger is vastly exaggerated. I believe I have formulated the underlying reasons for adopting this law quite clearly.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Good. In addition to a Nobel prize winner, we also have a foreign agent in the audience.

Margarita Simonyan, please share your experience.

Margarita Simonyan: Yes, thank you, good afternoon,

We have been foreign agents for many years now. Moreover, I was summoned for interrogation in the United States several years ago, because we did not register as foreign agents earlier, despite the fact that our lawyers, including former rather high-ranking officials from the US Department of Justice (Dima, this information is mostly for you, congratulations on winning the prize), told us – and we have these legal opinions in writing – that this law does not apply to us, because it clearly said in English “except the media.”

But when our audience started growing, and we got in their way, they told us: “We do not care what the Department of Justice is telling you, you either register or go to prison for five years.” And I have a summons for questioning because I myself failed to register earlier, before they registered me. I do not travel there anymore, just in case, because I might be jailed. This is my first point.

Vladimir Putin: There is no fence against ill fortune, Margarita.

(Addressing Dmitry Muratov) You see, in the United States, some people face a five-year sentence.

Margarita Simonyan: Yes, five. And we know people who are doing time under this law, five years.

Secondly, unlike in Russia, this law definitely has consequences and implies sanctions. For example, one’s accreditation to Congress gets instantly revoked, and if you are not accredited with Congress in the United States, you can no longer go anywhere – not a single event, nowhere (I can see people that know this nodding their heads). You actually work on semi-underground terms there. This is how we have been working for how long now? Six years. But we will continue to do this work.

Mr President, as a mother of three young children, I would like to thank you very much for your healthy conservatism. I am terrified by the thought of my 7-year-old son being asked to choose a gender, or my 2-year-old daughter being told from all mobile devices, and even at school, as is now happening in many Western countries, that her future is that of a “person with human milk who gave birth to a baby.” And the thought that these tentacles of liberal fascism, so-called liberal, will reach us and our children. I really hope that this will never be allowed in our country, despite its great openness.

You mentioned bloviating, which the so-called humanistic foundation of the European political thought turned out to be, but this so-called freedom of speech turned out to be bloviating too. Freedom of speech turned out to be a postcard made for the people we were in the 1990s, so that we could look at it and think: “Wow, it does exist. Great, we will do that too, we will not have foreign agents, and everything will be fine with us.” This freedom of speech has just strangled our YouTube channel, which was very popular, and everything was cool there, really. And you know very well that this is not a privately-run outfit, but a public project which we created not for ourselves, but for the Motherland, and we have run out of options to get this project back. And we no longer believe in anything other than reciprocal measures.

According to their own analyses, Deutsche Welle was behind us in Germany in certain rankings. It broadcasts in Russia without any problems, but we cannot broadcast there. We have already built studios, hired people, produced shows and earned an audience, but now, with the strike of a pen and without any reason, and, Mr Muratov, without a court ruling, everything fell apart in a single moment.

This is no a question actually, I am asking, pleading for protection, Mr President. I do not see any other way to protect us other than through retaliatory measures.

My question is the following. Moscow has recently hosted a Congress of Compatriots, and you sent greetings to the participants. I took the floor at this forum and asked those of my colleagues in the audience, people who are proactive in defending the Russian world and the Russian language around the world, sometimes putting their lives and freedom at risk, who wanted but could not obtain Russian citizenship, to raise their hands. Half the audience had their hands up.

We have discussed this many times. You may remember that several years ago we spoke about granting citizenship to Donbass residents. The procedure was streamlined for them. Can this be done for all Russians? Why is Russia shying away from doing this? The Jews did not hesitate about it, and neither did the Germans nor the Greeks, but we are hesitating. This is my question. Thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: First, regarding the retaliatory measures, I think we need to be cautious when someone makes mistakes like this, and I do believe that you have suffered from them, when a channel is closed or you are unable to work. I know about the fact that your accounts were blocked and that you could not open, etc. There is a plethora of instruments to this effect.

Margarita Simonyan: More like carpet-bombing.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, to make it impossible for you to work there. I know.

On the one hand, of course, they are infringing on freedom of speech and so forth, which is a bad thing. But since they are doing this, you and I have to think about how to spread the word about the fact that they are cancelling you, and then more people will become interested in what you do.

Margarita Simonyan: The only problem is that there is no place for people to watch us. People are interested, but there is nowhere to watch us.

Vladimir Putin: I do understand, but we need to give this some thought, and explore technical and technological opportunities.

As for retaliatory measures, let me reiterate that what matters the most is that they do not turn out to be counterproductive. I do not oppose them, but I do not want them to be counterproductive.

As for your question on Russian citizenship, you are right. My position is that we need to improve this tool. There are questions here related to socioeconomic matters: clinics, kindergartens, jobs, housing, etc. Still, the citizenship laws must become increasingly liberal. This is obvious. By the way, this is what the labour market compels us to do. We are thinking about this.

Margarita Simonyan: Thank you, Mr President.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Colleagues, in addition to those in this room, there are other participants who are watching us online, as they could not join us here due to the well-known circumstances.

I would like to ask – Robert Legvold, our longtime friend, member of the Valdai Research Council, professor at Columbia University.

Robert Legvold: Thank you very much, Fyodor. For me, it is a disappointment that I have not been able to be with all of the participants in the Valdai conference, but I am particularly pleased to have this opportunity to be part of this session. The topic of Valdai this year has been very transcendent and fundamental questions, and I admire Valdai for doing that.

President Putin has certainly risen to the challenge of that agenda and has addressed it in an extremely engaging and revealing fashion.

My question, however, is narrower but more specific, and I apologise for descending to this level, but it is a question that is important in my country. I think it is important in your country. Although neither your government nor the Biden administration believes that a reset of the US-Russian relationship is possible at this juncture, how do you evaluate or assess the evolution of US-Russia relations since your meeting with President Biden in June? In what areas has there been progress, if any? And what, in your view, are the obstacles to further progress? Thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: On the whole, I have spoken about this; I have answered questions like this. I can only repeat myself now. On second thought, not just repeat – there is actually something to be said about what is happening.

The meeting in Geneva was generally productive, and it seemed to us – when I say ‘us,’ I mean my colleagues and myself – that overall, the administration was interested in building ties, reviving them at least in some important areas.

What did we agree on? We agreed to begin consultations on strategic stability, and the consultations began and are held regularly, on cybersecurity issues as well. At the expert level, cooperation has started. So we can safely say that although the scope of matters we agreed on was limited, we are on the right track nonetheless.

These are the most important matters for today. And in general, the administration (on the American side) and Russia (on the other side) are fulfilling the plans and are moving along this path. And when this happens, as we know, it is always a sign, one of a systemic nature. And now, look, our trade has already grown by 23 percent and in many areas. This, among other things, is an indirect effect of our meeting in Geneva.

So, overall, we are on the right track, although, unfortunately – I would not like to talk about sad things now, but we also see certain backslides, remember that phrase we used years ago – one step forward, two steps back – this is also happening sometimes. Still, we are progressing in line with our general agreements.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Thank you. Since we are in a new world now, for balance, I will give the floor to our kind friend Zhou Bo from Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Go ahead, please.

Zhou Bo: Mr President, it is really my great honour to ask you this question. First of all, let me thank you for this opportunity. I will ask you something about Afghanistan. Afghanistan lies in the heart of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. So, if Afghanistan has a problem, then the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation has a problem. Now the United States has withdrawn from Afghanistan. So how can the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which is led by China and Russia, united with other countries, help Afghanistan to achieve political stability and economic development? Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: The situation in Afghanistan is one of the most urgent issues today. You know, we have just had a meeting in the appropriate format, in part, with representatives of the Taliban. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is also active in Afghanistan. This is a very serious issue for all of us because for both China and Russia it is extremely important to have a calm, developing Afghanistan that is not a source of terrorism, or any form of radicalism, next to our national borders, if not on our borders.

We are now seeing what is happening inside Afghanistan. Unfortunately, different groups, including ISIS are still there. There are already victims among the Taliban movement, which, as a whole, is still trying to get rid of these radical elements and we know of such examples. This is very important for us, for both Russia and China.

In order to normalise the situation properly and at the right pace, it is necessary, of course, to help Afghanistan restore its economy because drugs are another huge problem. It is a known fact that 90 percent of opiates come to the world market from Afghanistan. And if there is no money, what will they do? From what sources and how will they fund their social programmes?

Therefore, for all the importance of our participation in these processes – both China and Russia and other SCO countries – the main responsibility for what is happening there is still borne by the countries that fought there for 20 years. I believe the first thing they must do is to release Afghan assets and give Afghanistan an opportunity to resolve high priority socio-economic problems.

For our part, we can implement specific large projects and deal with domestic security issues. Our special services are in contact with their Afghan counterparts. For us, within the SCO, it is very important to get this work up and running because Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are right on the border with Afghanistan. We have a military facility in Tajikistan. It was based on the 201st division when it was still Soviet.

Therefore, we will actively continue this work with China on a bilateral plane, develop dialogue with relevant structures and promote cooperation within the SCO as a whole. In the process, we will allocate the required resources and create all the conditions to let our citizens feel safe regardless of what is happening in Afghanistan.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Thank you.

Mikhail Pogrebinsky, please.

Mikhail Pogrebinsky: Thank you, Fyodor. Thank you, Mr President.

I will try to ask a question, the answer to which is awaited, I am sure, by hundreds of thousands of people in my homeland.

You mentioned a Chinese proverb about living in a time of change. Our country has been living like that for almost 30 years now, and the situation is becoming more difficult in anticipation of winter, amid the pandemic, and, I would say, the situation with the Americans. A couple of days ago, we had Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin visit our country. He brought $60 million worth of weapons and promised us a bright future as a NATO member, figuratively speaking.

I will note right away that any allegations that NATO is irrelevant because Europe does not agree, are prevarication. One does not need to be a NATO member to have US or British military infrastructure deployed in Ukraine. I believe this process is already underway.

In your July article on historical unity, you wrote that transforming Ukraine into an anti-Russia country is unacceptable for millions of people. This is true, and opinion polls confirm it. Over 40 percent have good or very good thoughts about Russia. However, this transformation has, in fact, started. A rather long and very dangerous, in my opinion, distance in this direction may have already been covered. I think that if this idea with a para-NATO infrastructure continues to be implemented, the process to form what is now a not so stable anti-Russia Ukraine will be cemented for many years to come.

You wrote in your article that if the process continues unabated, it will pose a serious threat to the Russian state, and this may be fraught with Ukraine losing its statehood. People who oppose this movement are facing reprisals. You are aware that they are trying to put Viktor Medvedchuk in prison based on some outlandish charges.

How, in your opinion, can this process be stopped? Maybe, you have a timeline for when it might happen? What can be done in this regard at all?

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Unfortunately, I will probably have to disappoint you – I do not yet know the answer to this question. On the one hand, it seems to lie on the surface: the easiest thing is to say that the Ukrainian people must make a decision themselves, and form the bodies of power and administration that would meet their needs and expectations. From one perspective, this is indeed true.

But on the other hand, there is another perspective, and I cannot avoid mentioning it. You have just mentioned Viktor Medvedchuk, who has been charged with high treason. For what? Did he steal some secrets and illegally disclose them to a third party? No. What then? Was it his open political position about stabilising Ukraine’s internal affairs and building relations with its neighbours because those relations are extremely important for Ukraine itself? It is concerning that such people are not allowed to raise their heads. Some of them end up killed, and others locked up.

One gets the impression that the Ukrainian people are not allowed and will not be allowed to legally form the bodies of power that would uphold their interests. The people there are even afraid to respond to polls. They are scared, because the small group that has appropriated the victory in the fight for independence holds radical political views. And that group actually runs the country, regardless of the name of the current head of state.

At least this is how it was until recently: people ran for leadership positions relying on voters in the Southeast, but once elected, they almost immediately changed their political positions to the opposite. Why? Because that silent majority voted for them in the hope that they would fulfil their campaign promises, but the loud and aggressive nationalist minority suppressed all freedom in decision-making that the Ukrainian people expected, and they, in fact, are running the country.

This is a dead end. I do not even know how this can be changed. We will wait and see what happens in Ukraine’s political affairs in the near future.

For our part, we are making every effort to improve these relations. But the threat you just spoke about — not even spoke about, only mentioned — is quite important to us. And you are right that formal NATO membership may never happen, but military expansion on the territory is already underway, and this really poses a threat to the Russian Federation, we are aware of this.

Consider what happened in the late 1980s – early 1990s (I will not tell the whole story now, although you just made me think about talking more about it), when everyone assured us that an eastward expansion of NATO infrastructure after the unification of Germany was totally out of the question. Russia could be absolutely sure of this, at the very least, so they said. But those were public statements. What happened in reality? They lied. And now they challenge us to produce a document that actually said that.

They expanded NATO once, and then expanded it twice. What are the military-strategic consequences? Their infrastructure is getting closer. What kind of infrastructure? They deployed ABM (anti-missile) systems in Poland and Romania, using Aegis launchers, where Tomahawks can be loaded, strike systems. This can be done easily, with the click of a button. Just change the software – and that is it, no one will even notice. Medium and short-range missiles can also be deployed there. Why not? Has anyone even reacted to our statement that we will not deploy this kind of missile in the European part if we produce them, if they tell us that no one will do so from the United States or Europe? No. They never responded. But we are adults, we are all adults here. What should we do in this situation?

The Minister of Defence arrives, who, in fact, opens the doors for Ukraine to NATO. In fact, his statement must and can be interpreted in this way. He says every country has the right to choose. And nobody says no, nobody. Even those Europeans you mentioned. I know, I spoke to them personally.

But one official is not a security guarantee for Russia – he may be here one day and he might be replaced the next. What will happen then? This is not a security guarantee; it is just a conversation on a given topic. And we are naturally concerned.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Mr President, since you mentioned NATO…

Vladimir Putin: Yes, sorry. About the bases – I know about the corresponding clauses in the Ukrainian constitution. It allows setting up training centers. But these can be anything at all, accounted for as a training center. As I already said, and it was also said publicly: what if tomorrow there are missiles near Kharkov – what should we do then? We do not go there with our missiles – but missiles are being brought to our doorstep. Of course, we have a problem here.

Fyodor Lukyanov: We started talking about NATO. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was interviewed just two days ago, and he announced that NATO is adjusting its strategic vision somewhat, and now views Russia and China as one common threat rather than two threats. This is an interesting approach, apparently a far-reaching one. But if this is how they see us, maybe it is time for us to unite with China and consider someone else as a threat?

Vladimir Putin: We have said many times that we are friends with China, and not against anyone else, but in each other’s interests. This is the first point. The second point is, as distinct from NATO, from the NATO countries, we are not creating a closed military bloc. There is no Russia-China military bloc and we will not create one now. So, there is no reason to talk about this.

Fyodor Lukyanov: I see.

Mark Champion.

Mark Champion: Thank you. Mr President, on the subject of the potential for sending extra gas to Europe, which, as you know, is in a gas crisis at the moment, you have talked about this before, but, you know, at times it has been quite confusing. Sometimes Russian officials indicate that there is additional gas available that can be sent if Nord Stream 2 is opened, and at other times, they have suggested that there is no gas available to send to Europe. And I just wondered if you would take this opportunity to clarify whether there is additional gas available that Russia can send to Europe, if say, Nord Stream opened tonight, or if there is not.

Vladimir Putin: Frankly, it is strange for me to hear questions like this. It seems to me I explained everything during the Russian Energy Week in Moscow. However, if these questions are being asked, we should certainly talk more about it.

Look what is happening. I believe I said at the meeting with the Government yesterday or the day before yesterday: this is not just about energy sources or gas, but also about the state of the global economy. Shortages are increasing in the leading, economically advanced countries. Take the United States, for one. It has recently made yet another decision to increase its national debt.

For those who do not deal with the economy, I can tell you what a decision to increase the national debt means. The FRS will print money and put it at the government’s disposal. This is emission. The deficit is increasing, and inflation is increasing as an emission derivative. This leads to price increases on energy sources, on electricity. This is how it works, not the other way around.

However, the situation is also deteriorating due to realities in the energy market. What are these realities? You just spoke about Europe. What is going on in Europe? Maybe I will repeat some of my ideas or maybe I will say something new, if I recall it. In the past few years, the European Commission’s philosophy was entirely devoted to regulating the market of energy sources, including gas, via a commodities exchange, through the so-called spot market. They tried to persuade us to give up long-term contracts where prices were tied to the exchange, that is, market quotes on crude oil and petroleum products.

Incidentally, this is market price formation. Since gas prices are established with a lag of six months after a change in oil prices, this is, firstly, a more stable situation and, secondly, a six-month lag allows consumers and suppliers to make adjustments along the way based on developments on world markets.

So, everything began to be brought to this spot market, but it largely holds gas on paper, not real gas. These are not physical amounts, which are not increasing (I will explain why in a minute). A figure is written on paper, but there is no physical amount, it is declining. So, a cold winter requires gas from underground storage; a wind-free hot summer means a lack of wind generation on the necessary scale. I have already mentioned the macroeconomic reasons, and these are the sector-based reasons.

What happened next on the European market? First, a decline in production in the gas producing countries. Production in Europe fell by 22.5 billion cubic metres during the first six months. This is first. Second, gas storage facilities were underfilled by 18.5 billion cubic metres and are only 71 percent full. The gas storage facilities were underfilled by 18.5 during the first six months of the year. If you look at annual consumption, this number must be doubled.

Primarily American, along with Middle Eastern companies withdrew 9 billion cubic metres from the European market and redirected the gas to Latin America and Asia. By the way, when the Europeans were formulating the principles governing the formation of the gas market in Europe, and said that all gas must be traded on the spot market, they were proceeding from the assumption that the European market is a premium market. But the European market is no longer a premium market, you see? It is no longer a premium market. Gas was redirected to Latin America and Asia.

I have already said that 18.5 billion cubic metres, plus double that amount, 9 billion (undersupplied to the European market from the United States and the Middle East), plus a decline in production of 22.5 billion – the deficit on the European market may amount to about 70 billion cubic metres, which is a lot. What does Russia have to do with it? This is the result of the European Commission’s economic policy. Russia has nothing to do with it.

Russia, including Gazprom, has increased deliveries to the European market by 8.7 percent, I believe, and deliveries to non-CIS countries by 12 percent, I think. But when we speak about non-CIS countries, we mean China as well. This is also good for the international market, because we are increasing deliveries to the global market, and increased deliveries to the European market by 8.7. In absolute terms, this represents over 11 billion cubic metres of gas. American and Middle Eastern companies undersupplied by 9 billion, while Gazprom increased its supplies by more than 11 billion.

Can everyone hear me? Not in this audience, but the so-called stakeholders. Someone out there is cutting supplies to you, while we are increasing them.

But this is not all. Today, under the so-called long-term contracts – I would like you to listen attentively and to hear what I say – the price of gas is now $1,200 or $1,150 for a thousand cubic metres. European companies that have long-term contracts with Gazprom receive it – take note – at four times less than the current price! Gazprom does not make any windfall profits. We are not concerned about this because we are interested in long-term contracts and long-term mutual commitments. In this case, we ensure the opportunity to invest in production and produce the required amounts for our consumers steadily and reliably.

You are asking me if it is possible to increase supplies. Yes, this is possible. Speaking about Nord Stream-2, its first line is filled with gas and if the German regulator issues the permit for shipping tomorrow, it can deliver 17.5 billion cubic metres of gas the day after tomorrow.

Technological work on filling the second line of Nord Stream-2 will be completed before the end of this year, in mid- or late December. The total volume is 55 billion cubic metres of gas. Considering that in our estimate the shortage of gas in the European market will reach 70 billion cubic metres, 55 billion is a decent amount.

Once the second line is filled, and the German regulator issues its permit, we can start supplies on the next day. Is this possible or not, you asked. Yes, it is possible, but one must have a responsible attitude to one’s commitments and work on this.

By the way, we keep saying: Nord Stream-2, Gazprom… But there are five European companies taking part in this project. Why do you mention Gazprom alone? Have you forgotten about them? Five major European companies are working on this project. So, this affects not only the interests of Gazprom but also the interests of our partners, primarily in Europe, of course.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Mr President, to an extent, Nord Stream 2, which is now on everyone’s lips, can be viewed as your joint achievement with Angela Merkel. Do you regret that she is leaving office? Will you miss her?

Vladimir Putin: The decision on her departure was not mine, after all, but hers. She could have run for another term. She stayed in power for 16 years.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Not a long tenure, at all.

Vladimir Putin: You cannot say that this is not long enough. Quite a tenure. Helmut Koehl, who unified Germany, also spent 16 years at the top.

As for the Nord Streams, we started this process back in the Schroeder days. At the time, when we were working on Nord Stream 1, there were similar attempts to undermine this process, just like today. It was all the same. Fortunately, today this pipeline delivers gas to Europe and Germany, and the volumes are quite high.

By the way, we are all talking about green energy. This is important, of course. If there are questions on this subject, I will try to explain how I see this. As for the Russian natural gas, let me emphasise that it has a three times lower carbon footprint compared to LNG from the United States. If the environmental activists are not guided in their efforts by a political agenda and really do care about the future of humanity, they cannot fail to hear this. They must oppose the construction of and demand that all LNG terminals are closed.

Unfortunately, the same applies to Ukraine’s gas transit system. I have already said that Nord Stream 2 is a modern, state-of-the-art pipeline that can handle higher pressure. There are absolutely no emissions involved when you deliver gas via the bottom of the Baltic Sea. The compression stations are like small factories. They are gas-fired and also emit CO2 into the atmosphere. Emissions from Nord Stream 2 are 5.6 times lower compared to Ukrainian gas transits, because the system there is old and has been in use since the Soviet times. Environmental activists should have said: “Immediately close down the Ukrainian gas transit!” But no, it is the opposite: “Go ahead and increase supplies through Ukraine.” How is that possible?

In fact, it is the same with oil. Even if we leave gas alone, since I have already talked about this at length, what is going on with oil? In think that from 2012 until 2016 annual investment in oil extraction was at about $400 billion, but in the years that preceded the pandemic investment decreased by 40 percent, and now stands at $260 million. This is a cycle that lasts for 15 to 30 years. Do you understand this?

In my opinion, what are current problems on top of what I have said? I talked about various political issues. This is one of the important topics that springs to mind. There is a lack of overlap between political and investment cycles in the leading economies, including in energy, a very important sector. How long is a political cycle? Four or five years. What do the leading political forces, parties and politicians do all this time? They make promises. They promise everything, as much as possible and at the lowest cost. This applies, among other things, to the green economy. What comes out of this? Banks stop funding investment, and investment dwindles. The time will come like what we are seeing today, when the market will need to accomplish a breakthrough, but there will be nothing to back this effort. Even today, OPEC Plus countries are increasing oil production even slightly above their agreement, but not all oil producing countries can increase output quickly. This is a long-term process, and the cycle is quite long.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Please, Raghida Dergham.

Raghida Dergham: Thank you very much, Fyodor.

Mr President, it is good to see you again in Valdai and Sochi. My name is Raghida Dergham. I am the founder and executive chairman of Beirut Institute. So I have come to you, I have come to Sochi, from Lebanon, a very wounded country. I am sure, sir, that you are aware of the explosion that took place – the fourth largest – at the port, the civilian port of Beirut. There has been an attempt to investigate what happened, the story itself. There was a Russian captain, there was a Georgian owner of the ship.

There was a request to you, Mr President, to share – the request came to you from the judiciary, and it is an independent body from the government – to share what you have, from your satellite pictures, to tell us, to help find the story, this horrible story that happened, that amounted to the assassination of the city, of the capital. My first question, sir: are you willing to share now the information you have, the satellite information, and to lend cooperation to this investigation so that, you know, the values that you spoke about are implemented where it really matters?

And secondly, your two allies, Hezbollah and Iran, have been resisting and, in fact, have been demanding the dislodging of the – not the prosecutor, he is really the investigator – the judge who is investigating the case. They have issued a warning that if – to both friends of yours, the President, Michel Aoun and the Prime Minister, Najib Mikati – that if they do not dislodge this investigator, this judge, then the government will fall. Do you support such a position, particularly given that this country is on the verge of a civil war, with Mr Nasrallah announcing that he will not back down, announcing, at the same time, that there are a hundred thousand fighters ready to launch? So, this is a civil war in the action, maybe, right next door to a prize accomplishment of yours, Mr Vladimir Putin, which is in Syria. I thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Just a minute, please. Can you explain the beginning of which war you are talking about? I do not understand.

Raghida Dergham: Civil war, because, you see, there are armed people on the streets already. You do remember the civil war in Lebanon, and right now… Hezbollah is not the only armed group, I am not claiming that. There are many armed groups, but right now the conflict is over this investigator. His name is Tariq al-Bitar. The insistence of Hezbollah is that he needs to be dislodged. And, in fact, this is interfering with the very principle of the separation of powers, and that led to confrontations on the streets and the possibility of a civil war really happening, Mr President. Do not dismiss that possibility; it is a very scary one. And I am not sure at all it would be in the interests of the Russian policy even for Syria, never mind for Lebanon, and we wish that you will pay attention to Lebanon, particularly after hearing you today emphasise these values.

Vladimir Putin: First, about the explosion in the port of Beirut. Frankly speaking, when that tragedy happened – I would like to once again offer my condolences to the Lebanese people over it, the large number of casualties and catastrophic damage – I learned about it from media reports, of course.

Many years ago, ammonium nitrate was delivered to and stored in the port; the local authorities did not give it the attention it needed, although, as far as I know, they wanted to sell it profitably. And that desire to sell at a profit came into conflict with the possibility of doing so, with the market and some internal contradictions related to who would get the profit, and so on. In my opinion, this is the main reason for the tragedy, and that is it.

As for helping with the investigation, frankly speaking, I do not understand how satellite pictures can help, and whether we even have any. However, I promise that I will make inquiries, and if we do have anything and can provide assistance to the investigation, we will do this. But first I need to discuss the matter with my colleagues who may have this information.

As for Hezbollah, Iran and so on, regarding the situation in Lebanon. Take Hezbollah: different people in different countries have a different attitude to it, which I am well aware of. Hezbollah is a serious political force in Lebanon itself. But there is no doubt that we always, including in Lebanon, call for settling any conflicts through dialogue. We have always tried to do this, one way or another. We are maintaining contact with nearly all political forces in Lebanon, and we will try to continue doing this in the future as well, so that the situation can be settled without any bloodshed. God forbid. Nobody is interested in this. The situation in the Middle East has been precarious recently as it is. Of course, we will do everything we can to convince all the parties to the internal political process to stick with common sense and to strive for agreements.

Please, take the microphone.

Raghida Dergham: President Vladimir Putin, do you support the ultimatum given by Hezbollah that either the investigator Tarek Bitar is dislodged or there is a downfall of the government? Do you support that ultimatum?

Vladimir Putin: Listen, colleague, we cannot comment on the internal political processes you have mentioned, whether we support an ultimatum of one of the sides or not, or one of the side’s positions. This would amount to taking the side of one of the conflicting parties, which would be counterproductive regarding the effectiveness of our peace-making efforts. Therefore, I would like to abstain from making such comments. As I have noted, the main thing is to find a platform that can be used as the basis for agreements, without any shooting, God willing. We in Russia are definitely interested in that.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Please, Stanislav Tkachenko.

Stanislav Tkachenko: Thank you.

Stanislav Tkachenko, St Petersburg State University.

Mr President, a question about energy. On October 13, Chief of the European External Action Service Josep Borrell first unveiled the Arctic Strategy and then sent it to the European Commission and the EU Council – a new EU document that considers a wide range of problems, including energy.

I would highlight two points in that strategy. First, the European Union believes that the mineral resources found in the Arctic – oil, gas and coal – should stay in the ground, including in the Arctic, and to achieve that, the world may even have to impose a temporary moratorium. The second point is linked to the first one. It concerns plans by the European Union and its member states to develop a series of instruments, financial and others, to prevent countries (perhaps primarily the Russian Federation), which will be selling energy resources on the global market, from selling the resources produced in the Arctic.

My question is: What is Russia’s attitude to this. Thanks.

Vladimir Putin: Right. To be honest, I try to follow what is happening there behind the European scenes, what is going on there every day, but at times, as our people say, I feel like I am missing something.

Regarding the EU's Arctic Strategy, what can I say? Russia has its own strategy for our presence in the Arctic – this is my first point. Second, we have always worked and are working quite productively; Russia is currently chairing the Arctic Council, where EU countries are also represented. Third, we have always talked about this, and I actually spoke about this at the meeting with President Biden and his team members in Geneva: we are ready to continue cooperation, in a broad sense, with all interested countries in the Arctic, within the framework of international law.

As you know, there are several conventions, on territorial waters, and on the law of the sea, from 1986, I think. We act on the basis of those internationally recognised documents, which Russia is a party to, and we are ready to build relations with all states including the European Union on the basis of those documents.

But if someone from the outside is trying to circumvent these internationally recognised documents and limit our sovereign right to use our own territory – according to international law, territorial waters are part of a coastal state’s territory – it is an infringement using mala fide means.

The same applies to the 400-mile zone, which is called the zone of preferential economic development. The rules that apply to that area are determined by international law, and we fully adhere to these requirements.

By the way, consider the Nord Stream project – in accordance with these rules, we had to request appropriate permits from the coastal states – Finland, Sweden, and Denmark – when we did not even have to enter their territorial sea, but the pipeline crossed those countries’ exclusive economic zones. This is a requirement of international law, and we abide by this law, and everyone, including Europeans, insisted that we acted within the framework of those international legal norms. Do they mean they are not going to abide by them now, or what? We are required to comply, but they can suddenly ignore them, is that it? It will not happen.

And if they want to restrict our activities, including in the energy sector, it is up to them, and they can try it. We can see what is happening in the world now, including in the European energy market. If they act like this, take categorical and poorly substantiated action, I doubt anything good will come of it.

I remember this popular fairy tale, at least with the Russian audience, where one of the characters makes a wolf fish in the ice-hole in winter using its tail as a rod, and then sits by the wolf’s side chanting quietly, ‘freeze, freeze wolf's tail.’ If the Europeans follow this path, they will find themselves in the same position as those characters in the Russian fairy tale.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Who is the wolf?

Vladimir Putin: It is not difficult to guess, I think.

Fyodor Lukyanov: I don’t get it, I really don’t. Do you mean Russia? They chant –

Vladimir Putin: The wolf is the one who has put its tail into an ice-hole in winter trying to catch some fish, in troubled water in this case – that's who. They will freeze. But of course, if they try to impose restrictions. They are already restricting investments, as I said, the investment period in the oil industry is 15–20, or even 30 years, and now banks are refusing to issue appropriate credit resources for these projects. Here you go – the shortage will be felt soon, and nothing can be done about it.

The problem is that, unfortunately, decisions in this area, in the energy sector, are made as part of political cycles, which I have already mentioned, and they are not made by experts. As one of my colleagues said, the decisions are not made by engineers, but by politicians who are not really competent in the matter, but they simply deceive their voters.

Everyone is alarmed by the climate agenda, which suggests a gloomy future unless we achieve a decrease in the temperature rise to its pre-industrial level, the level as of the beginning of industrialisation. Yes, we know. Between 1.5–2 degrees is the critical line, we know this. But this must be done carefully, while relying on a thorough and deep analysis, not on political slogans. But we can see that some countries are guided precisely by political slogans, which are not even feasible.

Still, no one can forbid us to act on our territory as we see fit. We are ready to negotiate with everyone, but we hope that it will be a professional conversation.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Mr President, you keep referring to international law, and have just mentioned it once again. So does Russian diplomacy. However, international law is not written in stone like Moses’ tablets. It results from a certain balance of power and interests, then it changes. Maybe it is time to adjust it?

Vladimir Putin: But these adjustments are always late, which applies to all kinds of law, including international norms. Social interactions and international relations change faster than the legal norms. This is a well-known tenet of state theory and law. Relations change quicker, they need to be regulated, and those in charge of setting norms usually fail to keep up with these changes.

What is international law? It is an aggregate of international norms. By the way, these are not simply rules that someone has scribbled under a blanket, thinking that everyone has to follow them. If we are discussing international public law, the norms governing interstate relations have to be coordinated and agreed upon: you sign them, assume obligations and honour them. If today’s world order hinges upon sovereignty, this means that if someone does not sign a document, you cannot demand that this state complies with something it did not subscribe to. This is called “trying to impose someone’s will on other countries.” The faster we move away from attempts to introduce such practices into international relations, the better, and this would make the world calmer and more stable.

Fyodor Lukyanov: We have another colleague from the United States – Christian Whiton, Centre for the National Interest.

Christian, you have the floor.

Christian Whiton: Hello, Fyodor. Great. Thank you so much for calling on me, and thank you for Valdai, for organising this important conference.

President Putin, I really appreciate your important comments, which I do not think we have heard from any other world leader, about culture and its importance. One person here in the United States that might be interested and supportive of what you have said is former President Donald Trump. I am not certain about that, but he has spoken of similar things. My question for you is that there is a lot of speculation that former President Trump may again run for office in 2024, and you have spoken about Angela Merkel, for example. What do you think about the idea of a second Donald Trump presidency?

Vladimir Putin: Would you vote for him? (Laughter.)

I am not kidding. Where is the joke? Please help us. Would you vote for Donald Trump as a presidential candidate in the United States of America?

Christian Whiton: I am sorry, I thought you were asking President Putin.

Yes. My view, and I worked in the Trump administration at the State Department, early in his administration. I think it is remarkable. He has redefined conservatism, perhaps, along some of similar lines that President Putin talked about healthy conservatism.

However, in our system, if you begin a second term, you are essentially a lame duck, in that you cannot run again, so people start discounting you. Also I like what Donald Trump does in challenging the vocal minority that has infected our culture, but on the other hand his administration had a lot of inefficiencies, if you will, staff in very senior levels that did not agree with his agenda. Sometimes it seemed like the authority of his presidency did not extend beyond the White House to the rest of the very large US government.

So my preference is that other conservatives step up like Ron DeSantis, the Governor of Florida, step up and run for President. But if it is a choice between Donald Trump and a Democrat, I would vote for Donald Trump, yes.

Vladimir Putin: If you allow me, I would prefer to keep my point of view on this matter to myself and refrain from commenting on what you have just said. Otherwise, you will have to register as a foreign agent. (Laughter.)

However, I do understand your idea.

Thank you very much for your participation.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Anastasia Likhacheva.

Anastasia Likhacheva: Thank you.

Mr President, when speaking about the biggest challenges of our time, you have mentioned water scarcity and food supply issues. In your opinion, what positive contribution could Russia make to addressing them within as well as beyond its borders, considering that Russia ranks second in the world in terms of its renewable freshwater resources, and has its unique Lake Baikal and great traditions in research, on top of being a major food exporter. Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: We are already doing this and will step up our efforts even more. Let me explain what this means and where the concerns about a possible food crisis come from.

As I have already mentioned, both at a recent meeting with members of the Government, and just now, there are system-wide dysfunctions within the global economy. They are attributable to growing deficits and inflation and lead to disrupted supply chains. This is not just about the Suez Canal, and the shortage of lorry drivers in Great Britain for delivering fuel to the pump. There is a general disruption, and COVID-19 did play a role in this, unfortunately.

There are other reasons, however. Where does all this lead? We were discussing rising fuel prices. This, in turn, pushes up electricity prices. If we convert our prices into euros, one megawatt-hour costs 20 euros in Russia, and over 300 euros in European countries. Of course, there is a difference in terms of income levels, but this gap is too big.

Some governments and representatives of international institutions say: “This is the right way to go, keep up the good work.” Just think about this. They are now thinking about paying out subsidies in order to offset this huge hike in energy prices. It could seem appropriate. After all, the state must lend its shoulder to its people. However, this is a one-time fix, and afterwards people will still suffer.

Why? Because the volume of primary fuel stays the same, which means that someone will not get it. People, the households who receive this subsidy will not reduce their consumption, despite all the fear mongering on German television. They will not reduce their consumption as long as they are subsidised. Why cut back? But the supply will remain the same. What does this mean? Someone will have to consume less. Who will that be? Industry. In what sector? The metals industry. This will lead to higher prices on all products containing metal and all the way down the value chain. This is a huge chain, from cars to tiepins.

Second, fertiliser producers that use natural gas are already closing their manufacturing facilities. This is already happening. There are reasons to believe that the soil fertilizer sector will be underfunded. What will this result in? There will be less food on the global market, and people will have to pay higher prices. Once again, it all falls on the people, although it all started with an initiative designed to help them.

It may seem as if it is headed in the right direction, but it is necessary to raise the question of whether it is appropriate to restrict extraction, including in the Arctic. Do we need to restrict new transit routes, including Nord Stream 2, for political reasons? These are the questions to be asked. We need to think about fundamental things.

Considering the growing risks and uncertainty, do we really have to transfer all the supplies to the spot market? Or maybe thinking about long-term investment would make more sense, and using long-term contracts instead, at least in part. This is what we must think about. This is how we can prevent crises from suddenly breaking out.

Russia is making a significant contribution to food security today. We are increasing food supplies to the world market; we are exporting over US$25 billion worth of foodstuffs. I have already said this many times and I would like to thank our agricultural producers once again. This is primarily the result of their efforts. We could never even dream about this. Now we must thank the Europeans for their agricultural sanctions. Well done. Thank you for all your sanctions. We have introduced countermeasures in agriculture and invested appropriate resources.

By the way, we have boosted the so-called import substitution in industry, not only in agriculture. And I must say, the effect has been good. I did have some anxiety, I must admit, but the overall effect has been very good. We have used our brains, resumed some old projects, and started new ones, including in high-tech industries. I hope will continue to increase production in agriculture.

Climate change has also been bringing changes to Russian agriculture. What am I referring to? For example, in Russian black soil regions, the quality of the soil is changing, and things are shifting a little further north. There are also problems caused by natural phenomena and cataclysms – desertification and things like that. But Russia will adapt to this, this is quite obvious, and it will fully meet not only its own needs, but also provide our main partners in the world markets with high-quality and affordable food at world prices.

There is also something else. I just said fertiliser plants are closing, but the quality and quantity of harvests, the volume of crops depend on them. But we supply the necessary amounts of fertilisers to international markets, and we are ready to increase production further. By the way, in this respect, in terms of their impact on human health, our fertilisers are among the best in the world – our companies’ rivals are reluctant to talk about this. But I hope that after I have mentioned this, our media will show what I mean, I just do not want to waste time now.

Well, as for water resources, some say water will soon be more expensive than oil, but we are not yet planning projects to reverse rivers. This must be treated very carefully and with an understanding of the long-term consequences of the decisions we make. But in general, Russia is one of the countries whose water balance will be stable and secure for a long time. Although we must also think about it. We must think about the purity of our rivers, carefully watch what is happening with the water sector in the Far East, at Lake Baikal, and so on.

I will not go into detail now, but we really have enough problems to address. We know about them, we identify new problems. We will continue working according to the plans we have outlined in this regard. When faced with new challenges, we will try to overcome them.

Vladimir Putin: You have just mentioned the possibility of assuming the lead. You know, of course, it seems to me that one should seek to tackle the most important objectives. But it is necessary to proceed from reality. We publicly declared our aim of achieving hydrocarbon neutrality by 2060, and so we are doing this.

Incidentally (I have mentioned this repeatedly and will say so once again), Russia has a greener energy mix than that of many other industrialised countries. In Russia, 86 percent of the energy mix is composed of nuclear power generation that produces almost no emissions, hydropower generation, gas generation, and renewable sources. Eighty-six percent! The US figure is 77 percent. In Germany, if my memory serves me right, it is 64 percent, and even less so in Asian countries. Isn’t that the lead? It certainly is!

We understand, of course, that this is not enough. This is not enough even for us, because here the temperature is rising more rapidly than the global average, while in the North the rise is even faster than on average in the rest of Russia. For us, this is fraught with serious consequences, given that a considerable part of Russia’s territory is in the Far North. We certainly are thinking about this.

A few words about people’s lives.

Starting with the removal of all kinds of landfill sites, which also generate CO2 in large cities and contaminate people’s lives, something that we are working on, and ending with the situation in our large industrial centres, we have a programme for all of this. We may not be advancing as fast as we would like to, but, overall, we are on schedule with our plans.

We would have accomplished this earlier if it were not for the 2008–2009 crisis, which came to us from without, as we are all aware. But our industry simply screamed that many enterprises would keel over if we started to implement the so-called best technologies in that sphere. We had to postpone the implementation of our plans, but now the decisions have been taken at the legislative level and are being implemented.

We are giving priority attention in our programme to 12 cities that are the largest emission producers, after which we will turn our attention to all the other emission producers and all industries. This is one of the priorities of our national projects and national plans.

As for carbon neutrality in general, it should be remembered that 45 percent of carbon emissions are being absorbed, if my memory serves me well. Incidentally, in this connection we will insist that our absorption ability is taken into account, that is, the absorption ability of our forests, our seas and the territories connected with the ocean. It is an objective fact, and it should be taken into account.

Moreover, in this context we have major reserves regarding the implementation of plans, for example, in the area of housing and utilities and energy efficiency. This is definitely what we can and should work on.

In other words, what we need is not a mechanical, mindless implementation of measures formulated by others, but a result. We intend to work towards this result absolutely transparently and honestly. However, I would not like our efforts to protect nature and implement climate policy recommendations to become a covert instrument of rivalry on the global markets. This would be very bad. This would undermine trust in what we are doing for the future of humankind.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Mr President, do we have a programme of our own regarding our actions in the event the EU introduces a carbon tax and Russian producers have to pay it?

Vladimir Putin: So far, no fundamental decisions have been taken that would undermine our interests or that would be non-transparent or absolutely unfair. I have talked with some of the [Western] leaders – I will not name them now – who are aware that the requirements that are being formulated at the level of European institutions are not transparent and cannot be described as fair. All of this certainly calls for more work. We hope that this will be done through dialogue with other countries, including Russia.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Angela Stent, our veteran and scientific council member, is with us from Washington.

Angela, please, go ahead with your question.

Angela Stent: Thank you very much, Fyodor, and I am sorry I am only here virtually.

Mr President, I heard you talk about some ways in which the US and Russia are working together, and I want to ask you another question about Afghanistan.

Twenty years ago Russia and the United States cooperated to defeat al-Qaeda and to remove the Taliban from power. Twenty years later, now in the aftermath of the American withdrawal, do you believe that counterterrorist cooperation between Russia and the United States is desirable? Is it possible? Do you think we would still share some of the same goals vis-à-vis Afghanistan that we did twenty years ago?

Vladimir Putin: I think that cooperation between Russia and the United States on counter-terrorism is not only possible, but is a necessity. We have discussed this many times, including with you. It is too bad you cannot be in this room with us today.

It is obvious that this is a common threat. Unfortunately, it has not become less of a danger than it was 20 years ago. Moreover, this threat has been growing bigger and took on a global dimension on our watch. We can only be effective in countering it by working together.

I have already said that our countries’ special services maintain contact, although in my opinion they could have established an even closer relationship, but we are grateful to our American partners for the information that has enabled us to prevent terrorist attacks in the Russian Federation.

I can assure you that we will do everything we can to relay any necessary information to our American colleagues in a timely manner if it is relevant to them and if we have the information at our disposal. I would like to emphasise once again that everyone stands to benefit from this cooperation.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Mr President, on Afghanistan. The Taliban is de facto in control there. They came to Moscow, and in general communicate with everyone. How long will Russia view them as a terrorist organisation with everyone having to say it is a terrorist organisation every time it is mentioned?

Vladimir Putin: This is not about us, Russia. You can see that we work with the Taliban and invited them to Moscow, and we have been maintaining contact with them in Afghanistan.

In fact, these decisions were taken at the UN level. It is clear that the Taliban are currently in control in Afghanistan, and we expect them to bring about positive momentum. Depending on how it goes, we will come together to decide whether it can be excluded from the list of terrorist organisations. I believe that we are getting there. Russia’s position will be to move precisely in this direction.

However, we need to take decisions like this the same way they were adopted before, when we decided to designate this movement as a terrorist organisation.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Asia is clearly underrepresented.

We have Professor Shimotomai joining us. Please go ahead.

Nobuo Shimotomai: Thank you.

Mr President, I am honoured, although I was unable to come to Sochi this time.

I found your report very interesting, including your point that state borders have become an anachronism. Indeed, perhaps the most acute antagonism exists in Northeast Asia over state borders and the like. Prime Minister Abe and you made an attempt to fill this gap in search of a new peace treaty. However, over the past two years the prime minister of Japan has changed twice without meeting with you. How do you see future bilateral relations, primarily, the prospects for a peace treaty between Russia and Japan? Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, indeed, political life in Japan is structured in a way where the political scene changes quite quickly, but the interests of the Japanese and Russian people remain unchanged and are based on the desire to reach a final settlement in our relations, including the conclusion of a peace treaty. We will strive to make this happen despite the changes in figures on Japan’s political stage.

Most recently, as you are aware, on October 7, I spoke with the new Prime Minister of Japan by telephone. He is undoubtedly an experienced person and is up to date on our relations since he was engaged in international affairs. He is fairly close in a political sense to former Prime Minister Abe. So in this sense, of course, I think we will see continuity in Japan’s position regarding its relations with Russia.

Under Mr Abe, we aligned a series of joint actions and joint work to bring Russian-Japanese relations to a new level. I would very much like this work to continue in the same vein going forward.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Friends, the President has been taking our questions, just questions, for two and a half hours now. I have a suggestion to optimise our work. We will have a quick Q&A session now. Please, ask short questions, do not make statements like Ms Dergham just did, but ask short questions. The President will give quick answers like a machine-gun burst. Yes?

Vladimir Putin: I will do my best.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Ryan Chilcote, go ahead please.

Ryan Chilcote: Thank you, Fyodor.

But please, do not give me a machine-gun burst in response.

Fyodor Lukyanov: It depends on your question.

Vladimir Putin: We have it, too. (Laughter.)

Ryan Chilcote: I understand.

My question is about the pandemic. The biggest foreign agent and the greatest external threat is the continuing pandemic. The only difference between Russia and many countries is the low vaccination rate. What do you think about mandatory vaccination as a solution to the problem?

Vladimir Putin: I have already said that vaccination will become mandatory when it is listed in the National Immunisation Calendar. Vaccination against the coronavirus infection is not listed there, and in this sense, it is not mandatory. But under current legislation, the regional authorities have the right to introduce mandatory vaccination for certain categories of people in conditions of a growing epidemic on the recommendation of chief sanitary doctors. This is what is happening in our country.

But a requirement is not the point. I personally do not support it. Why? Because it is possible to get around any decision imposed from above. People will buy certificates.

Maybe it is the other way around with those who get some Western vaccine. I have heard many times how it goes: citizens from European countries come here and get a Sputnik jab and then buy a certificate that they got Pfizer. I am serious. This is what doctors from European countries say. They believe that Sputnik is more reliable and safer.

But this is not the point. I am saying this not to promote Sputnik. I am saying that it is relatively easy to get around any imposed solution. It is a well-known observation that hundreds or thousands work on the laws and millions think about getting around them. As a rule, they succeed. Therefore, it seems to me, it is necessary to convince people rather than impose something on them. We need to convince them, to prove that vaccination is a better choice. I talked about this just recently.

This applies not only to Russia but also to other countries. There are only two scenarios for almost every person: either get sick or get the vaccine. It is not possible to slip through raindrops. It is necessary to enhance the confidence of people in the actions of the authorities. It is necessary to be more convincing and to prove a point through example. I hope we will learn to do this.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Mr Sajjadpour, go ahead please.

Seyed Kazem Sajjadpour: Thank you, Mr President. My question relates to Afghanistan. How do you see the American defeat and withdrawal from Afghanistan in a broader strategic sense? Would it change the US global positioning, and what would impact on the alignment of forces that you talked about? Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: First, I would like to say that the President of the United States did the right thing by withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. Probably, he did not know the details of how this would proceed but he understood that this would be a line of attack on the domestic political scene. But he still made this decision and assumed this responsibility.

Of course, we see how this happened and probably it could have been done differently. Naturally, this will primarily affect the attitude towards the US of those countries that consider the US their ally. But I think that with time everything will fall into place and there will be no cardinal changes.

Yes, this will affect relations with allies in the near future but the appeal of a country still depends not on this but on its economic and military might.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Alexander Rahr, go ahead please.

Alexander Rohr: Mr President, when you and Gerhard Schroeder met at the first session of the Petersburg Dialogue, you said relations between Germany and Russia were the best in a hundred years.

Unfortunately, they have deteriorated a lot now. My question is: Will it be possible to resuscitate at least the Petersburg Dialogue with the new German Chancellor, in all probability, this will be Olaf Scholz.

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: You know, Alexander, this does not depend solely on us. If the Germans display interest in this issue, we will step up our efforts in this area. That said, the Petersburg dialogue still exists, it has not disappeared and it continues in principle. Of course, it is possible to make bilateral contacts more intensive and productive. I understand this but it is necessary to depoliticise these contacts. I hope this will be done.

The coalition in Germany seems to be complicated and its various political forces are likely to have different views. Let’s see what it leads to in practice. I don’t know. But we are for it, we are ready for this.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Anatol Lieven, go ahead please.

Anatol Lieven: Thank you, Mr President, for coming. Anatol Lieven from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

China and other countries have made a move to electric cars, a key part of their action against climate change. What are Russia’s plans in this regard? Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: I have spoken about this many times. Of course, when cars move in cities they are one of the biggest air pollutants like housing and utilities and industry. This is obvious. But on a global scale we should not forget where electricity comes from.

Let us be straight with each other. Electric vehicles are a good thing but pollution of the environment during electricity generation is not so good. Meanwhile, the coal generation in European countries, such as Germany, since Alexander just asked about this, is twice as much as in Russia. It is double there. I think it amounts to 32 percent, and here is it 15–16 percent.

But in principle this is good. In Russia, such global reserves of natural gas could make gas engine fuel an alternative. It is necessary to change the energy balance in favour of the green agenda and in this case, we will achieve the desired result.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Mr President, have you driven an electric car?

Vladimir Putin: Yes, I have, in Ogaryovo.

Fyodor Lukyanov: How is it? Is there a difference?

Vladimir Putin: I drive these cars in Ogaryovo, this is true, but I don’t feel much difference. They are good cars.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Konstantin Zatulin.

Konstantin Zatulin: Mr President, I am Konstantin Zatulin, a member of the State Duma from the city where we are meeting [Sochi]. But my question is not about this.

Vladimir Putin: But mentioning this is not out of place.

Konstantin Zatulin: Yes, certainly.

My question is about history and memory. At the beginning of this meeting much was said about “Homo Sovieticus,” post-Soviet countries and post-Soviet space today. I would like to note that on November 2 we will mark 300 years of the Russian Empire.

This year we celebrated the 800th anniversary of Prince Alexander Nevsky, and you personally unveiled a monument, which made a great impression on many people. But for some reason nothing is being said about the 300th anniversary of the Russian Empire. Is it because we are embarrassed to use the word “empire”? If so, this is a bad idea. This was a major period in our history, the continuous existence of our state, from the Russian Empire to the Soviet Union and on to the Russian Federation, even though they might reject each other in some ways.

I would like to hope – we have addressed you on this occasion – that you will receive our letter and will consider the possibility of taking a more active part in this event, even if we miss the exact date, November 2, at least we will remember it.

Vladimir Putin: I agree with you. The continuity of history is important for knowing where we are moving. I fully agree with you. If we have missed something here, please accept my apologies. The next event will be connected with your name. (Laughter.)

Fyodor Lukyanov: Yury Slezkin.

Yury Slezkin: My question concerns history as well. You have been the head of the Russian state for many years, and you certainly think a great deal about your role in Russian history. What do you regard as your main achievements and largest failures as head of state?

Vladimir Putin: You know, I never think about my role in history. As soon as you start thinking about this, you need to step down because these thoughts stand in the way of decision-making. I am speaking absolutely honestly now. As soon as you think: “What if this or that happens, and what would Princess Maria Alekseyevna say?” – the game is over, and you better step down.

As for what I have accomplished, we had 40 million people living below the poverty line. Today there are too many as well, over 19 million, or even 20 million, according to various estimates. This is too many, but not as many as 40 million. This is probably my main achievement.

Our economy has recovered. Some industries, including the defence sector, were as good as dead. If we had lost more time, we would have been unable to restore them; the production links and our scientific schools would have been lost forever. We have restored them, not to mention the fact that the statutes and constitutions of the constituent members of the Russian Federation included all manner of provisions, including the right to mint money, they even had their own state borders, but they did not mention the fact that they were constituent members of the Russian Federation. It was a very serious challenge. We have dealt with that.

Or take the fight against international terrorism. You know, I will tell you what I sometimes think, and will be honest with you. Yes, we did overcome that difficult period in the life of our country, especially when it comes to terrorism. This was by far not only my personal contribution that we did it, but thanks to the patience, courage and will of the Russian people. I am not saying this for effect but absolutely sincerely, because I saw the difficulties and suffering Russian families faced. But Russia was equal to the task, which means that this passionarity we mentioned at the beginning, has a big role to play in the Russia nation. We definitely have the internal impetus for development and it is very powerful.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Mr President, since you don’t want to talk about your role in history, I would like to try another track.

There is a popular trend to discuss the vision of the future, everyone is looking for a vision of the future. The Valdai Club is also looking for it as are many others. Mr Andrei Bezrukov is sitting here in the front row; he also does a lot in this regard.

Personally, I am afraid we will not find a vision now, because the world is incredibly uncertain. But I might be wrong.

Do you have any vision of Russia’s future, or the world’s, something you would like to see or that you would like your descendants to see?

Vladimir Putin: You know, one can talk a lot about this, and I have already answered this question more than once, one way or another, in different forms, and I do not want to repeat my old phrases.

I would start with the theme of today's Valdai meeting. What is it?

Fyodor Lukyanov: The Return of the Future.

Vladimir Putin: No, no. The slogan of today's meeting?

Fyodor Lukyanov: Global Shake-Up.

Vladimir Putin: It’s longer.

Fyodor Lukyanov: The Individual, Values. But “individual” is rarely remembered.

Vladimir Putin: Well, it should be, because this is the most important point.

I have been remembering [Nikolai] Berdyaev. As you know, he wrote several major works, and they are still popular. He wrote about the new Middle Ages, as was relevant at that time, about freedom, how it was such a heavy burden. But he also said something else – that the individual should always be at the centre of development. The individual is more important than society or the state. I would very much like to see a future where all the resources of society and the state are concentrated around the interests of the individual. We definitely need to strive for this. It is difficult to say now how effective we will be in creating such a system, but this is what we should strive for.

A young man over there has raised his hand. Go ahead, please.

Dmitry Suslov: Thank you very much, Mr President.

Dmitry Suslov, Higher School of Economics.

You noted in your remarks today that disagreements around the world – both intranational and international – have reached a level where world wars used to break out in previous eras. So far, we have not seen a world war, at least not a ‘hot’ one.

Vladimir Putin: Do you miss this?

Dmitry Suslov: I just wanted to ask if this means – we probably have not seen a world war because the world has nuclear weapons – but does this mean it cannot happen at all? And if it cannot happen, it’s like Dostoevsky wrote: if there is no God, anything is permitted. I mean, if there is no threat of a world war, it can lead to complete irresponsibility: you can do whatever you want because there will be no world war, there are no obstacles for pursuing an aggressive policy – and so on.

But, if there is a threat of a world war, if the danger of a world war is still out there, shouldn’t Russia, as a nuclear superpower, as a country that has gone through the hardest wars – you also mentioned this today – a country that knows the value of peace, and peace is probably also a universal value, shouldn't Russia declare a little more strongly that the protection of peace, strengthening peace is the goal of Russia’s foreign policy, and some practical steps should be taken here too?

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: We say a lot of positive and important things, but our partners simply prefer not to notice many of them.

So more talk would be pointless; we must act to achieve what we are talking about. This is not an easy job, not an easy task, but we will definitely work at it.

You spoke about nuclear weapons. It is a huge responsibility that nuclear powers have. You also said a third world war may be improbable in the modern situation; but there is still a threat of mutual destruction, let’s not forget about that.

The central sector now, please.

Tatiana Kastoueva-Jean: Thank you very much.

Tatiana Kastoueva-Jean, French Institute of International Relations.

I have a question that may seem unexpected but it is very important for France. Newspapers have been asking questions these past days about the presence of Russian mercenaries in Mali. To keep it short, this is my question: can the interests of a private military company that operates outside Russian law be at odds with Russia’s state interests? Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: We have discussed this with our French colleagues on numerous occasions, including with President Macron who raised this subject with me.

You said that these are private companies, not the state. They do not represent the interests of the Russian state. If they are operating somewhere without instructions from the Russian state, this is a private business, private initiatives related, among other things, to fuel production and other resources, gold, or gems, what have you. However, if this contradicts the interests of the Russian state, which can happen, we will unfortunately have to respond, and we will definitely do something about it.

Mehdi Sanaei: Mr President,

First, thank you for this opportunity to have this conversation.

I have a question about South Caucasus. There was a ceasefire and some agreements were reached, but so far, there has been no final solution, and you know that some countries, republics in the regions, have reasons to question whether this will happen.

The three-plus-three format emerged, including with Russia’s support. However, it has yet to become operational. Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia had a platform for working on the North-South corridor. Iran, Russia and Turkey had a trilateral platform for fighting terrorism. By the way, it is unfortunate that South Caucasus has also been affected by terrorism.

Of course, Russia plays a very important role here. Other formats with the participation of Armenia and other countries are also possible.

Do we need to fast-track initiatives in order to create a format of this kind? What do you think? What format, in your opinion, would offer the most effective solution, taking into consideration the interests of the South-Caucasian republics and countries in the region?

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: First, I would like to praise the President of Azerbaijan and the Prime Minister of Armenia for their political wisdom. After all, despite all the tragedy with the ongoing developments, they were able to rise above the political fray and make some very responsible decisions.

I do know that they have been facing criticism inside their own countries, as strange as this may seem. There are always political forces that are unhappy and believe that things could have been better. “Go ahead and do a better job” – this is what always springs to mind. After all, President Aliyev and Prime Minister Pashinyan succeeded in stopping the bloodshed.

However, there is more to it, although there is nothing more important than saving human lives. Nonetheless, there are other critical aspects to it, namely: it is vital to create proper conditions for a long-term settlement in the region. These conditions can be created only if both sides accept the existing arrangements as long-term and appreciate the advantages, I want to emphasise this, offered by peaceful coexistence, and everyone is interested in this.

Azerbaijan is interested in normal transport links with Nakhichevan. It is interested in deblocking connection lines. One of the first tasks facing Armenia is to create an effective economic life and effective interaction in the region going forward, including with Azerbaijan. Armenia is basically interested in this. Interested in unfreezing its relations with Turkey and giving them a modern dimension.

In either case, it should lead us to achieving our main goal which is to create a safe environment for the coexistence of the two states and for economic growth. Is it possible to accomplish this or not? It may well be. We did our best to stop the bloodshed, and not only this. Our peacekeepers are performing their duty in a dignified manner, and over 50,000 refugees have returned home.

Overall, the situation in the conflict zone remains as it is with no major hostilities. Unfortunately, some incidents do happen, and unfortunately, people die sometimes. Maybe it is difficult to conjure up a completely idealistic picture after so many years of confrontation. The most important thing to do now is to finally settle the situation at the border. Of course, not much can be accomplished without Russia's participation. Perhaps, we do not need anyone else but the two sides and Russia. Why? There are simple and pragmatic things, such as the maps that show where the border between the Soviet republics was in the Soviet period, which are kept by the General Staff of the Russian army.

Based on these documents, both sides should sit down and talk. There are things that require compromises on both sides: some things need to be straightened out and some exchanges could be made but both sides must recognise that a deal is beneficial for both sides. Can this be done or not? It can. But, of course, we are also in favour of establishing a multilateral format, such as, say, step up the Minsk Group’s activities. We are working on this, including with our partners.

Most importantly, we should achieve our main goal which is to ensure security and to build relations in a positive manner. So far, we have been able to achieve our goals. Of course, we need to look to the future and see what will happen next. It is not about a declaration on a possible extension of the Russian contingent’s stay; it is not about that. The point is to properly align relations between these two countries. This is what matters. I hope we will be able to get it done.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Igor Istomin. He has been holding his hand up for a long time.

Vladimir Putin: We must wrap up, it is already after 9 o’clock.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Yes, we are wrapping up.

Igor Istomin: Good evening, Mr President. Igor Istomin, MGIMO [Moscow State Institute of International Relations].

In your speech – I hope I am quoting you correctly – you said that the reforming or cancellation of some international organisations may be on the agenda. In this context, I would like to ask you about the prospects for the Council of Europe and the OSCE, as well as prospects for Russia’s participation in them. Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: In general, if these organisations work for implementing the goals that they were established for in a broad sense, there are prospects for their existence. The Council of Europe is primarily a European question. The same largely applies to the OSCE. But if they work exclusively with the post-Soviet space, trying to lecture the newly-formed independent states that appeared in the post-Soviet space, their prospects are limited. I can assure you that if Russia were to withdraw from one of these organisations it would be interesting to see what would happen with them as regards the participation of other countries.

Nobody needs moral preaching. So, we need to take a broader look at humanitarian issues and cooperation with the Council of Europe, or security issues in Europe in the broad sense of this word.

But let’s finish our session. There’s a colleague with his hand up in the centre.

Muhammad Athar Javed: Thank you very much. Dr Athar Javed from Pakistan House, Islamabad.

Actually, with all due respect, of course, the counterterrorism campaign is very important internationally, and it will continue. My question to you, Mr President, is about the ongoing negotiations in Pakistan, Iran, Russia and China. And, of course, Pakistan facilitated this Doha process as well. In the wake of NATO failing completely on almost every adventure – or misadventure – they made, including Afghanistan, of course, the mess is their responsibility. But if the Taliban manages to prevent drug trade, secures its territory against ISIS and terminates all the infrastructure, what will be the reaction or the response from Russia, China and Pakistan?

Of course, it is not about recognition only. It is, as you said very rightfully, important to empower the Taliban on the ground economically, so the continuity should award social areas, like doctors, salaries, nurses, education, teachers or anything else related to social factors.

I think I would really appreciate if you could, say, shed light on this one, on how important it is to again wrap the mess of NATO. But it is important for the region, that is why I think Russia and China should take the lead on this account as well. Thank you very much for this opportunity.

Vladimir Putin: As for the mess created by NATO, I do not think we should comment on this because everyone has already expressed his opinion on what the United States and President Biden have done. I have already said what I think about this. I think he did the right thing by deciding to withdraw the troops. But, of course, now we should look to the future. But because they were the one to create this mess, as you said, they shouldn’t shed the responsibility for what is going on there and for the future. And they have plenty of instruments, primarily financial ones, for exerting influence on the situation in Afghanistan. Europe has them, too. One shouldn’t look down at this territory, as our colleagues in the Council of Europe often do. They are also responsible for what happened there. So everyone should join in helping the Afghan people.

However, we must still avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. Nobody should impose on the Afghan people what the Soviet Union or the United States tried to inflict on them. Incidentally, the Soviet Union was even more prudent there and this is why the word “shuravi” as the Soviets were called, does not have a negative connotation. The region’s countries are even more interested in normalisation, and Russia will do all it can to achieve it.

We see the Taliban trying to fight the extreme radicals and organisations such as ISIS, which leave no doubt as to their terrorist intentions. Yes, they were their fellow travellers, we understand that – after all, we are proceeding from reality – momentary fellow travellers. Now they are attacking the Taliban.

But the thing is the Taliban needs to establish relations with all ethnic and religious groups, with all political and public organisations inside Afghanistan.

Let’s start with the ethnic component. Yes, the Taliban is mostly made up of Pushtun groups. But there are also the Tajiks – from 40 to 47 percent, according to various estimates. This is a lot, isn’t it? There are Uzbeks, the Hazara, and so on. If we look at this component, then right, I know of course that these groups have their representatives at the ruling level, in the government, but they are not playing the leading roles, and these people do aspire to take important positions in the national governance system. This balance must be found.

We are not pushing them, we are just saying how this is seen, in principle, from the outside. We are doing our best to influence them to have regard for the appetites of the people we are in contact with – and we are in contact, by the way, with all political forces in Afghanistan, and we are establishing sufficiently stable relations with everyone. But we would like acceptable compromises to be found so that the problems confronting the country are not being resolved with weapons alone, as it has been. Women’s interests should be taken into consideration as well.

After all, Afghanistan is aspiring to be a modern state. And it seems to me that Pakistan plays a no less important part in this than Russia or China. This is why we are interested in promoting cooperation, including with your country, to achieve a common, desirable result.

There is no doubt that Russia is interested in Afghanistan at long last emerging from the unending, permanent civil war. The people of that long-suffering – without exaggeration – country must feel safe within their national borders and have a chance for development and prosperity. We will seek in every way to attain this goal.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Mr President, thank you for the conversation. I will relieve you of your duties as a moderator, because it is time.

Vladimir Putin: I am not claiming your salary.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Well, just in case, pre-emptively.

I think we had an exceedingly interesting session because we covered practically all matters. Thank you very much.

In the course of this session, I was thinking that we should probably stay away from New York for a while. Next year, the Valdai Club will probably meet in Sochi again. We very much hope that everything will be good, and we will see you like this, in person, and talk – only our conversation will last about five hours then. Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much.

There is no need to hold the closing session in New York; I am saying this without irony. It is fun to visit New York, and some platforms there… It is good to visit Afghanistan, and it makes sense to do that. Other places, like Europe, as well, and to discuss issues that concern Europe most of all such as energy and climate. Why not? I know forums are being held one way or another.

Fyodor Lukyanov: We are holding them in many places.

Vladimir Putin: Yes. New York is an option, too.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Are you laughing? Do you think this is impossible? (Laughter.)

Colleagues, I want to thank you. Indeed, you have been coming to Russia for many years now and continue to show interest in our country. This gives my colleagues and me an opportunity – I am not the only one at this forum, our ministers attend as well, such as the Foreign Minister and the mayors, and the Mayor of Moscow spoke recently – to share our vision of Russia in the modern world and where we are headed. In my opinion, this has a positive practical outcome.

Our colleagues travel abroad occasionally. A Deputy Prime Minister returned from the United States recently and had the following to say: “I was surprised to find out during my conversations with top officials from the US administration or a national security adviser that there is a lack of information.” That is strange. Maybe they do not have enough trust in the CIA, I am not sure. But, in fact, such forums are much sought after, since they provide an opportunity to have a candid conversation, to have a sense of each other and to give the people who make decisions at different levels of power an opportunity to be aware of what is being discussed, including at the Valdai Club.

Thank you very much.

During the recent Direct Line, when I was asked about Russian-Ukrainian relations, I said that Russians and Ukrainians were one people – a single whole. These words were not driven by some short-term considerations or prompted by the current political context. It is what I have said on numerous occasions and what I firmly believe. I therefore feel it necessary to explain my position in detail and share my assessments of today's situation.

First of all, I would like to emphasize that the wall that has emerged in recent years between Russia and Ukraine, between the parts of what is essentially the same historical and spiritual space, to my mind is our great common misfortune and tragedy. These are, first and foremost, the consequences of our own mistakes made at different periods of time. But these are also the result of deliberate efforts by those forces that have always sought to undermine our unity. The formula they apply has been known from time immemorial – divide and rule. There is nothing new here. Hence the attempts to play on the ”national question“ and sow discord among people, the overarching goal being to divide and then to pit the parts of a single people against one another.

To have a better understanding of the present and look into the future, we need to turn to history. Certainly, it is impossible to cover in this article all the developments that have taken place over more than a thousand years. But I will focus on the key, pivotal moments that are important for us to remember, both in Russia and Ukraine.

Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians are all descendants of Ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe. Slavic and other tribes across the vast territory – from Ladoga, Novgorod, and Pskov to Kiev and Chernigov – were bound together by one language (which we now refer to as Old Russian), economic ties, the rule of the princes of the Rurik dynasty, and – after the baptism of Rus – the Orthodox faith. The spiritual choice made by St. Vladimir, who was both Prince of Novgorod and Grand Prince of Kiev, still largely determines our affinity today.

The throne of Kiev held a dominant position in Ancient Rus. This had been the custom since the late 9th century. The Tale of Bygone Years captured for posterity the words of Oleg the Prophet about Kiev, ”Let it be the mother of all Russian cities.“

Later, like other European states of that time, Ancient Rus faced a decline of central rule and fragmentation. At the same time, both the nobility and the common people perceived Rus as a common territory, as their homeland.

The fragmentation intensified after Batu Khan's devastating invasion, which ravaged many cities, including Kiev. The northeastern part of Rus fell under the control of the Golden Horde but retained limited sovereignty. The southern and western Russian lands largely became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which – most significantly – was referred to in historical records as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia.

Members of the princely and ”boyar“ clans would change service from one prince to another, feuding with each other but also making friendships and alliances. Voivode Bobrok of Volyn and the sons of Grand Duke of Lithuania Algirdas – Andrey of Polotsk and Dmitry of Bryansk – fought next to Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich of Moscow on the Kulikovo field. At the same time, Grand Duke of Lithuania Jogaila – son of the Princess of Tver – led his troops to join with Mamai. These are all pages of our shared history, reflecting its complex and multi-dimensional nature.

Most importantly, people both in the western and eastern Russian lands spoke the same language. Their faith was Orthodox. Up to the middle of the 15th century, the unified church government remained in place.

At a new stage of historical development, both Lithuanian Rus and Moscow Rus could have become the points of attraction and consolidation of the territories of Ancient Rus. It so happened that Moscow became the center of reunification, continuing the tradition of ancient Russian statehood. Moscow princes – the descendants of Prince Alexander Nevsky – cast off the foreign yoke and began gathering the Russian lands.

In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, other processes were unfolding. In the 14th century, Lithuania's ruling elite converted to Catholicism. In the 16th century, it signed the Union of Lublin with the Kingdom of Poland to form the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Polish Catholic nobility received considerable land holdings and privileges in the territory of Rus. In accordance with the 1596 Union of Brest, part of the western Russian Orthodox clergy submitted to the authority of the Pope. The process of Polonization and Latinization began, ousting Orthodoxy.

As a consequence, in the 16–17th centuries, the liberation movement of the Orthodox population was gaining strength in the Dnieper region. The events during the times of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky became a turning point. His supporters struggled for autonomy from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

In its 1649 appeal to the king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Zaporizhian Host demanded that the rights of the Russian Orthodox population be respected, that the voivode of Kiev be Russian and of Greek faith, and that the persecution of the churches of God be stopped. But the Cossacks were not heard.

Bohdan Khmelnytsky then made appeals to Moscow, which were considered by the Zemsky Sobor. On 1 October 1653, members of the supreme representative body of the Russian state decided to support their brothers in faith and take them under patronage. In January 1654, the Pereyaslav Council confirmed that decision. Subsequently, the ambassadors of Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Moscow visited dozens of cities, including Kiev, whose populations swore allegiance to the Russian tsar. Incidentally, nothing of the kind happened at the conclusion of the Union of Lublin.

In a letter to Moscow in 1654, Bohdan Khmelnytsky thanked Tsar Aleksey Mikhaylovich for taking ”the whole Zaporizhian Host and the whole Russian Orthodox world under the strong and high hand of the Tsar“. It means that, in their appeals to both the Polish king and the Russian tsar, the Cossacks referred to and defined themselves as Russian Orthodox people.

Over the course of the protracted war between the Russian state and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, some of the hetmans, successors of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, would ”detach themselves“ from Moscow or seek support from Sweden, Poland, or Turkey. But, again, for the people, that was a war of liberation. It ended with the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667. The final outcome was sealed by the Treaty of Perpetual Peace in 1686. The Russian state incorporated the city of Kiev and the lands on the left bank of the Dnieper River, including Poltava region, Chernigov region, and Zaporozhye. Their inhabitants were reunited with the main part of the Russian Orthodox people. These territories were referred to as ”Malorossia“ (Little Russia).

The name ”Ukraine“ was used more often in the meaning of the Old Russian word ”okraina“ (periphery), which is found in written sources from the 12th century, referring to various border territories. And the word ”Ukrainian“, judging by archival documents, originally referred to frontier guards who protected the external borders.

On the right bank, which remained under the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the old orders were restored, and social and religious oppression intensified. On the contrary, the lands on the left bank, taken under the protection of the unified state, saw rapid development. People from the other bank of the Dnieper moved here en masse. They sought support from people who spoke the same language and had the same faith.

During the Great Northern War with Sweden, the people in Malorossia were not faced with a choice of whom to side with. Only a small portion of the Cossacks supported Mazepa's rebellion. People of all orders and degrees considered themselves Russian and Orthodox.

Cossack senior officers belonging to the nobility would reach the heights of political, diplomatic, and military careers in Russia. Graduates of Kiev-Mohyla Academy played a leading role in church life. This was also the case during the Hetmanate – an essentially autonomous state formation with a special internal structure – and later in the Russian Empire. Malorussians in many ways helped build a big common country – its statehood, culture, and science. They participated in the exploration and development of the Urals, Siberia, the Caucasus, and the Far East. Incidentally, during the Soviet period, natives of Ukraine held major, including the highest, posts in the leadership of the unified state. Suffice it to say that Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, whose party biography was most closely associated with Ukraine, led the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) for almost 30 years.

In the second half of the 18th century, following the wars with the Ottoman Empire, Russia incorporated Crimea and the lands of the Black Sea region, which became known as Novorossiya. They were populated by people from all of the Russian provinces. After the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian Empire regained the western Old Russian lands, with the exception of Galicia and Transcarpathia, which became part of the Austrian – and later Austro-Hungarian – Empire.

The incorporation of the western Russian lands into the single state was not merely the result of political and diplomatic decisions. It was underlain by the common faith, shared cultural traditions, and – I would like to emphasize it once again – language similarity. Thus, as early as the beginning of the 17th century, one of the hierarchs of the Uniate Church, Joseph Rutsky, communicated to Rome that people in Moscovia called Russians from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth their brothers, that their written language was absolutely identical, and differences in the vernacular were insignificant. He drew an analogy with the residents of Rome and Bergamo. These are, as we know, the center and the north of modern Italy.

Many centuries of fragmentation and living within different states naturally brought about regional language peculiarities, resulting in the emergence of dialects. The vernacular enriched the literary language. Ivan Kotlyarevsky, Grigory Skovoroda, and Taras Shevchenko played a huge role here. Their works are our common literary and cultural heritage. Taras Shevchenko wrote poetry in the Ukrainian language, and prose mainly in Russian. The books of Nikolay Gogol, a Russian patriot and native of Poltavshchyna, are written in Russian, bristling with Malorussian folk sayings and motifs. How can this heritage be divided between Russia and Ukraine? And why do it?

The south-western lands of the Russian Empire, Malorussia and Novorossiya, and the Crimea developed as ethnically and religiously diverse entities. Crimean Tatars, Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Karaites, Krymchaks, Bulgarians, Poles, Serbs, Germans, and other peoples lived here. They all preserved their faith, traditions, and customs.

I am not going to idealise anything. We do know there were the Valuev Circular of 1863 an then the Ems Ukaz of 1876, which restricted the publication and importation of religious and socio-political literature in the Ukrainian language. But it is important to be mindful of the historical context. These decisions were taken against the backdrop of dramatic events in Poland and the desire of the leaders of the Polish national movement to exploit the ”Ukrainian issue“ to their own advantage. I should add that works of fiction, books of Ukrainian poetry and folk songs continued to be published. There is objective evidence that the Russian Empire was witnessing an active process of development of the Malorussian cultural identity within the greater Russian nation, which united the Velikorussians, the Malorussians and the Belorussians.

At the same time, the idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians started to form and gain ground among the Polish elite and a part of the Malorussian intelligentsia. Since there was no historical basis – and could not have been any, conclusions were substantiated by all sorts of concoctions, which went as far as to claim that the Ukrainians are the true Slavs and the Russians, the Muscovites, are not. Such ”hypotheses“ became increasingly used for political purposes as a tool of rivalry between European states.

Since the late 19th century, the Austro-Hungarian authorities had latched onto this narrative, using it as a counterbalance to the Polish national movement and pro-Muscovite sentiments in Galicia. During World War I, Vienna played a role in the formation of the so-called Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen. Galicians suspected of sympathies with Orthodox Christianity and Russia were subjected to brutal repression and thrown into the concentration camps of Thalerhof and Terezin.

Further developments had to do with the collapse of European empires, the fierce civil war that broke out across the vast territory of the former Russian Empire, and foreign intervention.

After the February Revolution, in March 1917, the Central Rada was established in Kiev, intended to become the organ of supreme power. In November 1917, in its Third Universal, it declared the creation of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) as part of Russia.

In December 1917, UPR representatives arrived in Brest-Litovsk, where Soviet Russia was negotiating with Germany and its allies. At a meeting on 10 January 1918, the head of the Ukrainian delegation read out a note proclaiming the independence of Ukraine. Subsequently, the Central Rada proclaimed Ukraine independent in its Fourth Universal.

The declared sovereignty did not last long. Just a few weeks later, Rada delegates signed a separate treaty with the German bloc countries. Germany and Austria-Hungary were at the time in a dire situation and needed Ukrainian bread and raw materials. In order to secure large-scale supplies, they obtained consent for sending their troops and technical staff to the UPR. In fact, this was used as a pretext for occupation.

For those who have today given up the full control of Ukraine to external forces, it would be instructive to remember that, back in 1918, such a decision proved fatal for the ruling regime in Kiev. With the direct involvement of the occupying forces, the Central Rada was overthrown and Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi was brought to power, proclaiming instead of the UPR the Ukrainian State, which was essentially under German protectorate.

In November 1918 – following the revolutionary events in Germany and Austria-Hungary – Pavlo Skoropadskyi, who had lost the support of German bayonets, took a different course, declaring that ”Ukraine is to take the lead in the formation of an All-Russian Federation“. However, the regime was soon changed again. It was now the time of the so-called Directorate.

In autumn 1918, Ukrainian nationalists proclaimed the West Ukrainian People's Republic (WUPR) and, in January 1919, announced its unification with the Ukrainian People's Republic. In July 1919, Ukrainian forces were crushed by Polish troops, and the territory of the former WUPR came under the Polish rule.

In April 1920, Symon Petliura (portrayed as one of the ”heroes“ in today's Ukraine) concluded secret conventions on behalf of the UPR Directorate, giving up – in exchange for military support – Galicia and Western Volhynia lands to Poland. In May 1920, Petliurites entered Kiev in a convoy of Polish military units. But not for long. As early as November 1920, following a truce between Poland and Soviet Russia, the remnants of Petliura's forces surrendered to those same Poles.

The example of the UPR shows that different kinds of quasi-state formations that emerged across the former Russian Empire at the time of the Civil War and turbulence were inherently unstable. Nationalists sought to create their own independent states, while leaders of the White movement advocated indivisible Russia. Many of the republics established by the Bolsheviks' supporters did not see themselves outside Russia either. Nevertheless, Bolshevik Party leaders sometimes basically drove them out of Soviet Russia for various reasons.

Thus, in early 1918, the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic was proclaimed and asked Moscow to incorporate it into Soviet Russia. This was met with a refusal. During a meeting with the republic's leaders, Vladimir Lenin insisted that they act as part of Soviet Ukraine. On 15 March 1918, the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) directly ordered that delegates be sent to the Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, including from the Donetsk Basin, and that ”one government for all of Ukraine“ be created at the congress. The territories of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic later formed most of the regions of south-eastern Ukraine.

Under the 1921 Treaty of Riga, concluded between the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and Poland, the western lands of the former Russian Empire were ceded to Poland. In the interwar period, the Polish government pursued an active resettlement policy, seeking to change the ethnic composition of the Eastern Borderlands – the Polish name for what is now Western Ukraine, Western Belarus and parts of Lithuania. The areas were subjected to harsh Polonisation, local culture and traditions suppressed. Later, during World War II, radical groups of Ukrainian nationalists used this as a pretext for terror not only against Polish, but also against Jewish and Russian populations.

In 1922, when the USSR was created, with the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic becoming one of its founders, a rather fierce debate among the Bolshevik leaders resulted in the implementation of Lenin's plan to form a union state as a federation of equal republics. The right for the republics to freely secede from the Union was included in the text of the Declaration on the Creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and, subsequently, in the 1924 USSR Constitution. By doing so, the authors planted in the foundation of our statehood the most dangerous time bomb, which exploded the moment the safety mechanism provided by the leading role of the CPSU was gone, the party itself collapsing from within. A ”parade of sovereignties“ followed. On 8 December 1991, the so-called Belovezh Agreement on the Creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States was signed, stating that ”the USSR as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality no longer existed.“ By the way, Ukraine never signed or ratified the CIS Charter adopted back in 1993.

In the 1920's-1930's, the Bolsheviks actively promoted the ”localization policy“, which took the form of Ukrainization in the Ukrainian SSR. Symbolically, as part of this policy and with consent of the Soviet authorities, Mikhail Grushevskiy, former chairman of Central Rada, one of the ideologists of Ukrainian nationalism, who at a certain period of time had been supported by Austria-Hungary, was returned to the USSR and was elected member of the Academy of Sciences.

The localization policy undoubtedly played a major role in the development and consolidation of the Ukrainian culture, language and identity. At the same time, under the guise of combating the so-called Russian great-power chauvinism, Ukrainization was often imposed on those who did not see themselves as Ukrainians. This Soviet national policy secured at the state level the provision on three separate Slavic peoples: Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian, instead of the large Russian nation, a triune people comprising Velikorussians, Malorussians and Belorussians.

In 1939, the USSR regained the lands earlier seized by Poland. A major portion of these became part of the Soviet Ukraine. In 1940, the Ukrainian SSR incorporated part of Bessarabia, which had been occupied by Romania since 1918, as well as Northern Bukovina. In 1948, Zmeyiniy Island (Snake Island) in the Black Sea became part of Ukraine. In 1954, the Crimean Region of the RSFSR was given to the Ukrainian SSR, in gross violation of legal norms that were in force at the time.

I would like to dwell on the destiny of Carpathian Ruthenia, which became part of Czechoslovakia following the breakup of Austria-Hungary. Rusins made up a considerable share of local population. While this is hardly mentioned any longer, after the liberation of Transcarpathia by Soviet troops the congress of the Orthodox population of the region voted for the inclusion of Carpathian Ruthenia in the RSFSR or, as a separate Carpathian republic, in the USSR proper. Yet the choice of people was ignored. In summer 1945, the historical act of the reunification of Carpathian Ukraine ”with its ancient motherland, Ukraine“ – as The Pravda newspaper put it – was announced.

Therefore, modern Ukraine is entirely the product of the Soviet era. We know and remember well that it was shaped – for a significant part – on the lands of historical Russia. To make sure of that, it is enough to look at the boundaries of the lands reunited with the Russian state in the 17th century and the territory of the Ukrainian SSR when it left the Soviet Union.

The Bolsheviks treated the Russian people as inexhaustible material for their social experiments. They dreamt of a world revolution that would wipe out national states. That is why they were so generous in drawing borders and bestowing territorial gifts. It is no longer important what exactly the idea of the Bolshevik leaders who were chopping the country into pieces was. We can disagree about minor details, background and logics behind certain decisions. One fact is crystal clear: Russia was robbed, indeed.

When working on this article, I relied on open-source documents that contain well-known facts rather than on some secret records. The leaders of modern Ukraine and their external ”patrons“ prefer to overlook these facts. They do not miss a chance, however, both inside the country and abroad, to condemn ”the crimes of the Soviet regime,“ listing among them events with which neither the CPSU, nor the USSR, let alone modern Russia, have anything to do. At the same time, the Bolsheviks' efforts to detach from Russia its historical territories are not considered a crime. And we know why: if they brought about the weakening of Russia, our ill-wishes are happy with that.

Of course, inside the USSR, borders between republics were never seen as state borders; they were nominal within a single country, which, while featuring all the attributes of a federation, was highly centralized – this, again, was secured by the CPSU's leading role. But in 1991, all those territories, and, which is more important, people, found themselves abroad overnight, taken away, this time indeed, from their historical motherland.

What can be said to this? Things change: countries and communities are no exception. Of course, some part of a people in the process of its development, influenced by a number of reasons and historical circumstances, can become aware of itself as a separate nation at a certain moment. How should we treat that? There is only one answer: with respect!

You want to establish a state of your own: you are welcome! But what are the terms? I will recall the assessment given by one of the most prominent political figures of new Russia, first mayor of Saint Petersburg Anatoly Sobchak. As a legal expert who believed that every decision must be legitimate, in 1992, he shared the following opinion: the republics that were founders of the Union, having denounced the 1922 Union Treaty, must return to the boundaries they had had before joining the Soviet Union. All other territorial acquisitions are subject to discussion, negotiations, given that the ground has been revoked.

In other words, when you leave, take what you brought with you. This logic is hard to refute. I will just say that the Bolsheviks had embarked on reshaping boundaries even before the Soviet Union, manipulating with territories to their liking, in disregard of people's views.

The Russian Federation recognized the new geopolitical realities: and not only recognized, but, indeed, did a lot for Ukraine to establish itself as an independent country. Throughout the difficult 1990's and in the new millennium, we have provided considerable support to Ukraine. Whatever ”political arithmetic“ of its own Kiev may wish to apply, in 1991–2013, Ukraine's budget savings amounted to more than USD 82 billion, while today, it holds on to the mere USD 1.5 billion of Russian payments for gas transit to Europe. If economic ties between our countries had been retained, Ukraine would enjoy the benefit of tens of billions of dollars.

Ukraine and Russia have developed as a single economic system over decades and centuries. The profound cooperation we had 30 years ago is an example for the European Union to look up to. We are natural complementary economic partners. Such a close relationship can strengthen competitive advantages, increasing the potential of both countries.

Ukraine used to possess great potential, which included powerful infrastructure, gas transportation system, advanced shipbuilding, aviation, rocket and instrument engineering industries, as well as world-class scientific, design and engineering schools. Taking over this legacy and declaring independence, Ukrainian leaders promised that the Ukrainian economy would be one of the leading ones and the standard of living would be among the best in Europe.

Today, high-tech industrial giants that were once the pride of Ukraine and the entire Union, are sinking. Engineering output has dropped by 42 per cent over ten years. The scale of deindustrialization and overall economic degradation is visible in Ukraine's electricity production, which has seen a nearly two-time decrease in 30 years. Finally, according to IMF reports, in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic broke out, Ukraine's GDP per capita had been below USD 4 thousand. This is less than in the Republic of Albania, the Republic of Moldova, or unrecognized Kosovo. Nowadays, Ukraine is Europe's poorest country.

Who is to blame for this? Is it the people of Ukraine's fault? Certainly not. It was the Ukrainian authorities who waisted and frittered away the achievements of many generations. We know how hardworking and talented the people of Ukraine are. They can achieve success and outstanding results with perseverance and determination. And these qualities, as well as their openness, innate optimism and hospitality have not gone. The feelings of millions of people who treat Russia not just well but with great affection, just as we feel about Ukraine, remain the same.

Until 2014, hundreds of agreements and joint projects were aimed at developing our economies, business and cultural ties, strengthening security, and solving common social and environmental problems. They brought tangible benefits to people – both in Russia and Ukraine. This is what we believed to be most important. And that is why we had a fruitful interaction with all, I emphasize, with all the leaders of Ukraine.

Even after the events in Kiev of 2014, I charged the Russian government to elaborate options for preserving and maintaining our economic ties within relevant ministries and agencies. However, there was and is still no mutual will to do the same. Nevertheless, Russia is still one of Ukraine's top three trading partners, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are coming to us to work, and they find a welcome reception and support. So that what the ”aggressor state“ is.

When the USSR collapsed, many people in Russia and Ukraine sincerely believed and assumed that our close cultural, spiritual and economic ties would certainly last, as would the commonality of our people, who had always had a sense of unity at their core. However, events – at first gradually, and then more rapidly – started to move in a different direction.

In essence, Ukraine's ruling circles decided to justify their country's independence through the denial of its past, however, except for border issues. They began to mythologize and rewrite history, edit out everything that united us, and refer to the period when Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as an occupation. The common tragedy of collectivization and famine of the early 1930s was portrayed as the genocide of the Ukrainian people.

Radicals and neo-Nazis were open and more and more insolent about their ambitions. They were indulged by both the official authorities and local oligarchs, who robbed the people of Ukraine and kept their stolen money in Western banks, ready to sell their motherland for the sake of preserving their capital. To this should be added the persistent weakness of state institutions and the position of a willing hostage to someone else's geopolitical will.

I recall that long ago, well before 2014, the U.S. and EU countries systematically and consistently pushed Ukraine to curtail and limit economic cooperation with Russia. We, as the largest trade and economic partner of Ukraine, suggested discussing the emerging problems in the Ukraine-Russia-EU format. But every time we were told that Russia had nothing to do with it and that the issue concerned only the EU and Ukraine. De facto Western countries rejected Russia's repeated calls for dialogue.

Step by step, Ukraine was dragged into a dangerous geopolitical game aimed at turning Ukraine into a barrier between Europe and Russia, a springboard against Russia. Inevitably, there came a time when the concept of ”Ukraine is not Russia“ was no longer an option. There was a need for the ”anti-Russia“ concept which we will never accept.

The owners of this project took as a basis the old groundwork of the Polish-Austrian ideologists to create an ”anti-Moscow Russia“. And there is no need to deceive anyone that this is being done in the interests of the people of Ukraine. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth never needed Ukrainian culture, much less Cossack autonomy. In Austria-Hungary, historical Russian lands were mercilessly exploited and remained the poorest. The Nazis, abetted by collaborators from the OUN-UPA, did not need Ukraine, but a living space and slaves for Aryan overlords.

Nor were the interests of the Ukrainian people thought of in February 2014. The legitimate public discontent, caused by acute socio-economic problems, mistakes, and inconsistent actions of the authorities of the time, was simply cynically exploited. Western countries directly interfered in Ukraine's internal affairs and supported the coup. Radical nationalist groups served as its battering ram. Their slogans, ideology, and blatant aggressive Russophobia have to a large extent become defining elements of state policy in Ukraine.

All the things that united us and bring us together so far came under attack. First and foremost, the Russian language. Let me remind you that the new ”Maidan“ authorities first tried to repeal the law on state language policy. Then there was the law on the ”purification of power“, the law on education that virtually cut the Russian language out of the educational process.

Lastly, as early as May of this year, the current president introduced a bill on ”indigenous peoples“ to the Rada. Only those who constitute an ethnic minority and do not have their own state entity outside Ukraine are recognized as indigenous. The law has been passed. New seeds of discord have been sown. And this is happening in a country, as I have already noted, that is very complex in terms of its territorial, national and linguistic composition, and its history of formation.

There may be an argument: if you are talking about a single large nation, a triune nation, then what difference does it make who people consider themselves to be – Russians, Ukrainians, or Belarusians. I completely agree with this. Especially since the determination of nationality, particularly in mixed families, is the right of every individual, free to make his or her own choice.

But the fact is that the situation in Ukraine today is completely different because it involves a forced change of identity. And the most despicable thing is that the Russians in Ukraine are being forced not only to deny their roots, generations of their ancestors but also to believe that Russia is their enemy. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the path of forced assimilation, the formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia, is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us. As a result of such a harsh and artificial division of Russians and Ukrainians, the Russian people in all may decrease by hundreds of thousands or even millions.

Our spiritual unity has also been attacked. As in the days of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a new ecclesiastical has been initiated. The secular authorities, making no secret of their political aims, have blatantly interfered in church life and brought things to a split, to the seizure of churches, the beating of priests and monks. Even extensive autonomy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church while maintaining spiritual unity with the Moscow Patriarchate strongly displeases them. They have to destroy this prominent and centuries-old symbol of our kinship at all costs.

I think it is also natural that the representatives of Ukraine over and over again vote against the UN General Assembly resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism. Marches and torchlit processions in honor of remaining war criminals from the SS units take place under the protection of the official authorities. Mazepa, who betrayed everyone, Petliura, who paid for Polish patronage with Ukrainian lands, and Bandera, who collaborated with the Nazis, are ranked as national heroes. Everything is being done to erase from the memory of young generations the names of genuine patriots and victors, who have always been the pride of Ukraine.

For the Ukrainians who fought in the Red Army, in partisan units, the Great Patriotic War was indeed a patriotic war because they were defending their home, their great common Motherland. Over two thousand soldiers became Heroes of the Soviet Union. Among them are legendary pilot Ivan Kozhedub, fearless sniper, defender of Odessa and Sevastopol Lyudmila Pavlichenko, valiant guerrilla commander Sidor Kovpak. This indomitable generation fought, those people gave their lives for our future, for us. To forget their feat is to betray our grandfathers, mothers and fathers.

The anti-Russia project has been rejected by millions of Ukrainians. The people of Crimea and residents of Sevastopol made their historic choice. And people in the southeast peacefully tried to defend their stance. Yet, all of them, including children, were labeled as separatists and terrorists. They were threatened with ethnic cleansing and the use of military force. And the residents of Donetsk and Lugansk took up arms to defend their home, their language and their lives. Were they left any other choice after the riots that swept through the cities of Ukraine, after the horror and tragedy of 2 May 2014 in Odessa where Ukrainian neo-Nazis burned people alive making a new Khatyn out of it? The same massacre was ready to be carried out by the followers of Bandera in Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk and Lugansk. Even now they do not abandon such plans. They are biding their time. But their time will not come.

The coup d'état and the subsequent actions of the Kiev authorities inevitably provoked confrontation and civil war. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that the total number of victims in the conflict in Donbas has exceeded 13,000. Among them are the elderly and children. These are terrible, irreparable losses.

Russia has done everything to stop fratricide. The Minsk agreements aimed at a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Donbas have been concluded. I am convinced that they still have no alternative. In any case, no one has withdrawn their signatures from the Minsk Package of Measures or from the relevant statements by the leaders of the Normandy format countries. No one has initiated a review of the United Nations Security Council resolution of 17 February 2015.

During official negotiations, especially after being reined in by Western partners, Ukraine's representatives regularly declare their ”full adherence“ to the Minsk agreements, but are in fact guided by a position of ”unacceptability“. They do not intend to seriously discuss either the special status of Donbas or safeguards for the people living there. They prefer to exploit the image of the ”victim of external aggression“ and peddle Russophobia. They arrange bloody provocations in Donbas. In short, they attract the attention of external patrons and masters by all means.

Apparently, and I am becoming more and more convinced of this: Kiev simply does not need Donbas. Why? Because, firstly, the inhabitants of these regions will never accept the order that they have tried and are trying to impose by force, blockade and threats. And secondly, the outcome of both Minsk‑1 and Minsk‑2 which give a real chance to peacefully restore the territorial integrity of Ukraine by coming to an agreement directly with the DPR and LPR with Russia, Germany and France as mediators, contradicts the entire logic of the anti-Russia project. And it can only be sustained by the constant cultivation of the image of an internal and external enemy. And I would add – under the protection and control of the Western powers.

This is what is actually happening. First of all, we are facing the creation of a climate of fear in Ukrainian society, aggressive rhetoric, indulging neo-Nazis and militarising the country. Along with that we are witnessing not just complete dependence but direct external control, including the supervision of the Ukrainian authorities, security services and armed forces by foreign advisers, military ”development“ of the territory of Ukraine and deployment of NATO infrastructure. It is no coincidence that the aforementioned flagrant law on ”indigenous peoples“ was adopted under the cover of large-scale NATO exercises in Ukraine.

This is also a disguise for the takeover of the rest of the Ukrainian economy and the exploitation of its natural resources. The sale of agricultural land is not far off, and it is obvious who will buy it up. From time to time, Ukraine is indeed given financial resources and loans, but under their own conditions and pursuing their own interests, with preferences and benefits for Western companies. By the way, who will pay these debts back? Apparently, it is assumed that this will have to be done not only by today's generation of Ukrainians but also by their children, grandchildren and probably great-grandchildren.

The Western authors of the anti-Russia project set up the Ukrainian political system in such a way that presidents, members of parliament and ministers would change but the attitude of separation from and enmity with Russia would remain. Reaching peace was the main election slogan of the incumbent president. He came to power with this. The promises turned out to be lies. Nothing has changed. And in some ways the situation in Ukraine and around Donbas has even degenerated.

In the anti-Russia project, there is no place either for a sovereign Ukraine or for the political forces that are trying to defend its real independence. Those who talk about reconciliation in Ukrainian society, about dialogue, about finding a way out of the current impasse are labelled as ”pro-Russian“ agents.

Again, for many people in Ukraine, the anti-Russia project is simply unacceptable. And there are millions of such people. But they are not allowed to raise their heads. They have had their legal opportunity to defend their point of view in fact taken away from them. They are intimidated, driven underground. Not only are they persecuted for their convictions, for the spoken word, for the open expression of their position, but they are also killed. Murderers, as a rule, go unpunished.

Today, the ”right“ patriot of Ukraine is only the one who hates Russia. Moreover, the entire Ukrainian statehood, as we understand it, is proposed to be further built exclusively on this idea. Hate and anger, as world history has repeatedly proved this, are a very shaky foundation for sovereignty, fraught with many serious risks and dire consequences.

All the subterfuges associated with the anti-Russia project are clear to us. And we will never allow our historical territories and people close to us living there to be used against Russia. And to those who will undertake such an attempt, I would like to say that this way they will destroy their own country.

The incumbent authorities in Ukraine like to refer to Western experience, seeing it as a model to follow. Just have a look at how Austria and Germany, the USA and Canada live next to each other. Close in ethnic composition, culture, in fact sharing one language, they remain sovereign states with their own interests, with their own foreign policy. But this does not prevent them from the closest integration or allied relations. They have very conditional, transparent borders. And when crossing them the citizens feel at home. They create families, study, work, do business. Incidentally, so do millions of those born in Ukraine who now live in Russia. We see them as our own close people.

Russia is open to dialogue with Ukraine and ready to discuss the most complex issues. But it is important for us to understand that our partner is defending its national interests but not serving someone else's, and is not a tool in someone else's hands to fight against us.

We respect the Ukrainian language and traditions. We respect Ukrainians' desire to see their country free, safe and prosperous.

I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia. Our spiritual, human and civilizational ties formed for centuries and have their origins in the same sources, they have been hardened by common trials, achievements and victories. Our kinship has been transmitted from generation to generation. It is in the hearts and the memory of people living in modern Russia and Ukraine, in the blood ties that unite millions of our families. Together we have always been and will be many times stronger and more successful. For we are one people.

Today, these words may be perceived by some people with hostility. They can be interpreted in many possible ways. Yet, many people will hear me. And I will say one thing – Russia has never been and will never be ”anti-Ukraine“. And what Ukraine will be – it is up to its citizens to decide.

Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Angela Merkel, at the German side’s initiative, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, and the Day of Memory and Sorrow marked in Russia on that day.

June 22, 2021

17:35

Angela Merkel Merkel AngelaFederal Chancellor of Germany expressed sympathy for the innumerable hardships and suffering brought about by the war that was launched by the Nazi regime. Both leaders emphasised the importance of preserving the historical memory of the tragic events of that period. Vladimir Putin mentioned Russia’s appreciation of Angela Merkel and Federal President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier Steinmeier Frank-WalterPresident of the Federal Republic of Germany ’s participation in the commemoration events held in Germany. It was pointed out that overcoming mutual hostility and achieving reconciliation between the Russian and German people was of crucial significance for the post-war future of Europe, and that ensuring security on our common continent now is only possible through joint efforts.

At the request of the Federal Chancellor, the President of Russia updated Angela Merkel on the main results of the Russia-US summit held in Geneva on June 16.

The parties agreed on further personal contacts.

An article by the President of Russia has been published in the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit and is timed to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic war.

June 22, 2021

10:30

Being Open, Despite the Past

On June 22, 1941, exactly 80 years ago, the Nazis, having conquered practically the whole of Europe, attacked the USSR. For the Soviet people the Great Patriotic War – the bloodiest one in the history of our country – began. Tens of millions of people lost their lives, the economic potential of the country and its cultural property were severely damaged.

We are proud of the courage and steadfastness of the heroes of the Red Army and home front workers who not only defended the independence and dignity of our homeland, but also saved Europe and the world from enslavement. Despite attempts to rewrite the pages of the past that are being made today, the truth is that Soviet soldiers came to Germany not to take revenge on the Germans, but with a noble and great mission of liberation. We hold sacred the memory of the heroes who fought against Nazism. We remember with gratitude our allies in the anti-Hitler coalition, participants in the Resistance movement, and German anti-fascists who brought our common victory closer.

Having lived through the horrors of the world war, the peoples of Europe were nevertheless able to overcome alienation and restore mutual trust and respect. They set a course for integration in order to draw a final line under the European tragedies of the first half of the last century. And I would like to emphasize that the historical reconciliation of our people with the Germans living both in the east and the west of modern united Germany played a huge role in the formation of such Europe.

I would also like to remind that it was German entrepreneurs who became ”pioneers“ of cooperation with our country in the post-war years. In 1970, the USSR and the Federal Republic of Germany concluded a ”deal of the century“ on long-term natural gas supplies to Europe that laid the foundation for constructive interdependence and initiated many future grand projects, including the construction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline.

We hoped that the end of the Cold War would be a common victory for Europe. It seemed that just a little more effort was needed to make Charles de Gaulle's dream of a single continent – not even geographically ”from the Atlantic to the Urals“, but culturally and civilizationally ”from Lisbon to Vladivostok“ – become a reality.

It is exactly with this logic in mind – the logic of building a Greater Europe united by common values and interests – that Russia has sought to develop its relations with the Europeans. Both Russia and the EU have done a lot on this path.

But a different approach has prevailed. It was based on the expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance which was itself a relic of the Cold War. After all, it was specifically created for the confrontation of that era.

It was the bloc's movement eastwards – which, by the way, began when the Soviet leadership was actually persuaded to accept the united Germany's accession to NATO – that turned into the main reason for the rapid increase in mutual mistrust in Europe. Verbal promises made in that time such as ”this is not directed against you“ or ”the bloc's borders will not get closer to you“ were quickly forgotten. But a precedent was set.

And since 1999, five more “waves” of NATO expansion have followed. Fourteen new countries, including the former Soviet Union republics, joined the organization, effectively dashing hopes for a continent without dividing lines. Interestingly, this was warned about in the mid-1980s by Egon Bahr, one of the SPD leaders, who proposed a radical restructuring of the entire European security system after German unification, involving both the USSR and the United States. But no one in the USSR, the USA or Europe was willing to listen to him at the time.

Moreover, many countries were put before the artificial choice of being either with the collective West or with Russia. In fact, it was an ultimatum. The Ukrainian tragedy of 2014 is an example of the consequences that this aggressive policy has led to. Europe actively supported the unconstitutional armed coup in Ukraine. This was where it all started. Why was it necessary to do this? Then incumbent president Yanukovych had already accepted all the demands of the opposition. Why did the USA organize the coup and the European countries weak-heartedly support it, provoking a split within Ukraine and the withdrawal of Crimea?

The whole system of European security has now degraded significantly. Tensions are rising and the risks of a new arms race are becoming real. We are missing out on the tremendous opportunities that cooperation offers – all the more important now that we are all facing common challenges, such as the pandemic and its dire social and economic consequences.

Why does this happen? And most importantly, what conclusions should we draw together? What lessons of history should we recall? I think, first and foremost, that the entire post-war history of Greater Europe confirms that prosperity and security of our common continent is only possible through the joint efforts of all countries, including Russia. Because Russia is one of the largest countries in Europe. And we are aware of our inseparable cultural and historical connection to Europe.

We are open to honest and constructive interaction. This is confirmed by our idea of creating a common space of cooperation and security from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean which would comprise various integration formats, including the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union.

I reiterate that Russia is in favour of restoring a comprehensive partnership with Europe. We have many topics of mutual interest. These include security and strategic stability, healthcare and education, digitalization, energy, culture, science and technology, resolution of climate and environmental issues.

The world is a dynamic place, facing new challenges and threats. We simply cannot afford to carry the burden of past misunderstandings, hard feelings, conflicts, and mistakes. It is a burden that will prevent us from concentrating on the challenges at hand. We are convinced that we all should recognize these mistakes and correct them. Our common and indisputable goal is to ensure security on the continent without dividing lines, a common space for equitable cooperation and inclusive development for the prosperity of Europe and the world as a whole.

Keir Simmons: Mr President, it’s been a long time since you sat down with an American television network. Almost three years, I think. Thank you for your time. There’s a lot to discuss. I hope we have time to get to all of the issues.

But I want to begin with some news from the US just today. In the US it’s reported that Russia is preparing, perhaps within months, to supply Iran with an advanced satellite system, enabling Tehran to track military targets. Is that true?

Vladimir Putin: Would you mind repeating the question again, that we are preparing to hack what kind of facilities?

Keir Simmons: No. It’s in the report today that Russia is preparing to give or to offer to Iran a satellite technology which will enable Iran to target military, to make military targets. (Laughter.)

Vladimir Putin: No. We don’t have that kind of programmes with Iran. No, it’s just nonsense all over again, yet again. We have cooperation plans with Iran, including military and technical cooperation. And all of this fits the framework of the decisions that were agreed upon in our programme, in regard to Iran’s nuclear programme in the context of UN decisions together with our partners in the preparation of the JCPOA whereby some point sanctions, including in the area of military and technical cooperation, should be lifted from Iran. We have certain programmes which concern conventional weapons, if it gets that far. However, we haven’t even gone to that stage yet. We don’t even have any kind of real cooperation in the conventional weapons area. So if anybody is inventing something regarding modern space-based technology, this is just plain fiction. This is just fake news. At the very least, I don’t know anything about this kind of thing. Those who are speaking about it probably know more about it. It’s just nonsense, garbage.

Keir Simmons: So, presumably you’d agree that giving Iran satellite technology that might enable it to target US servicemen and women in places like Iraq or to share that information with Hezbollah or the Houthis in Yemen so they could target Israel and Saudi Arabia, that giving Iran that kind of satellite technology would be dangerous?

Vladimir Putin: Look, why are we talking about problems that don’t exist? There is no subject for discussion. Somebody has invented something, has made something up. Maybe this is just a bogus story so as to limit any kind of military and technical cooperation with Iran. I will say once again this is just some fake information that I have no knowledge about. For the first time I’m hearing about this information from you. We don’t have this kind of intentions. And I’m not even sure that Iran is even able to accommodate this kind of technology. This is a separate subject, a very high-tech subject.

We don’t rule out cooperation with many world nations in space. But probably everybody knows very well our position in terms that we are categorically against space militarisation all together. We believe that space should be free from any and all kinds of weapons located in near-Earth orbits. We don’t have this kind of plans or any plans, especially concerning the transfer of technology of the level that you have just described.

Keir Simmons: Ok. Let’s move on to your summit with President Biden.

The context for the summit is that he’s meeting with the G7, a group that you used to belong to, with NATO, with European leaders. President Biden has defined his first trip to Europe as quote, ”about rallying the world’s democracies.“ He views you as a leader of autocrats, who is determined to undermine the liberal democratic order. Is that true?

Vladimir Putin: Well, I don’t know. Somebody presents it from a certain perspective. Somebody looks at the development of this situation and at yours truly in a different manner. All of this is being offered to the public in a way that is found to be expedient for the ruling circles of a certain country.

The fact that President Biden has been meeting up with his allies, there is nothing unusual about it. There’s nothing unusual about a G7 meeting. We know what G7 is. I have been there on numerous occasions. I know what the values are in that forum. When people get together and discuss something, it’s always good. It’s better than not to get together and not to discuss. Because even in the context of the G7 there are matters that require ongoing attention and consideration because there are differences, strange as it may seem. There may be differences in assessments of international events on the international arena and among them. And very well then, let’s get together and discuss it.

As far as NATO, I have said on many occasions, ”This is a Cold War relic.“ It’s something that was born in the Cold War era. I’m not sure why it still continues to exist.

There was a time and there was some talk that this organisation would be transformed. Now it has been kind of forgotten. We presume that it is a military organisation. It is an ally of the United States. Every once in a while, it makes sense to meet up with your allies, although I can have an idea of how the discussion goes on there. Clearly everything is decided by consensus. However, there is just one opinion that is correct. Whereas the other opinions are not quite that right, putting it in careful terms. Well, there we go. Allies are getting together. What’s so unusual about it? I don’t see anything unusual about it. As a matter of fact it’s a sign of respect to the US allies before a summit between the US and Russian presidents. Probably it is being presented as desire to find out their opinion on the key issues of the current agenda, including those issues that President Biden and I will discuss. However, I’m inclined to think that despite all of these niceties, the United States, as far as their relationship with Russia, will be promoting what they consider important and necessary for themselves, above all for themselves, in their economic and military interests. However, to hear what their allies have to say about – it probably never hurts. This is working procedure.

Keir Simmons: So let’s talk about your meeting with President Biden, the summit that will happen after those meetings. President Biden asked you to meet with him. He didn’t make any preconditions. Were you surprised?

Vladimir Putin: No. We have a bilateral relationship that has deteriorated to what is the lowest point in recent years. However, there are matters that need a certain amount of comparing notes and identification and determination of mutual positions, so that matters that are of mutual interest can be dealt with in an efficient and effective way in the interests of both the United States and Russia. So, there is nothing unusual about it. In fact, despite this seemingly harsh rhetoric, we expected those suggestions because the US domestic political agenda made it impossible for us to restore the relationship at an acceptable level. This meeting should have taken place at some point. So, President Biden launched this initiative. Prior to that, as you know, he had supported the extension of the START treaty, which of course was bound to meet with support from our side. We believe that this treaty in the area of containment of strategic offensive weapons has been worked through and thoroughly, and meets our interests, and meets the US interests. So this offer could be expected.

Keir Simmons: Will you go into the summit agreeing to begin more arms control talks immediately after the summit? Because as you mentioned, President Biden has extended New START by five years. Washington would like that to be the beginning, not the end of that conversation.

Vladimir Putin: We know what matters and what problems Americans want to discuss with us, we understand these questions, matters and problems. We’re prepared for this joint work. We have certain if not differences than different understandings of what pace – at what pace and in what directions we need to be moving. We know what constitutes priorities for the US side. And this is, generally speaking, a process that needs to be advanced at the professional level along the lines of the Foreign Ministry and Defence Ministry on the Russian side, the Pentagon and State Department of the US side. We are prepared for this work.

We’ve heard signals that the US side would like to see these negotiations resumed at the expert level of professionals. We will see if the conditions for this have been created following the summit. Of course, we are not saying no. We are ready to do this work.

Keir Simmons: President Biden wants predictability and stability. Is that what you want?

Vladimir Putin: Well, this is the most important thing. This is the most important value, if you will, in international affairs.

Keir Simmons: Sorry to interrupt you. But he would say that you have caused a lot of instability and unpredictability.

Vladimir Putin: Well, he says one thing. I say another thing. But maybe at some point in certain ways our rhetoric varies and is different. But if you ask my opinion now, I am telling you what it is. The most important value in international affairs is predictability and stability. And I believe that on the part of our US partners, this is something that we haven’t seen in recent years. What kind of stability and predictability could there be if we remember the 2011 events in Libya where the country was essentially taken apart, broken down? What kind of stability and predictability was there?

There has been talk of a continued presence of troops in Afghanistan. And then all of a sudden, boom!, the troops are being withdrawn from Afghanistan. Is this predictability and stability again?

Now the Middle East events. Is this predictability and stability, what all of this will lead to? Or in Syria? What is stable and predictable about this?

I’ve asked my US counterparts, ”You want Assad to leave? Who will replace him? What will happen when he’s replaced with somebody?“ The answer is odd. The answer is, ”I don’t know.“ Well, if you don’t know what will happen next, why change what there is? It could be a second Libya or another Afghanistan. Do we want this? No. Let us sit down together, talk, look for compromise solutions that are acceptable for all the parties. That is how stability is achieved. It cannot be achieved by imposing one particular point of view, the ”correct“ point of view, whereby all the other ones are incorrect. That’s not how stability is achieved.

Keir Simmons: Let’s get to some other issues. I want to just talk a little bit more about your relationship with President Biden. This will not be the Helsinki summit. President Biden is not President Trump. You once described President Trump as a bright person, talented. How would you describe President Biden?

Vladimir Putin: Well, even now, I believe that former US President Mr Trump is an extraordinary individual, a talented individual, otherwise he would not have become US President. He is a colourful individual. You may like him or not. And he didn’t come from the US establishment. He had not been part of big time politics before, and some like it, some don’t like it but that is a fact.

President Biden, of course, is radically different from Mr Trump because President Biden is a career man. He has spent virtually his entire adulthood in politics. He has been doing it for a great deal of years and I have already said that and that is an obvious fact. Just think of the number of years he spent in the Senate, and how many years he was involved in the matters of international politics and disarmament, virtually at the expert level. That’s a different kind of person, and it is my great hope that yes, there are some advantages, some disadvantages, but there will not be any knee-jerk reactions on behalf of the sitting US President, that we will be able to comply with certain rules of engagement, certain rules of communications and will be able to find points of contact and common points.

Keir Simmons: Well, President Biden said one time when you met, you were inches away from each other, close to each other. And he said to you, ”I’m looking into your eyes, and I can’t see a soul.“ And you said, ”We understand each other.“ Do you remember that exchange?

Vladimir Putin: As far as soul, I’m not sure. One has to think about what soul is. But I do not remember this particular part of our conversations, to be honest with you. I do not remember. We all, when we meet, when we get together, when we talk, when we work and strive and achieve some solutions, we all proceed from the interests of our nations and our states. And this is fundamental and is the bedrock of all our actions and intentions. And this is the driving force and the motive for organising meetings of this kind. And as far as soul goes, that’s something for the church.

Keir Simmons: Yeah. You are a religious man. President Biden is saying he told you to your face, ”You don’t have a soul.“ (Laughter.)

Vladimir Putin: I do not remember this. ”Something is wrong with my memory.“

Keir Simmons: He says it was about 10 years ago when he was vice president.

Vladimir Putin: Well, he probably has good memory. I do not rule this out, but I don’t remember this. In personal encounters, people try to act appropriately. I do not remember any inappropriate elements of behavior on the part of my counterparts. I don’t think that anything like that has happened. Perhaps he did say something, but I do not remember.

Keir Simmons: Would you have felt that was an inappropriate thing to say?

Vladimir Putin: Well, that depends on the context. It depends on what form they’re said in. One can say this in different ways. It can be presented in different ways. But generally, people meet up in order to establish a relationship and create an environment and conditions for joint work, with a view to achieving some kind of positive results. If one is going to have a fight with somebody else why bother and have a meeting? One’s better off looking into budget and social policies domestically. We have many issues that we have to resolve. What’s the point then? It’s just a waste of time.

Of course, one can present this for domestic political consumption, which I believe is what has been done in the US in the last two years, where the US-Russia relationship was sacrificed for the sake of a fierce political strife inside the US.

We can see that. We know it very well. We have been accused of all kinds of things: election interference, cyberattacks and so on and so forth. And not once, not one time did they bother to produce any kind of evidence or proof. Just unfounded accusations. I’m surprised that we have not yet been accused of provoking the Black Lives Matter movement. That would have been a good line of attack. But we didn’t do that.

With NBC correspondent Keir Simmons.

With NBC correspondent Keir Simmons.

Keir Simmons: What do you think of the Black Lives Matter movement?

Vladimir Putin: I think that, of course, this movement was used by one of the political forces domestically in the course of election campaigns. But there are some grounds for it. Let’s remember Colin Powell who was Secretary of State, was in charge of the Pentagon. He even wrote in his book that even he as a high-ranking official had felt some kind of injustice towards himself his entire life as someone with a dark complexion.

Even from the Soviet days, we in Russia, we have always treated with understanding the fight of African Americans for their rights. And there are certain roots to it. And there is a certain foundation for this. But no matter how noble the goals that somebody is driven by, if it reaches certain extremes, if it spills over into… if it acquires elements of extremism, we cannot approve this. We cannot welcome it. So our attitude to this is very simple. We support African Americans’ fight for their rights, but we are against any types and kinds of extremism, which unfortunately sometimes, regrettably, we witness these days.

Keir Simmons: You mention cyberattacks and deny any involvement by Russia. But Mr President, there is now a weight of evidence, a long list of alleged state-sponsored cyberattacks. Let me give you five.

There’s a lot, but it makes a point. The US intelligence community says Russia interfered with the 2016 election. Election security officials said Russia tried to interfere with the 2020 election. Cybersecurity researchers said government hackers targeted COVID vaccine researchers, hacking for COVID vaccines.

In April, the Treasury Department said the SolarWinds attack was the world’s worst, including nine federal agencies. And just before your summit, Microsoft says it has discovered another attack with targets including organisations that have criticised you, Mr Putin.

Mr President, are you waging a cyber war against America?

Vladimir Putin: Dear Keir, you have said that there is a weight of evidence of cyberattacks by Russia. And then you went on to list those official US agencies that have stated as much. Is that what you did?

Keir Simmons: Well, I’m giving you information about who said it so you can answer.

Vladimir Putin: Right. You are conveying information to me as to who said that. But where is evidence that this was indeed done? I will tell you that this person has said that, that person has said this. But where is the evidence? Where is proof? When there are charges without evidence, I can tell you that you can take your complaint to the International League of Sexual Reform (SIC).

This is a conversation that has no subject. Put something on the table so that we can look and respond. But there isn’t anything like that.

One of the latest attacks, as far as I know, was against the pipeline system in the US. Right, yes. So what?

Keir Simmons: But this is… but you mention…

Vladimir Putin: Just a moment. As far as I know, the shareholders of this company even made a decision to pay the ransom. They paid off the cyber gangsters. If you have listed an entire set of US special services (powerful, global, respectable), after all they can find whoever the ransom was paid. And once they do that, they will realise that Russia has nothing to do with it.

Then there’s the cyberattack against a meat processing plant. Next time they will say there was an attack against some Easter eggs. It’s becoming farcical, like an ongoing farcical thing, never-ending farcical thing. You said ”plenty of evidence,“ but you haven’t cited any proof. But again, this is an empty conversation, a pointless conversation. What exactly are we talking about? There’s no proof.

Keir Simmons: You’ve moved on to this question of ransomware and criminals. Russian-speaking criminals is the allegation, are targeting the American way of life: food, gas, water, hospitals, transport. Why would you let Russian-speaking criminals disrupt your diplomacy? Wouldn’t you want to know who’s responsible?

Vladimir Putin: You know, the simplest thing to do would be for us to sit down calmly and agree on joint work in cyberspace. We did suggest that to Obama’s administration…

Keir Simmons: In September.

Vladimir Putin: In October. We started in September, and during his last year in office. In October at first they didn’t say anything. Then in November, they came back to us and said that, yes, it was interesting. Then the election was lost.

We restated this proposal to Mr Trump’s administration. The response was that it is interesting, but it didn’t come to the point of actual negotiations.

There are grounds to believe that we can build an effort in this area with the new administration, that the domestic political situation in the US will not prevent this from happening. But we have proposed to do this work together. Let’s agree on the principles of mutual work. Let’s find out what we can do together. Let’s agree on how we will structure counterefforts against the process that is gathering momentum. We here in the Russian Federation have cybercrimes that have increased many times over in the last few years. We are trying to respond to it. We are looking for cyber criminals. If we find them, we punish them.

We are willing to engage with international participants, including the United States. You are the ones who have refused to engage in joint work. What can we do? We cannot build this work, we cannot structure this work unilaterally.

Keir Simmons: Well, I’m not the government, Mr Putin. I’m just a journalist asking you questions.

Vladimir Putin: I understand that.

Keir Simmons: But if you clearly want to negotiate, you must have something to negotiate with. You don’t ask for a truce unless you’re fighting in a war.

Vladimir Putin: You know, as far as the war, NATO, and I’d like to draw your attention to that, has officially stated that it considers cyberspace a battlefield, an area of military action, and it conducts exercises in that battlefield.

Keir Simmons: And you are involved in that field.

Vladimir Putin: No.

Keir Simmons: Russia is fighting on that battlefield. Correct?

Vladimir Putin: No, no, that is not correct.

Keir Simmons: Really?

Vladimir Putin: That is not current. Really. If we wanted to do that… NATO said that it considers cyberspace an area of combat. And it prepares and even conducts exercises. What stops us from doing that? If you do that, we will do the same thing. But we don’t want that, just like we don’t want space militarised, in the same manner we don’t want cyberspace militarised. And we have suggested on many occasions, agreeing on mutual work in the cybersecurity area in this area. But your government refuses to.

Keir Simmons: It isn’t, I mean. I saw your proposal from September, from just in September. Isn’t what you’re proposing? That if you can come to an agreement over hacking and election interference, then you’ll call off the hacking and the election interference if America agrees not to comment on your elections and your political opponents?

Vladimir Putin: What we count on is that nobody should interfere in domestic internal affairs of other countries, neither the US in ours nor we in the USA’s political processes or any other nations. All nations of the world should be given an opportunity to develop calmly. Even if there are crisis situations they have to be resolved by the people domestically, without any influence or interference from the outside.

I don’t think that this call by the US administration, today’s administration is worth anything. It appears to me that the US government will still continue to interfere in the political processes in other countries. I don’t think that this process can be stopped, because it has gained a lot of momentum. However, as far as joint work in cyberspace for the prevention of some unacceptable actions on the part of cyber criminals, that is definitely something that can be agreed upon. And it is our great hope that we will be able to establish this process with our US partners.

Keir Simmons: If you were in America, what would you fear might happen next? The lights being switched off the way they were in western Ukraine in 2015?

Vladimir Putin: You mean if I were in America, what I would be afraid of? Is that the question?

Keir Simmons: What should Americans worry about? What might happen next if there’s no agreement on cyber?

Vladimir Putin: You know, this is just like space militarisation. This is a very dangerous area. At some point, in order to achieve something in the nuclear area in terms of confrontation in the area of nuclear weapons, the USSR and the United States did agree to contain this particular arms race. But cyberspace is a very sensitive area. As of today, a great deal of human endeavours rely upon digital technologies, including the functioning of government. And of course interference in those processes can cause a lot of damage and a lot of losses. And everybody understands that. And I am repeating for the third time: Let’s sit down together and agree on joint work on how to achieve security in this area. That is all. What’s bad about it? I don’t even understand.

I’m not asking you. I’m not trying to put you on the spot. But for me as an ordinary citizen, it would not be clear and understandable, why is it that your government refuses to do it? Accusations keep coming, including up to interference, involvement in a cyberattack against some kind of a meat processing plant. But our proposal to start negotiations in this area are being turned down. This is some kind of nonsense, but that’s exactly what’s been happening.

I repeat one more time. It is my hope that we will be able to start engaging in positive work in this area.

In terms of what’s to be afraid of, why is it that we suggest agreeing on something? Because what people can be afraid of in America, are worried about in America, the very same thing can be a danger to us. The US is a high-tech country. NATO has declared cyberspace an area of combat. That means they are planning something. They are preparing something. So obviously this cannot but worry us.

Keir Simmons: Do you fear that American intelligence is deep inside Russian systems and has the ability to do you a lot of damage in cyber?

Vladimir Putin: I’m not afraid, but I bear in mind that it is a possibility.

Keir Simmons: Let me ask you about human rights, an issue that President Biden will raise. Mr President, he’ll raise the issue of Alexei Navalny, targeted for assassination, now in a Russian jail. Mr President, why are you so threatened by opposition?

Vladimir Putin: Who says that I feel threatened by opposition or we are threatened by opposition? Who told you that I’m scared by opposition? It’s just funny.

Keir Simmons: Well, a Russian court has just… Excuse me, I’m sorry. A Russian court has just outlawed organisations connected to Mr Navalny. Literally every non-systemic opposition figure is facing criminal charges. In journalism Meduza and VTimes have been hit with ”foreign agent“ labels and face collapse. Mr President, it’s as if dissent is simply not tolerated in Russia anymore.

Vladimir Putin: You are presenting it as dissent and intolerance towards dissent in Russia. We view it completely differently. You have mentioned the law on foreign agents, but that’s not something that we invented. That law was passed back in the 1930s in the United States. And that law is much harsher than ours, and it is directed and intended, among other things, at preventing interference in the domestic political affairs of the United States.

Keir Simmons: But Mr President…

Vladimir Putin: And on the whole, I believe that it is justified.

Keir Simmons: Look, I’m just going to…

Vladimir Putin: Do you want me to keep answering?

Keir Simmons: In America, we call what you’re doing now ”whataboutism.“ ”What about this? What about that?“ It’s a way of not answering the question. Let me ask you a direct question.

Vladimir Putin: Let me answer. You’ve asked me a question. You are not liking my answer, so you’re interrupting me. This is inappropriate. So there we go. In the United States, this law was adopted a long time ago. It’s working, and sanctions under that law are much harsher than here, up to imprisonment.

Keir Simmons: There you go, still talking about the United States.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, yes. Again you are not letting me… But I will revert to us. I will go back to us. Don’t worry. I will not just be focused on US problems. I will revert and go back, and comment on what’s happening here.

Keir Simmons: Mr President, I thought your belief was that nations shouldn’t intervene in other countries’ domestic affairs, shouldn’t comment on other countries’ politics. But there you are, doing it again.

With NBC correspondent Keir Simmons.

With NBC correspondent Keir Simmons.

Vladimir Putin: No. If you muster patience and let me finish saying what I mean to say, everything will be clear to you. But you are not liking my answer. You don’t want my answer to be heard by your audience. That is the problem. You are shutting me down. Is that free expression? Is that free expression American way?

Keir Simmons: Please, answer.

Vladimir Putin: Here we go. The US adopted this law. We passed this law very recently in order to protect our society against outside interference. When in some of the states, a foreign observer comes to a polling station, the prosecutor says, ”Come a few feet closer, and you’ll go to jail.“ Is that normal? Is that democracy in the modern world? But that is an actual practice in some of the states. We don’t have anything like that.

When I talk about these laws, about non-interference or attempts at interference, what do I mean as applied to Russia? Many entities of the so-called ”civil society“ – the reason I say ”so-called civil society“ is because many of those entities are funded from abroad. Specific relevant action programs are prepared. Their core members are trained abroad. And when our official authorities see that, in order to prevent this kind of interference in our domestic affairs, we make relevant decisions and adopt relevant laws. And they are more lenient than yours.

We have a saying: ”Don’t be mad at the mirror if you are ugly.“ It has nothing to do with you personally. But if somebody blames us for something, what I say is, ”Why don’t you look at yourselves?“ You will see yourselves in the mirror, not us. There is nothing unusual about it.

As far as political activities and the political system, it is evolving. We have 44 registered parties. Well, 34, I think. And 32 are about to participate in various electoral processes across the country in September.

Keir Simmons: Those are the registered.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, yes.

Keir Simmons: We only have a limited amount of time, Mr President.

Vladimir Putin: There is also non-systemic opposition. You have said that some people have been detained. Some people are in prison. Yes, that is all true. You mentioned certain names.

Keir Simmons: Those are the ones that are being…

Vladimir Putin: Yes, yes. I will talk about it. Yes. I will not leave any of your questions unattended.

Keir Simmons: Alexei Navalny is his name.

Can I just ask you a direct question? Did you order Alexei Navalny’s assassination?

Vladimir Putin: Of course not. We don’t have this kind of habit, of assassinating anybody. That’s one.

Number two is I want to ask you: Did you order the assassination of the woman who walked into the Congress and who was shot and killed by a policeman? Do you know that 450 individuals were arrested after entering the Congress? And they didn’t go there to steal a laptop. They came with political demands. 450 people…

Keir Simmons: You’re talking about the Capitol riot.

Vladimir Putin: …have been detained. They’re facing a jail time, between 15 and 25 years. And they came to the Congress with political demands. Isn’t that persecution for political opinions? Some have been accused of plotting to topple, to take over government power. Some are accused of robbery. They didn’t go there to rob.

The people who you have mentioned, yes, they were convicted for violating their status, having been previously convicted, given convent, given suspended sentences which were essentially warning to not violate the Russian laws. And they completely ignored the requirements of the law. The court went on and passed and turned the conviction into real jail time. Thousands and thousands of people ignore requirements of the law – and they have nothing to do with political activities – in Russia every year and they go to jail. If somebody is actually using political activities as a shield to deal with their issues, including achieve their commercial goals, then it’s something that they have to be held responsible for.

Keir Simmons: There you go again, Mr President. ”What about America?“ when I’ve asked you about Russia. Let me ask. You mentioned Congress. Let me ask you another direct question that you can answer. And it’s an allegation that has been made, an accusation that has been made again and again now in the United States. The late John McCain in Congress called you a killer. When President Trump was asked, was told that you are a killer, he didn’t deny it. When President Biden was asked whether he believes you are a killer, he said, ”I do.“ Mr President, are you a killer?

Vladimir Putin: Look, over my tenure, I’ve gotten used to attacks from all kinds of angles and from all kinds of areas under all kinds of pretexts and reasons and of different calibre and fierceness. And none of it surprises me. People with whom I work and with whom we argue, we are not bride and groom. We don’t swear everlasting love and friendship. We are partners. And in some areas, we are rivals or competitors.

As far as harsh rhetoric, I think that this is an expression of overall US culture. Of course, in Hollywood, because we mentioned Hollywood at the beginning of our conversation, there are some deep things in Hollywood macho which can be treated as cinematographic art but more often than not it’s macho behavior that is part of US-political culture where it’s considered normal.

By the way, not here. It is not considered normal here. If this rhetoric is followed by a suggestion to meet and discuss bilateral issues and matters of international policies, I see it as desire to engage in joint work. If this desire is serious, we’re prepared to support it.

Keir Simmons: I don’t think I heard you answer the question, the direct question, Mr President.

Vladimir Putin: I did answer. I will add, if you let me. I have heard dozens of such accusations, especially during the period of some grave events during our counterterrorism efforts in North Caucasus. And when it happens, I’m always guided by the interests of the Russian people and Russian state. And sentiments in terms of who calls somebody what, what kind of labels, this is not something I worry about in the least.

Keir Simmons: Let me give you some names. Anna Politkovskaya, shot dead. Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned by polonium. Sergei Magnitsky, allegedly beaten and died in prison. Boris Nemtsov, shot moments from the Kremlin, moments from here. Mikhail Lesin died of blunt trauma in Washington, DC. Are all of these a coincidence, Mr President? (Laughter.)

Vladimir Putin: Look, you know, I don’t want to come across as being rude, but this looks like some kind of indigestion, except that it’s verbal indigestion. You mentioned many individuals who indeed suffered and perished at different points in time for various reasons at the hand of different individuals.

You mentioned Lesin. Lesin used to work in my administration. I liked him very much. He died, he perished or died in the United States. I’m not sure if he perished or died. We should ask you how exactly he perished. I regret to this day that he is not with us. In my opinion, he’s a very decent person.

As far as the others, we found some of the criminals who committed those crimes. Some are in prison, and we are prepared to continue to work in this mode and along this avenue, identifying everybody who violate the law and by their actions cause damage, including to the image of the Russian Federation.

However, just piling everything together is meaningless, inappropriate and baseless. If one sees it as a line of attack, then very well. Let me listen to it one more time. But I’d like to repeat that I have heard it many times. But this doesn’t baffle me. I know which direction to move in to secure the interests of the Russian state.

Keir Simmons: Let’s move on to Belarus and Ukraine, two issues that will certainly come up in your summit with President Biden. Did you have prior knowledge that a commercial airliner would be forced to land in Belarus and that a journalist would be arrested?

Vladimir Putin: No, I did not know about this. I didn’t know about any airliner. I didn’t know about the people who were detained there subsequently. I found out about it from the media. I didn’t know, I didn’t have a clue about any detainees. I don’t know. It is of no interest to us.

Keir Simmons: You appear to have approved of it judging by your meeting with President Lukashenko soon afterwards.

Vladimir Putin: Not that I approve of it. Not that I condemn it. But, well, it happened. I said recently in one of the conversations with a European colleague, the version of Mr Lukashenko who told me about it was that information had been given to them that there was an explosive device on board the plane. They informed…

Keir Simmons: And you believe that?

Vladimir Putin: …the pilot without forcing the pilot to land. And the pilot made a decision to land in Minsk. That is all. Why should I not believe him? Ask the pilot. It’s the simplest thing. Ask the chief pilot. Ask the commander of the aircraft. Did you ask him if was he forced to land? Because I have not heard or seen an interview with the commander of the aircraft that landed in Minsk. Why not ask him? Why not ask him if he was forced to land? Why don’t you ask him? It’s actually even odd. Everybody accuses Lukashenko, but the pilot hasn’t been asked.

You know, I cannot but recall another similar situation where the plane of the President of Bolivia was forced to land in Vienna, the order of the US administration.

Air Force One, a presidential plane, was forced to land. The President was taken out of the aircraft. They searched the plane. And you don’t even recall that. Do you think it was normal, that was good, but what Lukashenko did was bad?

Look, let us speak the same language and let us use the same concepts. If, well, Lukashenko is a gangster, how about the situation with the Bolivian President? Was it good? In Bolivia, they viewed it as humiliation of the whole country. But everybody kept mum not to aggravate the situation. Nobody is recalling that. By the way, this is not the only situation…

Keir Simmons: You’re recalling it.

Vladimir Putin: This is not the only situation of this kind.

Keir Simmons: With respect, you’re…

Vladimir Putin: If it’s him, you gave him an example to follow.

Keir Simmons: …recalling it, but it is a completely different example, Mr President. We are talking about (Laughter.) a commercial flight. Shouldn’t people be able to take a commercial flight across Europe without fear of being shot down like in the case of MH-17 or forced down so that a dictator can arrest a journalist?

Vladimir Putin: Yes. Look, I will tell you one more time. What President Lukashenko told me, I don’t have any reason not to believe him. For the third time, I’m telling you: Ask the pilot. Why don’t you ask the pilot: Was he…

Keir Simmons: But you…

Vladimir Putin: …being scared? Was he being threatened? Was he being forced? The fact that information appeared that there was a bomb on the plane, that individuals, people who had nothing to do, who were passengers, who had nothing to do with politics or any kind of domestic conflicts, that they could perceive it negatively, could be worried about it, of course that’s a bad thing. There is nothing good about this. And obviously, we condemn everything that has to do with this, and international terrorism, and the use of aircraft. Of course, we are against this. And you’ve told me that the landing of the aircraft of the President of Bolivia is a completely different matter.

Yes, it is different except that it is ten times worse than what was done, if anything was done in Belarus. But you just won’t acknowledge it. You are ignoring it, and you want millions of people around the world to either not notice it or forget about it tomorrow. You won’t get away with it. It won’t happen.

Keir Simmons: In the case of neighbouring Ukraine earlier this year, the European Union said you had more than 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border. Was that an attempt to get Washington’s attention?

Vladimir Putin: Look, first, Ukraine itself constantly – and I think is still doing that – kept bringing personnel and military equipment to the conflict area in the southeast of Ukraine, Donbass. That’s one. Two is that we conducted exercises in our territory and not just in the south of the Russian Federation but also in the Far East and in the north, in the Arctic.

Simultaneously, military exercises were being held in different parts of the Russian Federation. At the same time, the US was conducting military exercises in Alaska. Do you know anything about it? Probably not. But I’ll tell you that I do know. And that is in direct proximity to our borders. But that’s in your territory, on your land. We didn’t even pay attention to it.

What is happening now? Now, at our southern borders, there is a war game, Defender Europe, 40,000 personnel, 15,000 units of military equipment. Part of them have been airlifted from the US continent directly to our borders. Did we airlift any of our military technology to the US borders? No, we did not.

Keir Simmons: Many of those…

Vladimir Putin: Why are you worried then?

Keir Simmons: But many of those exercises are a response to your actions, Mr President. Do you worry that your opposition to NATO has actually strengthened it? For six years, NATO has spent more on defence.

Vladimir Putin: Some defence. During the USSR era, Gorbachev, who is still, thank God, with us, got a promise, a verbal promise that there would be no NATO expansion to the east. Where is that…

Keir Simmons: Where is that…

Vladimir Putin: …promise? Two ways of expansion.

Keir Simmons: Where is that written down? Where is that promise written down?

Vladimir Putin: Right, right. Well done. Correct. You’ve got a point. Got you good. Well, congratulations. Of course, everything should be sealed and written on paper. But what was the point of expanding NATO to the east and bringing this infrastructure to our borders, and all of this before saying that we are the ones who have been acting aggressively?

Why? On what basis? Did Russia after the USSR collapsed present any threat to the US or European countries? We voluntarily withdrew our troops from Eastern Europe. Leaving them just on empty land. Our people there, military personnel for decades lived there in what was not normal conditions, including their children.

We went to tremendous expenses. And what did we get in response? We got in response infrastructure next to our borders. And now, you are saying that we are threatening somebody. We’re conducting war games on a regular basis, including sometimes surprise military exercises. Why should it worry the NATO partners? I just don’t understand that.

Keir Simmons: Will you commit now not to send any further Russian troops into Ukrainian sovereign territory?

Vladimir Putin: Look, did we say that we were planning to send our armed formations anywhere? We were conducting war games in our territory. How can this not be clear? I’m saying it again because I want your audience to hear it, your listeners to hear it both on the screens of their televisions and on the internet.

We conducted military exercises in our territory. Imagine if we sent our troops into direct proximity to your borders. What would have been your response? We didn’t do that. We did it in our territory. You conducted war games in Alaska. God bless you. But you had crossed an ocean, brought thousands of personnel, thousands of units of military equipment close to our borders, and yet you believe that we are acting aggressively and somehow you’re not acting aggressively. Just look at that. The pot calling the kettle black.

Keir Simmons: Moving on, the Biden administration has said that at your summit they will bring up the case of two US prisoners in Russia, Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed. They are two former Marines. Trevor Reed is suffering from COVID in prison. Why don’t you release them ahead of the summit? Wouldn’t that show goodwill?

Vladimir Putin: I know that we have certain US citizens who are in prison, have been convicted, found guilty. But if one considers the number of Russian Federation citizens who are in US prisons, then these numbers don’t even compare. They cannot be compared. The United States has made a habit in the last few years of catching Russian Federation citizens in third countries and take them to back to the US in violation of all international legal norms and put them in prison.

Keir Simmons: It’s just that there’s a limited amount of time, Mr President. Unless we can have more time, I’d be very happy to have to keep going for another 30 minutes.

Interview to NBC correspondent Keir Simmons.

Interview to NBC correspondent Keir Simmons.

Vladimir Putin: I determine the time here, so don’t worry about time. Your guy, the Marine, he’s just a drunk and a troublemaker. As they say here, he got himself shitfaced and started a fight. Among other things, he hit a cop. It’s nothing. It’s just a common crime. There is nothing to it.

As far as possible negotiations on the subject, sure it can be talked about. Obviously we’ll raise the matter of our citizens who are in prison in the US. Yes, it can be a specific conversation. Sure. We’re happy to do it although it doesn’t seem that the US administration has raised that matter. But we’re prepared to do that.

Our pilot Yaroshenko has been in prison in the US for a good, I don’t know how many years, 15, maybe 20 years. And there also the problem seems to be a common crime. We could and should talk about it. We haven’t been talking about this, but we could. If the US side is prepared to discuss it, so are we.

Keir Simmons: So his family will find that incredibly distressing to hear you talk about him that way. It does sound though as if you would consider some kind of a prisoner swap.

Vladimir Putin: There is nothing offensive about it. He got drunk on vodka and started a fight. He fought a cop. There is nothing offensive about it. These things happen in life. There is nothing horrible about it. It happens to our men as well. Somebody gulps down some vodka and starts a fight. So you violate the law, you go to prison. What would have happened if he’d fought a cop, if he’d hit a cop in your country? He would have been shot dead on that spot, and that’s the end of it. Isn’t that the case?

Keir Simmons: And on the prisoner swap question, is that something that you would consider? Are you looking to negotiate? You’re meeting with the President.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, of course. Even better would be a discussion of the possibility of entering into an agreement on extradition of individuals who are in prison. This is standard international practice. We have such agreements with several countries. We’re prepared to enter into such an agreement with the United States.

Keir Simmons: Just to be clear so we hear it from you, which Russian prisoners in the US would you be hoping to bring back to Russia by name?

Vladimir Putin: Well, we have a whole list. I just mentioned a pilot, a pilot named Yaroshenko who was taken to the US from a third country and was given a lengthy sentence. He has major health issues, but the prison administration is not paying attention to this. You have mentioned that your citizen has coronavirus, but nobody’s paying attention to the health issues of our citizen.

We’re prepared to discuss these issues. Moreover, it makes sense, as you correctly said, and I completely agree with you, there are matters of humanitarian nature. And why not discuss them as long as they pertain to the health and life of specific individuals and of their families? Of course. Sure thing.

Keir Simmons: Just quickly before I move on, on the subject of prisons, again with Alexei Navalny, will you commit that you will personally ensure that Alexei Navalny will leave prison alive?

Vladimir Putin: Look, such decisions in this country are not made by the President. They’re made by the court whether or not to set somebody free. As far as the health, all individuals who are in prison, that is something that the administration of the specific prison or penitentiary establishment is responsible for.

And there are medical facilities in penitentiaries that are perhaps not in the best condition. And they are the ones whose responsibility it is. And I hope that they do it properly. But to be honest, I have not visited such places for a long time.

I visited one in St Petersburg some time ago and that was a very grave impression that was made on me by the medical facilities in a prison. But since then, I hope, some things have been done to improve the situation. And I proceed from the premise that the person that you have mentioned, the same kind of measures will apply to that person, not in any way worse than to anybody else who happens to be in prison.

Keir Simmons: His name is Alexei Navalny. People will note that you weren’t prepared to say…

Vladimir Putin: Oh, I don’t care.

Keir Simmons: …that he would leave prison alive.

Vladimir Putin: Please, listen to me carefully. His name can be anything. He’s one of the individuals who are in prison. For me, he is one of the citizens of the Russian Federation who has been found guilty by a court of law and is in prison. There are many citizens like that.

By the way, our so-called prison population, the people who are in prison, has in the last few years been reduced by almost 50%, which I consider a big victory for us and a major sign of our legal system becoming more humane.

He will not be treated any worse than anybody else. Nobody should be given any kind of special treatment. It would be wrong. Everybody should be in an equal situation. This is called the most favoured nation treatment. Not worse than anybody else. And the person that you have mentioned, that applies to him as well.

Keir Simmons: Appreciate the extra time, Mr President. The team has been in quarantine for almost two weeks, so this interview is very important to us.

I want to ask you about China. China is working on its fourth aircraft carrier. It has two. Russia has one, and it’s not in service at the moment. China refused to take part in arms control talks last year. You complain so much about NATO to your west. Why do you never complain about China’s militarisation to your east?

Vladimir Putin: The first thing I want to say is that over the last few years, the last few decades, we have developed a strategic partnership relationship between Russia and China that previously had not been achieved in the history of our nations, a high level of trust and cooperation in all areas: in politics, in the economy, in the area of technology, in the area of military and technical cooperation. We do not believe that China is a threat to us. That’s one. China is a friendly nation. It has not declared us an enemy, as the United States has done.

Keir Simmons: China hasn’t…

Vladimir Putin: Don’t you know anything about this? That’s number one.

Number two is that China is a huge, powerful country, 1.5 billion. In terms of purchasing power parity, the Chinese economy has exceeded that of the United States. And in terms of trade for the previous year, last year, China has tied Europe for the first place, whereas the US has dropped to the second position. Do you know about this?

China has been developing. And I understand that what’s beginning is a certain kind of confrontation with China. Everybody understands it. We can see it. Why hide from and be scared of these issues? However, we’re not alarmed by it, including, among other things, by the fact that our defence sufficiency, which is how we describe it, is at a very high level, including because of this. But the most important thing is the nature and level of our relationship with China.

You said China will have four aircraft carriers. How many does the United States have?

Keir Simmons: A lot more.

Vladimir Putin: There you go. That’s my point. Why would we worry about the Chinese aircraft carriers? On top of everything else, we have a hugely vast border with China, but it’s a land border. It’s a land border. What? Do you think the Chinese aircraft carriers will cross our land border? This is just a meaningless conversation.

Keir Simmons: But you also have a Pacific coast.

Vladimir Putin: You are right, that there will be four of them. It is correct that there will be four of them. Right.

Coast? Well, the coast is huge. But the bulk of the border between us and China is a land border. And, yes you’re right that there will be four of them because one needs to be in maintenance, one needs to be on combat duty, one needs to be in repairs. There is nothing excessive here for China.

That is why what you said, that China won’t engage in negotiations on arms control, it refuses to negotiate reductions in nuclear offensive weapons. You should ask the Chinese about it, whether it’s good or bad. It’s for them to decide. But their arguments are simple and understandable: in terms of the amount of ammunition and warheads and delivery vehicles, the United States and Russia are far, far ahead of China. And the Chinese justly say, ”Why would we make reductions if we are already far behind what you have? Or do you want us to freeze our level of nuclear deterrence? Why should we freeze? Why we, a country with a 1.5 billion population, cannot at least set the goal of achieving your levels?“ These are all debatable issues that require thorough consideration. But making us responsible for China’s position is just comical.

Keir Simmons: What do you think of China’s treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang?

Vladimir Putin: You know, I have met certain Uyghurs. It’s always possible to find individuals who criticise the central authorities. I have met Uyghurs on my trips to China, and I assure you at the very least what I heard with my own ears, that on the whole they welcome the policies of the Chinese authorities in this area. They believe that China has done a great deal for people who live in this part of the country from the perspective of the economy, raising the cultural level, and so on and so forth. So why should I offer assessments looking at the situation from outside?

Keir Simmons: You know there are many Uyghurs who do not say that and that America has accused China of genocide. The Secretary of State has accused China of genocide against the Uyghurs. There is the accusation of a million Uyghurs in so-called concentration camps. Is that your message to the Muslim communities in the former Soviet Union? You don’t think anything wrong is happening there?

Vladimir Putin: As far as the Muslim community in Russia, I need to give a message to it through policies of the Russian authorities vis-à-vis Muslims in the Russian Federation. That is how I need to give my message to the Muslim community in the Russian Federation. We’re an observer in the Organisation of Islamic Conference.

About 10% of our population, probably a little more, are Muslims. They are citizens of the Russian Federation who do not have any other fatherland. They’re making a colossal contribution to the development of our country. And that pertains to both clerics and ordinary citizens.

Why should I speak to and build a relationship with this part of our population by reference to the situation in China without understanding thoroughly what is happening there? I think that you’re better off asking about all these problems the foreign minister of the People’s Republic of China or the US State Department.

Keir Simmons: It’s just a question of whether you are prepared to criticise China. China, for example, abstained on Crimea at the Security Council. China’s biggest banks have not contravened American sanctions against Russia. Do you think you get 100% support from China?

Vladimir Putin: You know, we are neighbouring countries. One does not choose one’s neighbours. We are pleased with the level, as I said, – unprecedentedly high level of our relationship as it has evolved over the last few decades, and we cherish it, just like our Chinese friends cherish it, which we can see. Why are you trying to drag us into some kind of matters that you evaluate as you see it fit for building your relationship with China? I will tell you completely… Can I speak…?

Keir Simmons: Please, yeah.

Vladimir Putin: Can I be completely honest? We can see attempts at destroying the relationship between Russia and China. We can see that those attempts are being made in practical policies. And your questions, too, have to do with it.

I have set forth my position for you. I believe that this is sufficient, and I’m confident that the Chinese leadership being aware of the totality of these matters, including the part of their population who are Uyghurs, will find the necessary solution to make sure that the situation remains stable and benefits the entire multi-million-strong Chinese people, including its Uyghur part.

Keir Simmons: You understand, of course, I’m just trying to question you about Russia’s position in relation to China and the United States. Let me ask you in a different way. Are you splitting off from the US space programme and moving forward with China?

Vladimir Putin: No, why? We are prepared to work with the US in space. And I think recently the head of NASA said that he could not imagine development of space programmes without its partnership with Russia. We welcome this statement and we value it.

Keir Simmons: I’ll just explain. Because the head of the Russian space agency has threatened leaving the international space programme in 2025 and specifically talked about sanctions in relation to that threat.

Vladimir Putin: Well, honestly, I don’t think that Mr Rogozin, that is the name of the head of Roscosmos, has threatened anyone in this regard. I’ve known him for many years, and I know that he is a supporter of expanding the relationship with the US in this area, in space.

Recently, the head of NASA spoke in the same vein. And I personally fully support this. And we have been working with great pleasure all of these years, and we’re prepared to continue to work.

For technical reasons though, and that’s a different matter, is that the International Space Station is coming to an end of its service life. And maybe in this regard, Roscosmos does not have plans to continue their work. However based on what I heard from our US partners, they, too, are looking at future cooperation in this particular segment in their certain way. But on the whole, the cooperation between our two countries in space is a great example of a situation where, despite any kind of problems in political relationships in recent years, it’s an area where we have been able to maintain and preserve the partnership and both parties cherish it. I think you just misunderstood what the head of the Russian space programme said.

We are interested in continuing to work with the US in this direction, and we will continue to do so if our US partners don’t refuse to do that. It doesn’t mean that we need to work exclusively with the US. We have been working and will continue to work with China, which applies to all kinds of programmes, including exploring deep space. And I think there is nothing but positive information here. Frankly, I don’t see any contradictions here. I don’t think any mutual exclusivity here.

Keir Simmons: Let me ask you one more way just to understand the relationship between China, Russia and America. If the People’s Liberation Army made a move on Taiwan how would Russia respond to that?

Vladimir Putin: What? Are you aware of China’s plans to militarily solve the Taiwan problem? I don’t know anything about it.

As we frequently say, politics do not require the subjunctive mood. The subjunctive mood is inappropriate in politics. There is no ”could be“ and ”would be“ in politics.

I cannot comment on anything that is not a current reality of the modern world. Please, bear with me. Don’t be angry with me. But I think this is a question about nothing. This is not happening. Has China stated that it intends to solve the Taiwan problem militarily? It hasn’t happened. For many years, China has been developing its relationship with Taiwan. There are different assessments. China has its own assessment. The US has a different assessment. Taiwan may have its different assessment of the situation. But fortunately, it hasn’t come to a military clash.

Keir Simmons: I’m being told to wrap up. But if I could just ask you a couple more questions.

Vladimir Putin: Sure, please. Go ahead.

Keir Simmons: Our own Andrea Mitchell saw just this month the last border crossing into Syria where supplies literally keep people alive. You’re threatening to close that crossing in July at the Security Council. Why would you do that, knowing that it will cause the death of refugees?

Vladimir Putin: Look, unfortunately, there are a great deal of tragedies there already. And all our actions in their totality need to be geared at stabilising the situation and bringing it into a normal course. And with support of Russia, Syria has been able, the Syrian authorities have been able to bring back under their control over 90% of the Syrian territory.

What needs to be set up now is just humanitarian assistance to people, irrespective of any kind of political context. But our partners in the West, in the West in general, both the US and Europeans have been saying that they’re not going to give help to Assad. What does Assad have to do with it? Help out people who need that assistance. Just the most basic things. They won’t even lift restrictions on supplies of medications and medical equipment even in the context of the coronavirus infection. But that is just inhumane. And this kind of cruel attitude to people cannot be explained in any way.

As far as the border crossings, there is the Idlib area where combatants are still robbing people, killing people, raping people. There is nothing’s happening. There is the Al-Tanf Zone, which by the way is controlled by US military.

Recently there we caught a group of gangsters, bandits who came, who had come from there. And they directly said that they had specific goals as far as Russian military facilities. As far as border crossings, our position is such that assistance needs to be given just as it should be done in the entire world, as it is provided for in the provisions of international humanitarian law. Assistance should be given through the central government. It shouldn’t be discriminated against. And if there are grounds to believe that the central government of Syria will plunder something, well, set up observers on the part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent oversee everything.

I don’t think that anybody in the Syrian government is interested in stealing some part of this humanitarian assistance. It just needs to be done through the central government. And in this sense, we support President Assad because a different mode of behavior would be undermining the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic. And that’s all.

As far as the Idlib zone, the Turkish troops there effectively control the border between Turkey and Syria, and convoys cross the border without any restrictions on their numbers in both directions.

Keir Simmons: Mr President, you extended the Constitution so that you could be President of Russia until 2036. Do you worry that the longer you are in power and without any sign of someone to replace you, the more instability there may be when you finally do choose to leave office?

Vladimir Putin: What will collapse overnight? If we look at the situation in which Russia was in the year 2000, where it was balancing on the brink of preserving its territorial integrity and sovereignty, the number of individuals below the poverty line was colossal. It was catastrophic.

The GDP level had dropped below anything that’s acceptable. Our FX and gold reserves were $12 billion, whereas our foreign debt was $120 billion, if we count it in dollars.

Now, there are many other problems. The situation is completely different. Of course, somebody will come and replace me at some point. Is all of this going to collapse? We’ve been fighting international terrorism. We have nipped it in the bud. Is it supposed to come back to life? I don’t think so. Another matter is that on the political scene, different people can emerge with different points of view. Great. Very good.

You know, I have linked my entire life, my entire fate to the fate of my country to such an extent that there isn’t a more meaningful goal in my life than the strengthening of Russia. If anybody else, and if I see that person, even if that person is critical of some areas of what I have been doing, if I can see that this is an individual who has constructive views, that he or she is committed to this country and is prepared to sacrifice his entire life to this country, nor just some years, no matter his personal attitude to me, I will make sure, I will do everything to make sure that such people will get support.

It is a natural biological process. At some point, someday, we will all be replaced. You will be replaced at where you are. I will be replaced at where I am. But I am confident that the fundamental pillar of the Russian economy and statehood and its political system will be such that Russia will be firmly standing on its feet and look into the future confidently.

Keir Simmons: And would you look from that person for some kind of protection the same way that you offered to Boris Yeltsin when you took over?

Vladimir Putin: I am not even thinking about that. These are third-tier issues. The most important thing, the single most important thing is the fate of the country and the fate of its people.

Keir Simmons: Very good. Thank you very much for your time, Mr President. We’ve gone over, and I really appreciate it. It was a really interesting conversation, so thank you.

The President of Russia Vladimir Putin has given a great speech to the Davos 2021 online forum organized by the World Economic Forum. As usual it created little echo in the 'western' media.

Putin sees a new danger of large international conflicts. Economic imbalances have caused socio-political problems in many countries which, when externalized, can lead to international conflicts.

To solve this one has to reject the laissez faire doctrines that caused the economic imbalances. The nation states must intervene more in their economies. The people must be seen as the ends, not the means of such economic policy. There must be more international cooperation through global organizations to enable this everywhere.

There is more in the speech than that. But the above is the core idea. U.S. neo-liberalism will of course reject such a program.

Following are excerpts that reflect on the above points.

The big picture view points to great danger:

The pandemic has exacerbated the problems and imbalances that built up in the world before. There is every reason to believe that differences are likely to grow stronger. These trends may appear practically in all areas.

Needless to say, there are no direct parallels in history. However, some experts – and I respect their opinion – compare the current situation to the 1930s. One can agree or disagree, but certain analogies are still suggested by many parameters, including the comprehensive, systemic nature of the challenges and potential threats.

We are seeing a crisis of the previous models and instruments of economic development. Social stratification is growing stronger both globally and in individual countries. We have spoken about this before as well. But this, in turn, is causing today a sharp polarisation of public views, provoking the growth of populism, right- and left-wing radicalism and other extremes, and the exacerbation of domestic political processes including in the leading countries.

All this is inevitably affecting the nature of international relations and is not making them more stable or predictable. International institutions are becoming weaker, regional conflicts are emerging one after another, and the system of global security is deteriorating.

Klaus [Schwab] has mentioned the conversation I had yesterday with the US President on extending the New START. This is, without a doubt, a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, the differences are leading to a downward spiral. As you are aware, the inability and unwillingness to find substantive solutions to problems like this in the 20th century led to the WWII catastrophe.

Putin then goes into the details of the above theses.

What caused the current economic imbalances?

These imbalances in global socioeconomic development are a direct result of the policy pursued in the 1980s, which was often vulgar or dogmatic. This policy rested on the so-called Washington Consensus with its unwritten rules, when the priority was given to the economic growth based on a private debt in conditions of deregulation and low taxes on the wealthy and the corporations.

As I have already mentioned, the coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated these problems. In the last year, the global economy sustained its biggest decline since WWII. By July, the labour market had lost almost 500 million jobs. Yes, half of them were restored by the end of the year but still almost 250 million jobs were lost. This is a big and very alarming figure. In the first nine months of the past year alone, the losses of earnings amounted to $3.5 trillion. This figure is going up and, hence, social tension is on the rise.

At the same time, post-crisis recovery is not simple at all. If some 20 or 30 years ago, we would have solved the problem through stimulating macroeconomic policies (incidentally, this is still being done), today such mechanisms have reached their limits and are no longer effective. This resource has outlived its usefulness. This is not an unsubstantiated personal conclusion.

According to the IMF, the aggregate sovereign and private debt level has approached 200 percent of global GDP, and has even exceeded 300 percent of national GDP in some countries. At the same time, interest rates in developed market economies are kept at almost zero and are at a historic low in emerging market economies.

Taken together, this makes economic stimulation with traditional methods, through an increase in private loans virtually impossible. The so-called quantitative easing is only increasing the bubble of the value of financial assets and deepening the social divide. The widening gap between the real and virtual economies (incidentally, representatives of the real economy sector from many countries have told me about this on numerous occasions, and I believe that the business representatives attending this meeting will agree with me) presents a very real threat and is fraught with serious and unpredictable shocks.

The economic imbalances create deep socio-political problems:

In this context, I would like to mention the second fundamental challenge of the forthcoming decade – the socio-political one. The rise of economic problems and inequality is splitting society, triggering social, racial and ethnic intolerance. Indicatively, these tensions are bursting out even in the countries with seemingly civil and democratic institutions that are designed to alleviate and stop such phenomena and excesses.

The systemic socioeconomic problems are evoking such social discontent that they require special attention and real solutions. The dangerous illusion that they may be ignored or pushed into the corner is fraught with serious consequences.

In this case, society will still be divided politically and socially. This is bound to happen because people are dissatisfied not by some abstract issues but by real problems that concern everyone regardless of the political views that people have or think they have. Meanwhile, real problems evoke discontent.

The danger rises when the socio-political problems get externalized:

And finally, the third challenge, or rather, a clear threat that we may well run into in the coming decade is the further exacerbation of many international problems. After all, unresolved and mounting internal socioeconomic problems may push people to look for someone to blame for all their troubles and to redirect their irritation and discontent. We can already see this. We feel that the degree of foreign policy propaganda rhetoric is growing.

We can expect the nature of practical actions to also become more aggressive, including pressure on the countries that do not agree with a role of obedient controlled satellites, use of trade barriers, illegitimate sanctions and restrictions in the financial, technological and cyber spheres.

Such a game with no rules critically increases the risk of unilateral use of military force. The use of force under a far-fetched pretext is what this danger is all about. This multiplies the likelihood of new hot spots flaring up on our planet. This concerns us.

What can be done to prevent the danger which arises from socio-political problems caused by imbalanced economies?

Clearly, with the above restrictions and macroeconomic policy in mind, economic growth will largely rely on fiscal incentives with state budgets and central banks playing the key role.

Actually, we can see these kinds of trends in the developed countries and also in some developing economies as well. An increasing role of the state in the socioeconomic sphere at the national level obviously implies greater responsibility and close interstate interaction when it comes to issues on the global agenda.
...
It is clear that the world cannot continue creating an economy that will only benefit a million people, or even the golden billion. This is a destructive precept. This model is unbalanced by default. The recent developments, including migration crises, have reaffirmed this once again.

We must now proceed from stating facts to action, investing our efforts and resources into reducing social inequality in individual countries and into gradually balancing the economic development standards of different countries and regions in the world. This would put an end to migration crises.

The essence and focus of this policy aimed at ensuring sustainable and harmonious development are clear. They imply the creation of new opportunities for everyone, conditions under which everyone will be able to develop and realise their potential regardless of where they were born and are living.

Here Putin sets the goals for national strategies:

I would like to point out four key priorities, as I see them. This might be old news, but since Klaus has allowed me to present Russia’s position, my position, I will certainly do so.

First, everyone must have comfortable living conditions, including housing and affordable transport, energy and public utility infrastructure. Plus environmental welfare, something that must not be overlooked.

Second, everyone must be sure that they will have a job that can ensure sustainable growth of income and, hence, decent standards of living. Everyone must have access to an effective system of lifelong education, which is absolutely indispensable now and which will allow people to develop, make a career and receive a decent pension and social benefits upon retirement.

Third, people must be confident that they will receive high-quality and effective medical care whenever necessary, and that the national healthcare system will guarantee access to modern medical services.

Fourth, regardless of the family income, children must be able to receive a decent education and realise their potential. Every child has potential.

This is the only way to guarantee the cost-effective development of the modern economy, in which people are perceived as the end, rather than the means. Only those countries capable of attaining progress in at least these four areas will facilitate their own sustainable and all-inclusive development. These areas are not exhaustive, and I have just mentioned the main aspects.

A strategy, also being implemented by my country, hinges on precisely these approaches.

What should be done globally:

We are open to the broadest international cooperation, while achieving our national goals, and we are confident that cooperation on matters of the global socioeconomic agenda would have a positive influence on the overall atmosphere in global affairs, and that interdependence in addressing acute current problems would also increase mutual trust which is particularly important and particularly topical today.

Obviously, the era linked with attempts to build a centralised and unipolar world order has ended. To be honest, this era did not even begin. A mere attempt was made in this direction, but this, too, is now history. The essence of this monopoly ran counter to our civilisation’s cultural and historical diversity.

The reality is such that really different development centres with their distinctive models, political systems and public institutions have taken shape in the world. Today, it is very important to create mechanisms for harmonising their interests to prevent the diversity and natural competition of the development poles from triggering anarchy and a series of protracted conflicts.

To achieve this we must, in part, consolidate and develop universal institutions that bear special responsibility for ensuring stability and security in the world and for formulating and defining the rules of conduct both in the global economy and trade.

It is no wonder that the neo-liberal 'west' constantly attacks Putin and at the same time takes care that his speech gets as little attention as possible. It is dangerous because it could give the deplorables some ideas.

It is also sad that no 'western' politician I am aware of would ever give such a speech.

Session of Davos Agenda 2021 online forum

Vladimir Putin spoke at the session of the Davos Agenda 2021 online forum organised by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

January 27, 2021

15:10

The Kremlin, Moscow

The online events are taking place from January 25 to 29 and involve heads of state and government, CEOs of major international companies, global media and youth organisations from Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, North America and Latin America.

The main focus of the forum is the discussion of the new global situation arising from the novel coronavirus pandemic.

* * *

World Economic Forum Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab: Mr President, welcome to the Davos Agenda Week.

Russia is an important global power, and there’s a long-standing tradition of Russia’s participation in the World Economic Forum. At this moment in history, where the world has a unique and short window of opportunity to move from an age of confrontation to an age of cooperation, the ability to hear your voice, the voice of the President of the Russian Federation, is essential. Even and especially in times characterised by differences, disputes and protests, constructive and honest dialogue to address our common challenges is better than isolation and polarisation.

Yesterday, your phone exchange with President Biden and the agreement to extend the New START nuclear arms treaty in principle, I think, was a very promising sign in this direction.

COVID-19, Mr President, has shown our global vulnerability and interconnectivity, and, like any other country, Russia will certainly also be affected, and your economic development and prospects for international cooperation, of course, are of interest to all of us.

Mr President, we are keen to hear from your perspective and from that of Russia, how you see the situation developing in the third decade of the 21st century and what should be done to ensure that people everywhere find peace and prosperity.

Mr President, the world is waiting to hear from you.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Schwab, dear Klaus,

Colleagues,

I have been to Davos many times, attending the events organised by Mr Schwab, even back in the 1990s. Klaus [Schwab] just recalled that we met in 1992. Indeed, during my time in St Petersburg, I visited this important forum many times. I would like to thank you for this opportunity today to convey my point of view to the expert community that gathers at this world-renowned platform thanks to the efforts of Mr Schwab.

First of all, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to greet all the World Economic Forum participants.

It is gratifying that this year, despite the pandemic, despite all the restrictions, the forum is still continuing its work. Although it is limited to online participation, the forum is taking place anyway, providing an opportunity for participants to exchange their assessments and forecasts during an open and free discussion, partially compensating for the increasing lack of in-person meetings between leaders of states, representatives of international business and the public in recent months. All this is very important now, when we have so many difficult questions to answer.

The current forum is the first one in the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century and, naturally, the majority of its topics are devoted to the profound changes that are taking place in the world.

Indeed, it is difficult to overlook the fundamental changes in the global economy, politics, social life and technology. The coronavirus pandemic, which Klaus just mentioned, which became a serious challenge for humankind, only spurred and accelerated the structural changes, the conditions for which had been created long ago. The pandemic has exacerbated the problems and imbalances that built up in the world before. There is every reason to believe that differences are likely to grow stronger. These trends may appear practically in all areas.

Needless to say, there are no direct parallels in history. However, some experts – and I respect their opinion – compare the current situation to the 1930s. One can agree or disagree, but certain analogies are still suggested by many parameters, including the comprehensive, systemic nature of the challenges and potential threats.

We are seeing a crisis of the previous models and instruments of economic development. Social stratification is growing stronger both globally and in individual countries. We have spoken about this before as well. But this, in turn, is causing today a sharp polarisation of public views, provoking the growth of populism, right- and left-wing radicalism and other extremes, and the exacerbation of domestic political processes including in the leading countries.

All this is inevitably affecting the nature of international relations and is not making them more stable or predictable. International institutions are becoming weaker, regional conflicts are emerging one after another, and the system of global security is deteriorating.

Klaus has mentioned the conversation I had yesterday with the US President on extending the New START. This is, without a doubt, a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, the differences are leading to a downward spiral. As you are aware, the inability and unwillingness to find substantive solutions to problems like this in the 20th century led to the WWII catastrophe.

Of course, such a heated global conflict is impossible in principle, I hope. This is what I am pinning my hopes on, because this would be the end of humanity. However, as I have said, the situation could take an unexpected and uncontrollable turn – unless we do something to prevent this. There is a chance that we will face a formidable break-down in global development, which will be fraught with a war of all against all and attempts to deal with contradictions through the appointment of internal and external enemies and the destruction of not only traditional values such as the family, which we hold dear in Russia, but fundamental freedoms such as the right of choice and privacy.

I would like to point out the negative demographic consequences of the ongoing social crisis and the crisis of values, which could result in humanity losing entire civilisational and cultural continents.

We have a shared responsibility to prevent this scenario, which looks like a grim dystopia, and to ensure instead that our development takes a different trajectory – positive, harmonious and creative.

In this context, I would like to speak in more detail about the main challenges which, I believe, the international community is facing.

The first one is socioeconomic.

Indeed, judging by the statistics, even despite the deep crises in 2008 and 2020, the last 40 years can be referred to as successful or even super successful for the global economy. Starting from 1980, global per capita GDP has doubled in terms of real purchasing power parity. This is definitely a positive indicator.

Globalisation and domestic growth have led to strong growth in developing countries and lifted over a billion people out of poverty. So, if we take an income level of $5.50 per person per day (in terms of PPP) then, according to the World Bank, in China, for example, the number of people with lower incomes went from 1.1 billion in 1990 down to less than 300 million in recent years. This is definitely China's success. In Russia, this number went from 64 million people in 1999 to about 5 million now. We believe this is also progress in our country, and in the most important area, by the way.

Still, the main question, the answer to which can, in many respects, provide a clue to today’s problems, is what was the nature of this global growth and who benefitted from it most.

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, developing countries benefitted a lot from the growing demand for their traditional and even new products. However, this integration into the global economy has resulted in more than just new jobs or greater export earnings. It also had its social costs, including a significant gap in individual incomes.

What about the developed economies where average incomes are much higher? It may sound ironic, but stratification in the developed countries is even deeper. According to the World Bank, 3.6 million people subsisted on incomes of under $5.50 per day in the United States in 2000, but in 2016 this number grew to 5.6 million people.

Meanwhile, globalisation led to a significant increase in the revenue of large multinational, primarily US and European, companies.

By the way, in terms of individual income, the developed economies in Europe show the same trend as the United States.

But then again, in terms of corporate profits, who got hold of the revenue? The answer is clear: one percent of the population.

And what has happened in the lives of other people? In the past 30 years, in a number of developed countries, the real incomes of over half of the citizens have been stagnating, not growing. Meanwhile, the cost of education and healthcare services has gone up. Do you know by how much? Three times.

In other words, millions of people even in wealthy countries have stopped hoping for an increase of their incomes. In the meantime, they are faced with the problem of how to keep themselves and their parents healthy and how to provide their children with a decent education.

There is no call for a huge mass of people and their number keeps growing. Thus, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), in 2019, 21 percent or 267 million young people in the world did not study or work anywhere. Even among those who had jobs (these are interesting figures) 30 percent had an income below $3.2 per day in terms of purchasing power parity.

These imbalances in global socioeconomic development are a direct result of the policy pursued in the 1980s, which was often vulgar or dogmatic. This policy rested on the so-called Washington Consensus with its unwritten rules, when the priority was given to the economic growth based on a private debt in conditions of deregulation and low taxes on the wealthy and the corporations.

As I have already mentioned, the coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated these problems. In the last year, the global economy sustained its biggest decline since WWII. By July, the labour market had lost almost 500 million jobs. Yes, half of them were restored by the end of the year but still almost 250 million jobs were lost. This is a big and very alarming figure. In the first nine months of the past year alone, the losses of earnings amounted to $3.5 trillion. This figure is going up and, hence, social tension is on the rise.

At the same time, post-crisis recovery is not simple at all. If some 20 or 30 years ago, we would have solved the problem through stimulating macroeconomic policies (incidentally, this is still being done), today such mechanisms have reached their limits and are no longer effective. This resource has outlived its usefulness. This is not an unsubstantiated personal conclusion.

According to the IMF, the aggregate sovereign and private debt level has approached 200 percent of global GDP, and has even exceeded 300 percent of national GDP in some countries. At the same time, interest rates in developed market economies are kept at almost zero and are at a historic low in emerging market economies.

Taken together, this makes economic stimulation with traditional methods, through an increase in private loans virtually impossible. The so-called quantitative easing is only increasing the bubble of the value of financial assets and deepening the social divide. The widening gap between the real and virtual economies (incidentally, representatives of the real economy sector from many countries have told me about this on numerous occasions, and I believe that the business representatives attending this meeting will agree with me) presents a very real threat and is fraught with serious and unpredictable shocks.

Hopes that it will be possible to reboot the old growth model are connected with rapid technological development. Indeed, during the past 20 years we have created a foundation for the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution based on the wide use of AI and automation and robotics. The coronavirus pandemic has greatly accelerated such projects and their implementation.

However, this process is leading to new structural changes, I am thinking in particular of the labour market. This means that very many people could lose their jobs unless the state takes effective measures to prevent this. Most of these people are from the so-called middle class, which is the basis of any modern society.

In this context, I would like to mention the second fundamental challenge of the forthcoming decade – the socio-political one. The rise of economic problems and inequality is splitting society, triggering social, racial and ethnic intolerance. Indicatively, these tensions are bursting out even in the countries with seemingly civil and democratic institutions that are designed to alleviate and stop such phenomena and excesses.

The systemic socioeconomic problems are evoking such social discontent that they require special attention and real solutions. The dangerous illusion that they may be ignored or pushed into the corner is fraught with serious consequences.

In this case, society will still be divided politically and socially. This is bound to happen because people are dissatisfied not by some abstract issues but by real problems that concern everyone regardless of the political views that people have or think they have. Meanwhile, real problems evoke discontent.

I would like to emphasise one more important point. Modern technological giants, especially digital companies, have started playing an increasing role in the life of society. Much is being said about this now, especially regarding the events that took place during the election campaign in the US. They are not just some economic giants. In some areas, they are de facto competing with states. Their audiences consist of billions of users that pass a considerable part of their lives in these eco systems.

In the opinion of these companies, their monopoly is optimal for organising technological and business processes. Maybe so but society is wondering whether such monopolism meets public interests. Where is the border between successful global business, in-demand services and big data consolidation and the attempts to manage society at one’s own discretion and in a tough manner, replace legal democratic institutions and essentially usurp or restrict the natural right of people to decide for themselves how to live, what to choose and what position to express freely? We have just seen all of these phenomena in the US and everyone understands what I am talking about now. I am confident that the overwhelming majority of people share this position, including the participants in the current event.

And finally, the third challenge, or rather, a clear threat that we may well run into in the coming decade is the further exacerbation of many international problems. After all, unresolved and mounting internal socioeconomic problems may push people to look for someone to blame for all their troubles and to redirect their irritation and discontent. We can already see this. We feel that the degree of foreign policy propaganda rhetoric is growing.

We can expect the nature of practical actions to also become more aggressive, including pressure on the countries that do not agree with a role of obedient controlled satellites, use of trade barriers, illegitimate sanctions and restrictions in the financial, technological and cyber spheres.

Such a game with no rules critically increases the risk of unilateral use of military force. The use of force under a far-fetched pretext is what this danger is all about. This multiplies the likelihood of new hot spots flaring up on our planet. This concerns us.

Colleagues, despite this tangle of differences and challenges, we certainly should keep a positive outlook on the future and remain committed to a constructive agenda. It would be naive to come up with universal miraculous recipes for resolving the above problems. But we certainly need to try to work out common approaches, bring our positions as close as possible and identify sources that generate global tensions.

Once again, I want to emphasise my thesis that accumulated socioeconomic problems are the fundamental reason for unstable global growth.

So, the key question today is how to build a programme of actions in order to not only quickly restore the global and national economies affected by the pandemic, but to ensure that this recovery is sustainable in the long run, relies on a high-quality structure and helps overcome the burden of social imbalances. Clearly, with the above restrictions and macroeconomic policy in mind, economic growth will largely rely on fiscal incentives with state budgets and central banks playing the key role.

Actually, we can see these kinds of trends in the developed countries and also in some developing economies as well. An increasing role of the state in the socioeconomic sphere at the national level obviously implies greater responsibility and close interstate interaction when it comes to issues on the global agenda.

Calls for inclusive growth and for creating decent standards of living for everyone are regularly made at various international forums. This is how it should be, and this is an absolutely correct view of our joint efforts.

It is clear that the world cannot continue creating an economy that will only benefit a million people, or even the golden billion. This is a destructive precept. This model is unbalanced by default. The recent developments, including migration crises, have reaffirmed this once again.

We must now proceed from stating facts to action, investing our efforts and resources into reducing social inequality in individual countries and into gradually balancing the economic development standards of different countries and regions in the world. This would put an end to migration crises.

The essence and focus of this policy aimed at ensuring sustainable and harmonious development are clear. They imply the creation of new opportunities for everyone, conditions under which everyone will be able to develop and realise their potential regardless of where they were born and are living

I would like to point out four key priorities, as I see them. This might be old news, but since Klaus has allowed me to present Russia’s position, my position, I will certainly do so.

First, everyone must have comfortable living conditions, including housing and affordable transport, energy and public utility infrastructure. Plus environmental welfare, something that must not be overlooked.

Second, everyone must be sure that they will have a job that can ensure sustainable growth of income and, hence, decent standards of living. Everyone must have access to an effective system of lifelong education, which is absolutely indispensable now and which will allow people to develop, make a career and receive a decent pension and social benefits upon retirement.

Third, people must be confident that they will receive high-quality and effective medical care whenever necessary, and that the national healthcare system will guarantee access to modern medical services.

Fourth, regardless of the family income, children must be able to receive a decent education and realise their potential. Every child has potential.

This is the only way to guarantee the cost-effective development of the modern economy, in which people are perceived as the end, rather than the means. Only those countries capable of attaining progress in at least these four areas will facilitate their own sustainable and all-inclusive development. These areas are not exhaustive, and I have just mentioned the main aspects.

A strategy, also being implemented by my country, hinges on precisely these approaches. Our priorities revolve around people, their families, and they aim to ensure demographic development, to protect the people, to improve their well-being and to protect their health. We are now working to create favourable conditions for worthy and cost-effective work and successful entrepreneurship and to ensure digital transformation as the foundation of a high-tech future for the entire country, rather than that of a narrow group of companies.

We intend to focus the efforts of the state, the business community and civil society on these tasks and to implement a budgetary policy with the relevant incentives in the years ahead.

We are open to the broadest international cooperation, while achieving our national goals, and we are confident that cooperation on matters of the global socioeconomic agenda would have a positive influence on the overall atmosphere in global affairs, and that interdependence in addressing acute current problems would also increase mutual trust which is particularly important and particularly topical today.

Obviously, the era linked with attempts to build a centralised and unipolar world order has ended. To be honest, this era did not even begin. A mere attempt was made in this direction, but this, too, is now history. The essence of this monopoly ran counter to our civilisation’s cultural and historical diversity.

The reality is such that really different development centres with their distinctive models, political systems and public institutions have taken shape in the world. Today, it is very important to create mechanisms for harmonising their interests to prevent the diversity and natural competition of the development poles from triggering anarchy and a series of protracted conflicts.

To achieve this we must, in part, consolidate and develop universal institutions that bear special responsibility for ensuring stability and security in the world and for formulating and defining the rules of conduct both in the global economy and trade.

I have mentioned more than once that many of these institutions are not going through the best of times. We have been bringing this up at various summits. Of course, these institutions were established in a different era. This is clear. Probably, they even find it difficult to parry modern challenges for objective reasons. However, I would like to emphasise that this is not an excuse to give up on them without offering anything in exchange, all the more so since these structures have unique experience of work and a huge but largely untapped potential. And it certainly needs to be carefully adapted to modern realities. It is too early to dump it in the dustbin of history. It is essential to work with it and to use it.

Naturally, in addition to this, it is important to use new, additional formats of cooperation. I am referring to such phenomenon as multiversity. Of course, it is also possible to interpret it differently, in one’s own way. It may be viewed as an attempt to push one’s own interests or feign the legitimacy of one’s own actions when all others can merely nod in approval. Or it may be a concerted effort of sovereign states to resolve specific problems for common benefit. In this case, this may refer to the efforts to settle regional conflicts, establish technological alliances and resolve many other issues, including the formation of cross-border transport and energy corridors and so on and so forth.

Friends,

Ladies and gentlemen,

This opens wide possibilities for collaboration. Multi-faceted approaches do work. We know from practice that they work. As you may be aware, within the framework of, for example, the Astana format, Russia, Iran and Turkey are doing much to stabilise the situation in Syria and are now helping establish a political dialogue in that country, of course, alongside other countries. We are doing this together. And, importantly, not without success.

For example, Russia has undertaken energetic mediation efforts to stop the armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, in which peoples and states that are close to us – Azerbaijan and Armenia – are involved. We strived to follow the key agreements reached by the OSCE Minsk Group, in particular between its co-chairs – Russia, the United States and France. This is also a very good example of cooperation.

As you may be aware, a trilateral Statement by Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia was signed in November. Importantly, by and large, it is being steadily implemented. The bloodshed was stopped. This is the most important thing. We managed to stop the bloodshed, achieve a complete ceasefire and start the stabilisation process.

Now the international community and, undoubtedly, the countries involved in crisis resolution are faced with the task of helping the affected areas overcome humanitarian challenges related to returning refugees, rebuilding destroyed infrastructure, protecting and restoring historical, religious and cultural landmarks.

Or, another example. I will note the role of Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United States and a number of other countries in stabilising the global energy market. This format has become a productive example of interaction between the states with different, sometimes even diametrically opposite assessments of global processes, and with their own outlooks on the world.

At the same time there are certainly problems that concern every state without exception. One example is cooperation in studying and countering the coronavirus infection. As you know, several strains of this dangerous virus have emerged. The international community must create conditions for cooperation between scientists and other specialists to understand how and why coronavirus mutations occur, as well as the difference between the various strains.

Of course, we need to coordinate the efforts of the entire world, as the UN Secretary-General suggests and as we urged recently at the G20 summit. It is essential to join and coordinate the efforts of the world in countering the spread of the virus and making the much needed vaccines more accessible. We need to help the countries that need support, including the African nations. I am referring to expanding the scale of testing and vaccinations.

We see that mass vaccination is accessible today, primarily to people in the developed countries. Meanwhile, millions of people in the world are deprived even of the hope for this protection. In practice, such inequality could create a common threat because this is well known and has been said many times that it will drag out the epidemic and uncontrolled hotbeds will continue. The epidemic has no borders.

There are no borders for infections or pandemics. Therefore, we must learn the lessons from the current situation and suggest measures aimed at improving the monitoring of the emergence of such diseases and the development of such cases in the world.

Another important area that requires coordination, in fact, the coordination of the efforts of the entire international community, is to preserve the climate and nature of our planet. I will not say anything new in this respect.

Only together can we achieve progress in resolving such critical problems as global warming, the reduction of forestlands, the loss of biodiversity, the increase in waste, the pollution of the ocean with plastic and so on, and find an optimal balance between economic development and the preservation of the environment for the current and future generations.

My friends,

We all know that competition and rivalry between countries in world history never stopped, do not stop and will never stop. Differences and a clash of interests are also natural for such a complicated body as human civilisation. However, in critical times this did not prevent it from pooling its efforts – on the contrary, it united in the most important destinies of humankind. I believe this is the period we are going through today.

It is very important to honestly assess the situation, to concentrate on real rather than artificial global problems, on removing the imbalances that are critical for the entire international community. I am sure that in this way we will be able to achieve success and befittingly parry the challenges of the third decade of the 21st century.

I would like to finish my speech at this point and thank all of you for your patience and attention.

Thank you very much.

Klaus Schwab: Thank you very much, Mr President.

Many of the issues raised, certainly, are part of our discussions here during the Davos Week. We complement the speeches also by task forces which address some of the issues you mentioned, like not leaving the developing world behind, taking care of, let’s say, creating the skills for tomorrow, and so on. Mr President, we prepare for the discussion afterwards, but I have one very short question. It is a question which we discussed when I visited you in St Petersburg 14 months ago. How do you see the future of European-Russian relations? Just a short answer.

Vladimir Putin: You know there are things of an absolutely fundamental nature such as our common culture. Major European political figures have talked in the recent past about the need to expand relations between Europe and Russia, saying that Russia is part of Europe. Geographically and, most importantly, culturally, we are one civilisation. French leaders have spoken of the need to create a single space from Lisbon to the Urals. I believe, and I mentioned this, why the Urals? To Vladivostok.

I personally heard the outstanding European politician, former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, say that if we want European culture to survive and remain a centre of world civilisation in the future, keeping in mind the challenges and trends underlying the world civilisation, then of course, Western Europe and Russia must be together. It is hard to disagree with that. We hold exactly the same point of view.

Clearly, today’s situation is not normal. We need to return to a positive agenda. This is in the interests of Russia and, I am confident, the European countries. Clearly, the pandemic has also played a negative role. Our trade with the European Union is down, although the EU is one of our key trade and economic partners. Our agenda includes returning to positive trends and building up trade and economic cooperation.

Europe and Russia are absolutely natural partners from the point of view of the economy, research, technology and spatial development for European culture, since Russia, being a country of European culture, is a little larger than the entire EU in terms of territory. Russia’s resources and human potential are enormous. I will not go over everything that is positive in Europe, which can also benefit the Russian Federation.

Only one thing matters: we need to approach the dialogue with each other honestly. We need to discard the phobias of the past, stop using the problems that we inherited from past centuries in internal political processes and look to the future. If we can rise above these problems of the past and get rid of these phobias, then we will certainly enjoy a positive stage in our relations.

We are ready for this, we want this, and we will strive to make this happen. But love is impossible if it is declared only by one side. It must be mutual.

Klaus Schwab: Thank you very much, Mr President.

Colleagues, good afternoon,

We have the heads of all regions and federal agencies connected.

Today we will discuss the principles we will follow in our joint work during the upcoming, extremely important period of the gradual, phased relaxing of restrictions related to the coronavirus epidemic.

As a reminder, by today, all the regions were to have drafted their respective plans based on the recommendations from the Government, Rospotrebnadzor and the State Council working group.

As we agreed, your plans must take into account the real situation on the ground, ensure strict requirements for safety, the protection of people’s health and lives, and must be based on the verified assessments of the level and degree of the potential threat. The final say rests with the doctors and specialists.

Their opinions were taken into account in the Executive Order I signed today. It will be the legal basis for continuing the cooperation between the federal authorities, the regions and the municipalities in countering the coronavirus epidemic.

You are aware of my position, it hasn’t changed. The key priority for us is people’s lives, health and safety.

The period of non-working days announced earlier expires today, May 11. Overall, it lasted for more than six weeks, beginning March 30.

This extraordinary measure enabled us to slow the epidemic, giving us the time we needed to substantially improve readiness of the entire healthcare system in case the epidemiological situation took a turn for the worse.

The number of specialised hospital beds equipped for treating severe cases was increased from 29,000 to 130,000, and we have built up equipment and supplies reserves, including a reserve capacity of ventilators, which has critical importance for us. Thank God, of course, that so far we have had to use only a small fraction of this stand-by capacity.

What matters the most is that every region is ready and has everything it needs to help people that might suffer from severe complications, and offer them specialised medical services, including intensive care. Let me emphasise that almost everyone who needs this care is receiving it.

Another very important thing is that the doctors now know much more about this disease than at the outset of the epidemic. They have gained first-hand experience as well as learned best practices from their foreign colleagues. Newly developed treatment methods rely on effective medicines, and we have been expanding their production.

Foreign experience showed that it was the failure to make the necessary preparations as well as an overwhelmed healthcare system that were the main causes of a high mortality rate, making it impossible to save those who could be saved. Let me reiterate that we are now able to provide this kind of assistance. It would not be an exaggeration to say that measures taken in advance helped us save many thousands of lives.

Of course, doctors, nurses (by the way, tomorrow is your professional holiday, so please accept my congratulations) and all healthcare workers have played a decisive role in these efforts. We, the citizens of the country, will not stop thanking you for your dedicated work. We understand the hardships you face, and see the courage and dignity with which you have been performing your professional duties.

I would like all senior officials, including at the supervisory agencies, to take note that today we must help our medical workers, provide them with everything they need, and, more than that, stop getting on their nerves and wasting their time on excessive reporting and inspections. I would like to ask the Government to take the most thorough decisions regarding this.

What else has changed dramatically over the past few weeks? Coronavirus testing has increased many times over. We performed 2,500 tests in early March. The current figure is some 170,000 a day. This is one of the highest figures in the world. But it is not figures that matter.

The main thing is that we are now able to identify coronavirus patients at an early stage, including asymptomatic coronavirus patients. This helps us prevent grave consequences, the development of the disease, and protect these carriers and those nearby, namely relatives, colleagues and other people, and so stop the spread of the coronavirus infection.

Of course, people are worried about the daily reports of new coronavirus cases. This is understandable. But the potential danger is in the number of cases we might miss. As I have said, the more efficiently we conduct the testing and identify new patients, including asymptomatic patients, the sooner we will overcome the epidemic.

Already by mid-May, we will practically double the number of daily tests to 300,000. I would like to ask the Government and the Healthcare Ministry to further step up these efforts.

The measures we have taken, those I mentioned above, allow us to move to the next stage in the fight against the epidemic, that is, the gradual lifting of restrictions.

This period has several fundamentally important parts. First of all, this cannot be done overnight. We must do this gradually, carefully, one step after another. Moreover, the relaxing of the restrictions must be accompanied by strict compliance with the conditions and sanitary requirements needed to ensure people’s safety.

And one more key point. We have a big country. The epidemiological situation varies across the regions. We factored this in before, and now at the next stage, we have to act even more specifically and carefully. We cannot just follow a general pattern because in some regions certain actions might produce unjustified risk for people while in others it could lead to unjustified restrictions for people and businesses.

Thus, effective tomorrow, May 12, this period of non-working days for the entire country and all branches of the economy comes to an end. But the fight against the epidemic goes on. The danger remains even in those territories where the situation is relatively good and where new cases are in the single digits.

But we cannot allow any failure, a backslide, a new wave of the epidemic with a higher number of severe complications. Let me reiterate: the relaxing of the restrictions will not happen overnight. It will require a significant amount of time.

This is why, starting on May 12, it will be necessary to maintain both general sanitary requirements and additional preventive measures in the regions during all stages until the complete end of the epidemic. I am instructing the Government and the heads of the regions of the Federation, and the sanitary authorities to ensure control over compliance with them.

Of course, public events are out of the question throughout the entire country; and we definitely need to strictly follow the sanitary rules. This includes organisations, companies, retail, services and public transport.

The enhanced safety measures must also remain in place for people over 65 years and for patients with chronic diseases.

I am now addressing our older people. My dear citizens, I understand how hard it is for you to constantly stay at home, often separated from your children and grandchildren. But you have to be patient. These are not empty words, this is a matter of life. We are maintaining the restrictions because we are concerned about you and we are doing everything we can to fend off the threat of the virus from you so that this danger passes faster.

And now I am addressing everybody in this meeting, it is very important to pay close attention to orphanages and nursing homes. People who live there need special care and, due to their age and chronic diseases many of them may have, they are especially vulnerable.

Social workers are now carrying an extra workload and higher risks. Therefore, I think we need to introduce extra pay on a national level for the three months between April 15 and July 15. I would like to make it clear that the pay that was already allocated for April will reach people regardless.

Doctors at social institutions will receive an extra 40,000 rubles for a two-week shift. Those who are working directly with coronavirus patients will receive 60,000 rubles.

Social workers, teachers, mid-level medical and administrative staff will receive 25,000 rubles and if they are dealing with infected patients – 35,000 rubles. Junior medical staff will receive 15,000 and 20,000 rubles, respectively. Maintenance staff will receive 10,000 and 15,000 rubles, respectively.

Further, once again, the situation varies from region to region. This is exactly why the regions were given flexibility with their decisions that were commensurate with the level of risk. Today’s Executive Order reaffirms their authority. The regional heads will be making decisions on restrictive and preventive measures based on the analyses of their specific situation and the opinion of their respective chief sanitary doctors. They will be deciding in which order these restrictions may gradually be relaxed or extended and, if necessary, even expanded with more measures.

Now, I will specifically elaborate on the operation of various facilities.

Of course, like before, all government bodies and municipal authorities will continue working, as well as facilities with a continuous production cycle, medical institutions, pharmacies, financial bodies, grocery stores and stores selling essential products.

Additionally, starting May 12, wherever possible, it is necessary to create conditions for resuming the operations of backbone industries, which include construction, industrial production, agriculture, communications, energy production and extraction of mineral resources.

These industries involve a significant number of workers and working there means the income and wellbeing of their families. It is also important that these operations do not involve direct contact with consumers – so it is possible to resume operation with low risk. Naturally, all sanitary regulations must be complied with.

At the same time, the heads of the regions retain the right to restrict or even suspend business operations, taking into consideration the developments on the ground, the advice coming from chief sanitary doctors, and subject to approval by the Government, including in cases where ensuring compliance with sanitary security requirements is clearly impossible.

If decisions like this are taken, people employed by companies whose operations are suspended will not lose their salaries, just as before. This is a matter of principle. I am instructing the regional heads to keep this under control.

In this context, I would like to stress that the work restrictions that were enacted from March through May had a negative effect on many sectors of the economy. We drafted and constantly expand a list of the affected sectors and companies, we offer federal support, so that small and medium-sized companies, as well as backbone companies preserve jobs, keep their teams in place, and do not accumulate wage arrears.

We will definitely keep the support measures that have been adopted so far in place. However, as we move towards reviving business activity I have decided to introduce a new package of measures to support individuals and the economy, having thoroughly discussed this with the Government. I will set forth these measures today separately.

At the same time, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that should the heads of the regions decide to suspend business operations for companies that are not on the list of affected sectors, they will have to offer their own support mechanisms for these companies and for maintaining jobs. These initiatives will have to be coordinated with the federal Government as well.

Regions and government institutions at all levels now bear exceptional responsibility for literally every step they take. This applies to preventive measures, as well as having a clear and reasonable policy for lifting restrictions or determining how specific companies should operate.

Individuals, companies and all of us are interested in getting the economy back on track as soon as possible. The experience of many regions, including Moscow where construction and industrial companies will go back to work tomorrow, shows that they can operate steadily and at the same time safely even in this challenging epidemiological situation.

Let met reiterate, however, that the heads of the regions must carefully consider these decisions. Jumping ahead too soon would be reckless and dangerous. At the same time, sitting idly and evading responsibility is not an option. It is a question of choosing between Scylla and Charybdis.

I am asking my colleagues in the Government and the State Council working group to continue providing the necessary assistance to the regions, including in terms of expertise, as they gradually move toward lifting the restrictions.

We have a complicated and long journey ahead of us, with no room for mistakes. I expect you to give as much attention as possible to this matter and ensure maximum preparedness in order to be ready to promptly respond no matter how the events play out.

Colleagues,

The epidemic and the restrictions it caused were a major blow to the economy and the social sector that have affected the well-being of millions of Russians. Many have seen their incomes decline, while unforeseen expenses and debt have been piling up. This has happened to people working in various sectors, as well as entrepreneurs with small businesses.

From the outset, we took a principled decision to focus on helping people, those of our citizens who need this support. Maintaining employment and salaries so that workers can earn their income has been a key criterion for supporting businesses and backbone enterprises.

At the same time, now that we are taking the first steps in lifting the restrictions, with people and businesses facing so many challenges, we need to do more, and offer people direct assistance.

Friends,

I would now like to ask for the attention of those who are directly concerned by the proposed support measures. You must know your rights and the authorities must ensure them by all means.

So, first of all, families with children. They always have a lot of things to take care of, but now if a family loses its income it is very difficult. All the more so if one of the parents, or worse, both of them, have lost their jobs. Unfortunately, this is happening in some cases.

As you know additional benefits are being specified for families entitled to maternity capital in the amount of 5,000 rubles a month per child under 3. The family will be getting this monthly amount for three months from April through June.

In addition, families with parents who lost their jobs are entitled to 3,000 rubles a month for each underage child. These benefits will also be paid for three months.

Next. We have made a decision that families with an income per person below the subsistence minimum can apply for benefits for children aged 3 to 7, inclusive, starting June 1 rather than July 1 as originally specified.

I draw you attention to the fact that these benefits are calculated, as I said in the Address, from the beginning of the year. Thus, a family who applies in June will get all the benefit it is entitled to in the first half of the year. On average (let me stress – on average) this can add up to 33,000 rubles per child, and a family like this will be getting regular benefit payments every month. The national average is 5,500 rubles per child per month.

However, I believe that this not really enough these days. Many more families with children need direct support from the state. The favourable macroeconomic conditions we have created in recent years for the progress of the economy, the rehabilitation of the banking and financial system in the country and the reserves we have accumulated allow us to take more decisions on supporting people.

In this connection I suggest, first of all, that the minimum child allowance be increased from 3,375 rubles to 6,751 rubles. This benefit is to be paid to non-working citizens, including students. As a rule, these are young parents and young mothers. It is important that we support them.

Second, I mentioned additional payments for children under 3 years old in the families that are eligible for maternity capital. But many families are not eligible because their children were born before January 1, 2020 when the new parameters for receiving maternity capital, including for the first child, were approved.

In light of this, I suggest that 5,000-ruble monthly payments be approved for such families. Moreover, they should receive this amount not only in May and June, but also for April, that is, retroactively. In this way, all families in Russia with children under 3 years old will receive 5,000 rubles a month.

And last, one more child support measure: from June 1, families will receive a one-off payment of 10,000 rubles per child aged between 3 and 16 years.

I would like to point out that this is not the time for people to waste a lot of personal time collecting all kinds of certificates and statements. Therefore, we have taken the only fair decision, as I see it, that no formal criteria are adopted for this one-off payment. The only condition is that assistance must be provided to everyone who needs it.

As I said, every family in Russia with children between 3 and 15 years inclusively will be able to submit a request for this one-off assistance starting tomorrow, online via the Gosuslgi [Public Services] Portal or through the Pension Fund, and receive 10,000 rubles per child starting June 1.

Overall, in accordance with the decisions we took today and our previous decisions, assistance will be provided to 27 million Russian children, from babies to schoolchildren. I believe that this is what state priorities should be like, especially now that we must above all take care of our elderly people and support families with children.

Colleagues,

As you know, we hold meetings with the participation of the business community on supporting and developing key economic sectors almost every week. Moving forward, we will definitely keep this process in place for devising targeted solutions and fine-tuning earlier decisions. We will discuss developments in agriculture, textiles, communications and the IT sector.

However today I wanted to draw your attention to one urgent and system-wide problem. According to the latest official figures, the number of unemployed people in Russia has reached 1.4 million, having doubled compared to early April.

This is quite a challenging situation that requires comprehensive efforts to stabilise employment and support those who have lost their jobs. I ask the Government to draft resolutions to this effect. We will discuss them at a separate meeting that will take place before the end of May.

Let me tell you outright that our main goal is to reduce the risk of any further increases in the unemployment rate as much as possible, so we need to be proactive in this area as well. After all, a qualified workforce is a major development driver for the country, just like the creative entrepreneurial spirit is for the business community. We need to safeguard these assets.

Consequently, there is no question that measures to support the economy, and primarily those designed to keep companies on a sustainable footing, will have to be carried out. We need to maintain jobs, professional teams, business infrastructure and capacities so as to avoid any further sharp fall in employment, while enabling business owners to restore their teams, expand operations and get the economy back on track.

Let me remind you that we have offered direct government subsidies to small and medium-sized businesses, as well as socially-oriented NGOs in the affected sectors, so that they can pay their employees salaries for April and May. The key requirement for receiving this support is to keep at least 90 percent of their employees on the payroll compared to April 1. This measure could potentially cover 4 million workers.

At the same time businesses need to understand their prospects; they need to see the horizon of the unfolding situation so they can make decisions, as I said, with a planning horizon rather than just for the next month or two.

So, we have a number of other measures.

First. I suggest that a special employment support loan programme be launched effective June 1. All businesses in the affected industries as well as socially-oriented NGOs should be eligible for it. This measure could potentially sustain 7 million jobs.

Loan volumes will be calculated based on a formula of one minimum wage per employee per month for a period of six months. The loan maturity date will be April 1, 2021.

It is crucial that these loans are accessible to businesses while banks should be interested in working with this programme. The final interest rate for the borrower will be a preferential 2 percent rate. Everything above this will be subsidised by the state. The interest will not need to be paid monthly, it will be compounded. In addition, 85 percent of the loan will be guaranteed by the state.

And the key is that if the company keeps 90 or more percent of its current jobs, after the loan matures, it will be completely written off as will the interest on it. These costs will be covered by the state.

If the number of jobs is kept to least at 80 percent, half of the loan and compounded interest will be written off.

Such loan could be used with some flexibly for paying wages and, for example, to refinance earlier no-interest, so-called “wage loan.” As you know, we are already using this employment support tool.

However, even with all the freedom to manoeuvre for businesses and other organisations, I must instruct the Government to ensure control over the basic premise: businesses must spend the funds primarily to pay wages. Any schemes like “paper jobs” or jobs with wages below minimum wage are to be excluded, totally excluded. I ask you to strictly monitor this.

And of course, along with the loan, businesses will have to co-finance wages with their own funds.

What I want to stress here is that we have supported and will continue to support businesses, but those who care about their employees are the priority. Once again, the point of providing government support is to motivate businesses to retain jobs and maintain wages.

Second, affected industries have already been granted tax and social insurance contribution deferrals for six months and will be able to pay it back in instalments over the course of a year – as business representatives asked me to do at one of the meetings. However, to simply postpone tax payments is apparently not enough right now.

Therefore, I propose cancelling these payments for the second quarter of this year, except for VAT. This measure will apply to private entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized businesses in the listed industries and socially-oriented NGOs.

Once again, to be clear, in this case, taxes and social contributions for the second quarter will not just be deferred, they will be cancelled – for April, May and June, the months that businesses find themselves in a difficult situation and are still experiencing hardships. More than 1.5 million companies will be able to benefit from this measure.

Third, last year, in four regions – Moscow, Tatarstan, the Moscow Region and the Kaluga Region – self-employed citizens, including those providing transport services, rental property owners, tutors, babysitters, etc., got an opportunity to do their businesses officially, rather than in a so-called grey area and pay income tax at a reduced rate of 4 or 6 percent. Some 340,000 people used this opportunity last year.

These people trusted the government and believed the guarantees for secure and civilised work. So, I think this aspiration should be supported and even encouraged. I propose tax rebates for taxes paid by the self-employed for the 2019 fiscal year in full.

The fourth proposal is related. Currently, people can register as self-employed in 23 regions. The number of officially registered self-employed workers is now over 650,000. I propose providing all self-employed citizens with a tax credit in the amount of one minimum wage they could use to pay taxes this year, thus retaining their own income.

Fifth, we also need to lower the fiscal burden on the self-employed in the most heavily affected sectors. I suggest that this year they be given a tax deduction in the amount of one minimum wage from their insurance payments, which will come as additional support to them at this difficult time.

And finally, the sixth measure. Government agencies providing microfinancing support for the self-employed, family enterprises and small businesses have been established and are working efficiently in all Russian regions.

I suggest that additional capitalisation be provided to small but efficient regional development institutions without delay and that 12 billion rubles be allocated for this purpose. These funds have been earmarked for the national project on small and medium-sized businesses for the next few years. I believe that this financial resource must be used now, in 2020.

Colleagues,

It is obvious that we will have to revitalise normal business life gradually, step by step. At the same time, we will need to tackle strategic tasks and respond to the challenges of the new reality that is now taking shape in the world, as global markets and global trade are experiencing a shock and as the technology race accelerates.

Therefore, I have instructed the Government to start formulating a national recovery plan for employment and for individual incomes, as well as for long-term economic development.

I would like to note that this plan should aim not only at restoring the pace of our business activity but also at moving forward apace towards the achievement of our national development goals, at ensuring economic revival and a new quality in the economy through radical improvement of the business environment and conditions for doing business, deep structural changes, the creation of efficient high-tech jobs in all sectors, the launch of large-scale investment projects, as well as infrastructure and spatial development projects.

Of course, such plans call for huge financial resources and for increasing the availability of loans in the real economy. The Bank of Russia has already lowered the key interest rate and has said that they are prepared to take more steps in this direction. I hope that these decisions will support demand in the national economy in the second half of the year and will provide additional resources to our companies, which will ultimately accelerate the re-employment.

I want to emphasise the fact that we are taking complex decisions in challenging times. Of course, they need to be prepared in a timely and professional manner. Even more importantly, they need to be fully implemented, in order to ensure that the substantial funds allocated by the government find their way to specific families, people and companies.

Here is my message to all our colleagues: friends, you will be personally responsible for these efforts. Let me reiterate that these instructions will be deemed fulfilled only when every person entitled to government assistance gets it.

In this connection, I would like to remind you that back on April 8, which means more than a month ago, I proposed making a special federal payment to doctors, paramedics and nurses, and to ambulance drivers who were dealing with coronavirus patients.

However, I was informed that as of May 9, only 56 regions had made these payments, and that 56,000 people had actually received it, which is less than half of all healthcare workers entitled to these payments.

The regions already received the funds for making these April payments. I am instructing the heads of the regions to have these April payments made to healthcare workers by May 15, and we are at May 11 today, and so I am instructing the Government and the Healthcare Ministry to coordinate and continuously monitor these efforts.

Friends, please be aware that I will personally review the progress on this matter in every Russian region.

There is one more question I will keep a close eye on. On May 6, I signed an Executive Order offering additional insurance guarantees to healthcare workers, similar to those granted to Armed Forces personnel. This insurance coverage applies to everyone who has contributed to fighting the epidemic from the outset. This is a matter of principle.

Overall, I am asking the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects working group, together with the Russian Popular Front, to review the progress on this and other key instructions on supporting people and the economy, and to submit a detailed report to this effect. These controls will be carried out regularly moving forward.

And now I would like to address all Russian citizens.

Friends,

We are beginning to gradually, very carefully and cautiously, relax the restrictions. The period of non-working days that was declared across the country is coming to an end.

Yes, restrictions are still in place for some territories and some businesses. I am sure that you are aware of the situation in your region and will understand the decisions.

Meanwhile, I ask the heads of the regions, provided all health safety requirements are observed, to let people, wherever possible, leave their homes, walk with children, train alone, and do it in such a way as to minimise the threat of spreading the virus.

Friends, please use extreme caution. Please maintain and even step up your personal efforts to prevent catching the virus.

I understand and I mentioned earlier that it is next to impossible to endure all these restrictions. But it would be much worse to catch the virus, to get sick and become temporarily disabled.

We have chosen a path designed to preserve people’s lives and health, and we have achieved a lot, we have done a lot and have overcome much. And increasing the number of regions that can return to normal depends on every one of us.

Thank you.

And now I, along with my colleagues from the regions and the Government, will move to the meeting itself.

<…>

I would like to say the following in conclusion.

Colleagues,

First, I would like to address the Cabinet and the regions as well, because the State Council working group has also worked with the Government. The proposed measures to support our citizens, the social sector in general, support the economy are absolutely unprecedented and large-scale. I believe that never before in our modern history has the state allocated such resources to support our people and certain sectors of the economy. I do not recall anything like this, even in the hard times of 2008–2009, during the world financial and economic crises.

These measures were prepared by all of us here. We believe they are not only expedient and feasible, but also implementable. This means they should be implemented. We must take all of this seriously. As I said in my opening remarks, this is the only way we will be able to say that we are achieving our goals and will strive to create the conditions that will be a springboard for us to restore not only our normal economic and social life but also to create conditions for the long-term development of the country, the economy in general and for the support of our people.

I ask you to take this as seriously as possible.

Thank you.

This week started with a major presentation by President Putin of Russia’s plans for gradually lessening the strictures of lockdown, restarting the economy and restoring normal life as the epidemic in the country passes stabilization, which was just reached, and enters the ebb phase of contagion, hospitalization and death. The setting was a virtual conference with major players in the government responsible for managing the health crisis. However, since Putin’s lengthy speech which came to 17 typed pages was televised live by all Russian state channels, it could just as easily be called an address to the nation. The main focus was on the economy and assistance to citizens and to business.

That speech has received little attention in the West and I will come back to it in a follow-up tomorrow, because it tells us a great deal about the guiding principles of Russian governance and its ‘social economy.’

In this essay I deal with the second major appearance by Putin this week dedicated to the coronavirus which took place this afternoon, Friday, 15 May. It also was carried live by all state television channels. It also was nominally remarks made within a virtual intragovernmental conference. And it also was a major policy statement that merits our greatest attention, not only for what it says about Russia, but more importantly for what is says about us, in the West, and how we are badly handling the challenges of the pandemic because of our stubborn and proud disparagement of China.

I listened closely to two of the reports to Putin from the ‘regions’, meaning territories outside Moscow on what is being done right now to handle the growing case load of coronavirus sufferers, and Putin’s comments which may be characterized as ‘programmatic’ insofar as they seek to use the ongoing experience in combatting the coronavirus to deliver, at long last, a substantial rebuilding of medical infrastructure across the country with the help of the military.

The regions reporting were St Petersburg, which is still relatively healthy compared to Moscow but has seen a growing number of infections and hospitalizations in the past few weeks, and Voronezh, which more typically represents the Russian provinces and till now has had a very low level of infection, but is preparing for the worst. In each case the governor read a report of what is being done to build dedicated hospitals for treatment of coronavirus cases both by the local administration and with the help of the Ministry of Defense, represented by the senior officer standing at their side who is overseeing construction of modular hospitals by military personnel and staffed by military doctors.

In Petersburg, which is Russia’s second largest city with a population of approximately 5 million, there are specialized hospitals for light cases with 1,000 beds being completed and specialized hospitals with Intensive Care Units in the size of 200 to 600 beds also reaching completion. A similar approach is being implemented in Voronezh.

The involvement of the Armed Forces in building some of these hospitals is very significant, because they have developed modular solutions that can be applied uniformly across the vast continent that is Russia.

In a way, these projects are similar to what Moscow did as first mover when it opened the state of the art hospital at the city’s periphery in a district called Kommunarka. The logic is to remove the coronavirus patients from the general hospital system. This leaves the general hospitals free to continue to serve their traditional ‘clientele,’ the community of those with other ailments. It focuses training, equipment, medicines in locations where maximum attention can be given to ensuring sanitary conditions that protect medical staff and encourage application of well-rehearsed solutions to the challenges of each patient.

Now where would the Russians have gotten this idea from? It is not hard to imagine. We need only think back at the response of the Chinese authorities following the recognition that the outbreak in Wuhan posed existential questions for the local population, indeed for the nation as a whole if it were not contained and wiped out. We all were stunned at the construction of the first specialized facility to deal with the epidemic in one week!

The Russians are less “Stakhanovite” these days, and the hospital projects mentioned above are being executed on a 6 week schedule. But they are being implemented at the highest technical level. Putin gave the figure 5 million rubles as the cost of one hospital bed in the new units; that comes to $60,000 and in Russia’s price equivalency to the dollar probably represents a US cost double or triple the nominal ruble cost. So they are not skimping, not planning to put the incoming patients on matrasses on the floor as happened in Bergamo, Italy.

We also know from the day’s press, that the Russians are now entering into mass production of the few medicines which the Chinese told them proved to be effective in treating their coronavirus patients. Which ones Putin did not say.

And now I must ask, how does Russia’s borrowing from the Chinese playbook compare to what we see around us in Western Europe and the United States? Here China comes up in the coronavirus story only as a punching bag, the people who ‘kept us in the dark’ about the dangers of this plague, not as providers of solutions and advice from their own first and successful experience snuffing it out.

The question I must pose is this: are the Russians being especially clever, or are we being especially stupid?

The segregation of coronavirus patients from the general flows of the ailing contrasts dramatically with what has been going on in Belgium, for example. Here about 100 hospitals around the country have been sharing the aggravated cases of coronavirus requiring hospitalization. This population reached about 5,000 at its peak with nearly one third in Intensive Care, of which to two thirds required ventilators. At the peak a couple of weeks ago, the number of patients in the last category came close to the national inventory of ventilators, a bit more than 1,000. Thankfully, the numbers in the past ten days have come down sharply and there are now half the number of hospital beds taken by virus sufferers.

However, at the peak all of Belgium’s hospitals resembled war zones with ‘extraterrestrial’ suited medics at the entrances. Normal patients did not have to think twice to shun them. Accordingly, even non-elective surgery was being cancelled; chemotherapy patients were staying at home, etc. This is one element of the mortality brought on by the coronavirus that no one has been recording. Moreover, one has to ask about the quality of medical attention when 100 hospitals, mostly without any experience in epidemics, in virology, were being used to treat Covid19 patients. This had to be a contributor to the body bag count that went into official statistics.

Finally, in closing ,a word about body counts.

In the past several days there have been news reports in Western media accusing Russia of under-reporting deaths in the country due to the coronavirus epidemic. In particular, I can point to articles in The New York Times and in the Financial Times.

With respect to the New York Times the piquant title given to one respective article pointing to a “Coronavirus Mystery” – is fully in line with the daily dose of anti-Russian propaganda that this most widely read American newspaper has been carrying on for years now. A couple of weeks ago the same paper carried an article by one of its veteran science journalists accusing President Putin of using the coronavirus to undermine American science, and medicine in particular. That article was totally baseless, a collection of slanderous fake news.

With respect to the accusation of intentional underreporting of mortality figures in Russia, the New York Times was actually borrowing from the Financial Times, which stated that Russian deaths from the virus may be 70 per cent higher than the official numbers. In both cases, even if the underreporting were true, and this is very debatable, it obscures the fact that both official and unofficial numbers are miniscule compared to the devastation wrought by the virus elsewhere in Europe (Italy, Spain and the UK) or in the USA, where the numbers continue to spike. Russia has either a couple of thousand deaths or something closer to three thousand. Compare that to the official deaths ten times greater in the worst hit European countries having overall populations less than half or a third of Russia’s. So the accusation of 72% underreporting in Russia is a debating point that can easily be shown to be deceptive if not irrelevant.

However, there is a missing element here: context. The whole issue of underreporting Covid19 deaths has been reported on by the Financial Times for a good number of countries, not just Russia. Indeed, their first concern has been to show that the official numbers posted by the UK government, now in the range of 30,000 are a fraction of the actual deaths in the UK (more than 50,000) if one uses not the death certificates case by case but the overall excess of deaths in a given month in 2020 compared to the norm in the given country over the 3 preceding years. The New York Times in its typical cherry picking approach to find what is worst to say about Russia ignores this background of FT reporting.

Why is there underreporting? There are many possible reasons, the chief one is the varying methodology used by the various countries to allocate a given death to the virus.

By curious coincidence this very issue was addressed in today’s press conference on the pandemic by the Belgian Ministry of Public Health. As is widely reported, Belgium has one of the world’s highest rates of mortality from Covid19, very close to the figures in Spain and Italy. This has been reported in the local press and the Ministry today chose to respond. As they noted, Belgium is one of the few countries to report ALL Covid-19 deaths, meaning both those in hospital and those in care homes (mostly old age homes). In Belgium, as in France, deaths have been equally split between these two sets of institutions. Almost no deaths have occurred at home or, as they say, ‘in the community.’ Moreover, deaths are attributed to Covid-19 if the symptoms were there even if no proper test was carried out to confirm this.

In total, Belgium death count today stands close to 9,000 for a general population of 11.8 million. High, but still substantially lower than the mortality in New York, for example, whichever way you count. And, to put the picture into a less dire context, it is reported that each winter Belgium experiences about 5,000 deaths attributable to the seasonal flu. Of course, the flu does not lay waste to the medical establishment, and there you have the difference that makes the ongoing Russian approach to Covid19 so relevant.

How has the Russian city of Krasnoyarsk changed over the 20 years Vladimir Putin has been in power?

0:00 Pill for memory
0:51 Improvements in the city (it was-it became 2010-2019)
2:45 Education (new / old with new infrastructure, schools, universities, kindergartens; 2002-2019)
4:31 Health (new large sports facilities and medical facilities, parks; 2002-2019)
6:50 Transport infrastructure (new airports, railway stations, road junctions; 2002-2019)
8:30 Flying over new streets (2002-2019)
13:19 Pictures of the city from space in dynamics over 20 years

(First published at Strategic Culture Foundation,

The USSR, with significant help from the rest of us, defeated Hitler and changed the world away from that dark and horrible future. At enormous cost.

Patrick Armstrong

I don’t usually waste my time taking apart run-of-the-mill anti-Russian stuff: there’s too much of it and it usually takes more effort to tear apart than it took the author to write. Fools and wise men, as the saying goes. But we have just had a number of pieces on the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in Western news outlets. For example, the Washington Times, RFE/RL, The Guardian the Globe and Mail and Bloomberg. Governments have issued condemnations. The gist of them is that the pact showed that Hitler and Stalin were soul-mates and conspired to start the war and rip apart their neighbours. In most cases the authors try to tie this to today’s Russia: enemy then, enemy now.

Most of these pieces take it for granted Putin has some sort of approval of Stalin. But is it “approval” to call communism a road to a dead end – said earlier but most recently last December? What about his statement at the Butovo execution ground?

Those who were executed, sent to camps, shot and tortured number in the thousands and millions of people. Along with this, as a rule these were people with their own opinions. These were people who were not afraid to speak their mind. They were the most capable people. They are the pride of the nation.

Or about what he said when he unveiled the memorial in the centre of Moscow?

This horrific past must not be stricken from the national memory — let alone justified in any way — by any so-called higher good of the people.

One of Putin’s advisory councils speaks against statues to Stalin quoting a government resolution that it’s “unacceptable” to “justify the repressions” or deny that they happened. Paul Robinson has demonstrated the falsity of the “Stalin is back” here. It’s nonsense.

Another theme is that Moscow is distorting or whitewashing history. But the truth is that the articles are the ones distorting history. History is not supposed to be a box from which convenient accusations are selected, ignoring the rest: historians are supposed to try to figure out what happened and explain how it came to be. Most Western accounts of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact are selective briefs for the prosecution. Although I very much suspect that the authors don’t know any better and their outrage is founded on their ignorance.

23 August was the 80th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement and its secret protocol for carving up Poland and other countries. An occasion to hammer Russia which was too good to pass up. But their argument – assertions really – collapse because none of them knows that what Stalin really wanted was an alliance with the Western powers to stop Hitler: the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement was Plan B, not Plan A.

When I was in university in the 1960s a text in one of my courses was AJP Taylor’s Origins of the Second World War. It mentioned the British-French mission sent to Moscow upon Stalin’s invitation to form a USSR-UK-France alliance to stop Hitler. This event has mostly slipped down the memory hole but periodically makes a reappearance as, for example, in 2008 “Stalin ‘planned to send a million troops to stop Hitler if Britain and France agreed pact’“. Stalin’s anti-Hitler pact failed and, knowing that the USSR was on Hitler’s target list, he bought time with the pact and started grabbing territory so as to gain a buffer.

In other words, all these pieces, in their prosecutorial enthusiasm, leave out the context (or in the case of the Guardian, present the Russian view as mere – and, you’re supposed to understand, unwarranted – assertion). As I said, I was generally aware that Stalin had made an overture to Paris and London and therefore understood that the pact with Germany was his Plan B, but it wasn’t until I read this piece by Michael Jabara Carley that I understood just how comprehensive and long-lasting Stalin’s attempts to form an effective anti-Hitler coalition had been. I strongly recommend reading Carley’s essay in full but in summary Moscow understood the threat immediately and spent five or six years trying to get the Europeans to join with it in an anti-Hitler agreement. A weak mutual assistance pact with Paris appeared in 1935, approaches to London that year collapsed when it made a deal with Berlin, approaches to Bucharest and Prague failed, Warsaw was hopeless because of its early pact with Berlin and baked-in animosity. The Munich agreement of 1938 and (memory hole again) Warsaw’s collaboration with Berlin in eating Czechoslovakia just about ended Moscow’s hope but it tried one last time in late 1939. (The discussion here has some more details, particularly Chamberlain’s view and the British military’s warning that the Poles, alone, would last two weeks).

There were plenty of reasons why Stalin’s approaches were rejected by Western politicians: they didn’t see the threat, Chamberlain’s “most profound distrust of Russia”, no one liked communism, few trusted Stalin, many questioned the effectiveness of the Red Army, some hoped that the nazis and the communists would fight each other to the death, some preferred the nazis. Poland, whose territory was essential for an effective Soviet threat to Germany, was the decisive obstacle: Warsaw doubted that the Soviets, once in, would ever leave and believed, with its pact and collaboration with Berlin, that it was safe. So, Stalin’s Plan A never happened. Carley: “The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was the result of the failure of nearly six years of Soviet effort to form an anti-Nazi alliance with the western powers”. Yes, the pact included a carve-up of several countries but Stalin was looking to the security of the USSR. (And, à la Fawlty Towers, don’t mention the Czechoslovakia carve up, it will spoil the morally superior position the West likes to take.) In the end Stalin miscalculated the timing: Hitler invaded before he’d knocked out Britain and its empire/commonwealth and before the Soviets had properly fortified their new borders.

The failure of Moscow’s long effort to put together an alliance to stop Hitler is the reason for the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, not Stalin’s all-round nastiness and sense of fellowship with Hitler. Nasty the pact was, in a nasty period, but it was Stalin’s second choice. Those are the historical realities. Another historical reality (almost down the memory hole) is the fact that, if we’re talking about agreements with Hitler, Moscow was late to the party. Lots of leaders were fooled by Hitler but Stalin probably least of all.

Now, I suspect that the average Western newspaper consumer doesn’t know this background and – speaking for myself – I only found out about the Warsaw-Berlin pact a year or two ago. In fact, had it not been for remembering Taylor’s book, I would probably have been ignorant of Stalin’s Plan A too. The memory hole has swallowed much and most of the authors of these pieces seem quite unaware of that fact and are very offended when, for example, the Russians point out that Warsaw – officially the victim par excellence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact – took its pound of flesh from Czechoslovakia.

Many of these pieces, after falsely establishing what they imagine to be a Stalin-Hitler common purpose, can’t resist trying to make a connection between what they imagine to have been Stalin’s motives then and Putin’s today. But it’s hard to see it. Yes, the effects of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact endure but, surely, the biggest “deadly result” of Stalin’s failed Plan A is the war itself. There are at least two ways to look at the Soviet occupation/control of most of the territories it liberated from the nazis: 1) the behaviour of an aggressive expansionist power, 2) that of a power determined that its neighbours would never again be assembly areas for another attack and had learned that it would be on its own if it happened again. We all know which conclusion the Western Allies came to. Elsewhere I have speculated on the cause of that choice but that’s another bit of past living on in the present.

In short, the basic premise of these pieces is quite simply wrong: Stalin didn’t feel an affinity to Hitler and cheerfully join him to rip things apart. And when the Russian talk about the Western European share of responsibility for Hitler’s war, it’s not “odious sophistry” or “rewriting history” or “propaganda”, it’s because they know about Stalin’s failed anti-Hitler coalition and most Western commentators don’t. It is very plausible that a coalition of the USSR, France and Britain and the smaller threatened countries would have prevented the war altogether. We do know that one conspiracy to overthrow Hitler was aborted by Chamberlain’s appeasement. Perhaps when one truly understands that Stalin’s Plan A might have prevented the war altogether, one can understand how irritated the Russians are when they’re blamed for starting it.

While the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was the starter’s gun for Hitler’s attack on Poland it is historical nonsense to present the pact as Stalin’s preferred option. And more nonsense to somehow tie it all to Putin.

And what of Poland? Alone, it did last only a few weeks, the nazis killed about 20% of the population and in the end the USSR occupied it anyway. (A bit reminiscent, come to think of it, of Poland, Napoleon and Russia.)

(There is, however, an unforced parallel which doesn’t occur to anybody: both Putin and Stalin looked first to the West for partners; both were disappointed. Stalin probably realised with Munich that his alliance idea was impossible and I believe that for Putin the moment came with Libya. They decided that the West was недоговороспособниы. That complicated Russian word contains within it the meaning that you cannot make an agreement with them and, even if you do, they will not keep it. So, there is some connection, after all, but it’s not what these people think.)

Originally published March 28, 2014

This week [at the time this was written] marks the fifteenth anniversary of the bombing of Serbia by President Bill Clinton – and the beginning of Antiwar.com as a full-time full-coverage news site. It’s a double anniversary fraught, for me, with irony. Back then the Big Bad Bogeyman wasn’t al-Qaeda, which had barely crept into the American consciousness, although Osama bin Laden was a known quantity. No, the Enemy of the Moment was Russia, which was desperately (and unsuccessfully) trying to block Washington’s eastward expansion – and it looks like that moment has returned with a vengeance.

With Russophobia all the rage – they’re even warning us Putin, not content with Crimea, is about to invade the North Pole! – we’ve come full circle, back to where we started. But we aren’t exactly in the same place.

In 1998 the anti-interventionist movement was tiny, and our readership reflected that. With the cold war over, and many conservatives deciding it was time to "Come Home, America," as Pat Buchanan put it, our audience and base of support came increasingly from the right side of the political spectrum. Liberals were deserting the antiwar movement in droves, cowed – or won over – by the "humanitarian" interventionists and the 24/7 cycle of war propaganda beamed at them by CNN, back then the one and only cable news station. We called it the "Clinton News Network" because there was Christiane Amanpour, married to State Department spokesman James Rubin, lying nonstop for hours on end.

And while the idiotic Slobodan Milosevic was the official Enemy, standing behind him were the Russians, who were furiously resisting the eastward advance of the NATO-crats. Putin soon dumped Milosevic, however, and reconciled himself to the subjugation of Serbia – but the West was hardly finished. Russia was still standing, and, worse, Boris Yeltsin, the West’s favorite drunkard, was gone. In his place stood Vladimir Putin, former KGB official and hater-of-oligarchs, who went after Yeltsin’s crowd of parasites and drove them out of the country. If the former Warsaw Pact countries were going to be plundered by Commies-turned-"capitalists" and then looted by the IMF, Putin was determined that Russia would avoid their fate.

The West, led by the United States, had other plans, but Putin managed to sidestep them and get on with his task of rebuilding a country wrecked by Bolshevism, decimated by alcoholism, and threatened with outright hooliganism. In the process, he created a system that was neither free nor particularly efficient – but it was far better than what had gone before.

On the international front Putin reverted back to the defensive foreign policy of his Tsarist forebears, the first principle of which was to preserve the Slavic core of the Russian nation against foreign incursions. He continued and escalated the Chechen war started by Yeltsin as the Central Asian former Soviet republics fell into chaos, and Islamist radicals led by Chechens and the first stirring of al-Qaeda wreaked havoc in Russian cities. Yet there was no expansionist agenda: in spite of Western propaganda premised on the ridiculous assumption that Putin seeks to restore the old Soviet empire, what the Russian leader was and is trying to do was simply keep Russia in one piece. With the economy imploding, the death rate from alcoholism, AIDS, and suicide rising dramatically, and the birthrate falling below replacement levels, Russia was standing at the edge of the abyss. Putin saved the country from falling in.

Say what you like about him – he’s no friend of freedom, but neither is he another Stalin – Putin has long sought accommodation and even friendship with the West. A common enemy – Islamist terrorism – and common economic interests with Europe should have drawn Russia closer to Europe and America. In a 1999 op-ed for the New York Times, he wrote:

"I ask you to put aside for a moment the dramatic news reports from the Caucasus and imagine something more placid: ordinary New Yorkers or Washingtonians, asleep in their homes. Then, in a flash, hundreds perish in explosions at the Watergate, or at an apartment complex on Manhattan’s West Side. Thousands are injured, some horribly disfigured. Panic engulfs a neighborhood, then a nation.”

A few years later, we didn’t have to imagine it, because we were living it.

Yet the warlords of Washington and London would have none of it; they missed Yeltsin, who rolled over for them without being told to. This guy Putin, on the other hand, rolled over for no one: he would have to learn. But he refused to be taught.

Putin has been one of the most eloquent critics of US hegemonism and the "international order" enforced by Washington and its allies since the end of the first cold war, and this is one big reason why our wise rulers hate him. The elaborate propaganda campaign designed to demonize him and the country he presides over is motivated in large part by this hatred, as well as by the usual – greed, power-lust, and all the rest of the vices that disfigure our political class.

The American agenda in Ukraine is the same as it was in the former Yugoslavia: the humbling of Russia, its encirclement and eventual absorption into the "international system" lorded over by the US and its allies. Against this campaign Putin can only play defense: and as we all know by now the West only knows how to play offense.

Critics of our Ukraine policy have been attacked as "Putin apologists" – as if this debate is about the political character of the Russian state. But the internal arrangements of the Russian polity – the state of the media, the relative freeness of the electoral process, the status of homosexuals – has zero to do with whether Russia represents a threat and is similarly unrelated to the question of who is the aggressor in Ukraine. The neoconservative myth that democracies are inherently less aggressive than other forms of government is disproved by the example of the Western democracies, which have rampaged over a good part of the earth and in recent years have taken a toll in lives that easily reaches the millions.

...

There is an immense amount of criticism of Putin, especially coming from America, most of it empty criticism which ignores realities and genuine analysis. For the more thoughtful, it represents only the stink and noise of propaganda, and not honest criticism in its true sense at all.

In politics, and especially in the direction of a country’s foreign affairs, there are certain behaviors and ideas and attitudes which mark out a person as exceptional. I think there can be no doubt, Putin is just such a person, and I am very much inclined to say, the preeminent one of our time. Frankly, compared with Putin’s skills, Donald Trump comes off as a noisy circus act, a sideshow carnival barker, and not an appealing one. He has an outsized impact in the world only because he represents the most powerful country on earth and has embraced all the prejudices and desires of its power establishment, not because of the skilfulness of his actions or the insight of his mind. Obama made a better public impression, but if you analyze his actions, you see a man of immense and unwarranted ego, a very secretive and unethical man, and a man who held no worthy ideals he promoted. He was superficial in many things. And he was completely compliant to the power establishment, leaving no mark of his own to speak of.

Putin is a man who advocates cooperation among states, who argues against exceptionalism, who wants his country to have peace so that it can grow and advance, a man lacking any frightening or tyrannical ideologies, a man who invariably refers to other countries abroad, even when they are being uncooperative, in respectful terms as “our partners,” a man who knows how to prioritize, as in defense spending, a man with a keen eye for talent who has some other exceptional people assisting him – men of the calibre of Lavrov or Shoygu, a man who supports worthy international organizations like the UN, a man who only reluctantly uses force but uses it effectively when required, a highly restrained man in almost everything he does, a man who loves his country and culture but does not try foisting them off on everyone else as we see almost continuously from American presidents, a man with a keen eye for developing trends and patterns in the world, a man with an eye, too, for the main chance, a man whose decisions are made calmly and in light of a lot of understanding. That’s quite a list.

The differences between recent American leaders, all truly mediocre, and Putin probably has something to do with the two counties’ relative situations over the last few decades. After all, if the support isn’t there for someone like Putin, you won’t get him. Russia’s huge Soviet empire collapsed in humiliation in 1991. The country was put through desperate straits, literally its own great depression with people begging or selling pathetic trinkets on the streets. And America made no real effort to assist. Indeed, quite the opposite, it kicked someone who was down and tried to shake all the loose change from his pockets. Out of Russia’s desperation came a man of remarkable skills, a rather obscure figure, but one who proved extremely popular and was obviously supported by enough powerful and important people to employ his skills for the county’s recovery and advance.

And he showed no weakness or flinching when dealing with some of the extremely wealthy men who in fact became wealthy by striping assets from the dying Soviet Union, men who then also used their wealth to challenge the country’s much-needed new leadership. He was, of course, excoriated in the United States, but to the best of my understanding, he did what was necessary for progress. The results are to be seen in a remarkably revitalized Russia. Everywhere, important projects are underway. New highways, new airports, major new bridges, new rail lines and subways, a new spaceport, new projects and cooperative efforts with a whole list of countries, new efforts in technology and science, and Russia has become the world’s largest exporter of wheat. Putin also has committed Russia to offering the world grain crops free of all GMOs and other contaminants, a very insightful effort to lock-in what have been growing premium markets for such products, even among Americans.

The military, which badly declined after the fall of the USSR, has been receiving new and remarkable weapons, the products of focused research efforts. New high-tech tanks, artillery, ships, and planes. In strategic weapons, Russia now produces several unprecedented ones, a great achievement which was done without spending unholy amounts of money, Russia’s military budget being less than a tenth that of the United States. Putin’s caution and pragmatism dictate that Russia’s first priority is to become as healthy as possibly, so it needs peace, for decades. Few Westerners appreciate the devastating impact of the USSR’s collapse, but even before that, the Soviet empire had its own slow debilitating impact. Russia’s economic system was not efficient and competitive. The effects of that over many years accumulated. The USSR always did maintain the ability to produce big engineering projects such as dams and space flight, but it always was sorely lacking in the small and refined things of life that an efficient economy automatically sees are provided.

The new strategic weapons are an unfortunate necessity, but the United States threatens Russia as perhaps never before with the expansion of NATO membership right to the Russian border, something breaking specific American promises of years back. And it has been running tanks all over Europe and then digging them in them right at the frontier just to make a point. It has deployed multiple-use covered missile launchers not far from the border which may as easily contain offensive intermediate-range ground-to-ground nuclear missiles as the defensive anti-missile missiles claimed to be their purpose. And it has torn up one of the most important nuclear-weapons treaties we had, the INF Treaty, pertaining to intermediate-range missiles. Intermediate-range nuclear missiles based in Europe give the United States the ability to strike Russia with little warning, their ten-minute flight path compares to a roughly thirty-minute flight path for an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) coming from America. These are extremely de-stabilizing, as are the counter-measures Russia felt it must take, Russian intermediate-range nuclear missile aimed at European centers. Everyone eventually recognized that, and that’s why the treaty was successfully completed. Europeans appreciated no longer becoming the immediate battlefield in a nuclear war.

But relations with the United States now have entered a new world, and it is not a brave one. America’s power establishment has assumed new goals and priorities, and in those, Russia is not viewed well, despite its new identity as a nation ready to participate and peacefully compete with everyone, a nation without the kind of extreme ideology communism was, a kind of secular religious faith. Despite its readiness to participate in all Western organizations and forums and discussions, it is viewed with a new hostility by America. It is arbitrarily regarded as an opponent, as an ongoing threat. As I discuss below, America, too, has been in kind of a decline, and the response of its leadership to that fact involves flexing its muscles and extracting concessions and privileges and exerting a new dominance in the world, a response not based in economic competition and diplomatic leadership, a response carrying a great deal of danger.

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Transcript of 90 minute speech. Read it all and compare and contrast to your own politicians, and any other nations's politicians.

See Gilbert Doctorow's critique of the New York Times article on this speech here.

Members of the Federation Council,
State Duma deputies,
citizens of Russia,

Today’s Address is primarily devoted to matters of domestic social and economic development. I would like to focus on the objectives set forth in the May 2018 Executive Order and detailed in the national projects. Their content and the targets they set are a reflection of the demands and expectations of Russia’s citizens. People are at the core of the national projects, which are designed to bring about a new quality of life for all generations. This can only be achieved by generating momentum in Russia’s development.

These are long-term objectives that we have set for ourselves. However, work to achieve these strategic goals has to begin today. Time is always in short supply, as I have already said on numerous occasions, and you all know this all too well. There is simply no time for getting up to speed or making any adjustments. All in all, I believe that we have already completed the stage of articulating objectives and outlining tools for achieving our goals. Departing from the targets that were outlined would be unacceptable. It is true that these are challenging objectives. That being said, lowering the requirements for specific targets or watering them down is not an option. As I have already said, these are formidable challenges that require us to undertake major efforts. However, they are in step with the scale and pace of global change. It is our duty to keep pushing ahead and gaining momentum.

If someone prefers to work in the business as usual mode, without challenges, avoiding initiative or responsibility, they had better leave immediately. I already hear that some things are “impossible,” “too difficult,” “the standards are too high,” and “it will not work.” With such an attitude, you had better stay away.

Besides, you cannot fool the people. They are acutely aware of hypocrisy, lack of respect or any injustice. They have little interest in red tape and bureaucratic routine. It is important for people to see what is really being done and the impact it has on their lives and the lives of their families. And not sometime in the future, but now. We must not repeat the mistakes of the past decades and wait for communism to arrive. We have to change the situation for the better now.

Therefore, the work of the executive branch at all levels should be coordinated, meaningful and energetic. The Government of Russia must set the tone.

At the same time, I would like to emphasise and repeat: our development projects are not federal and even less so agency-based. They are national. Their results must be visible in each region of the Federation, in every municipality. It is here, on the ground, that the majority of specific tasks is implemented.

Allow me to underscore: thanks to years of common work and the results achieved, we can now direct and concentrate enormous financial resources – at least enormous for our country – on development goals. These resources have not come as a rainfall. We have not borrowed them. These funds have been earned by millions of our citizens – by the entire country. They need to be applied to increase the wealth of Russia and the wellbeing of Russian families.

Very soon, this year people should feel real changes for the better. It is on the basis of their opinion and assessments at the beginning of next year that we will evaluate the first results of our work on the national projects. And we will draw the appropriate conclusions about the work quality and performance at all levels of executive power.

Colleagues,

Let me now share some specifics on our objectives. I will begin with the key objective of preserving our nation, which means providing all-around support to families.

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Fourth, the Government and the Central Bank need to consistently maintain the policy to lower mortgage rates to 9 percent, and then to 8 percent or below, as stipulated in the May 2018 Executive Order. At the same time, special measures of support should be provided for families with children, of course. As a reminder, last year, a preferential mortgage programme was launched for families that have had their second or subsequent child. The rate for them is 6 percent. Anything higher is subsidised by the state. However, only 4,500 families have used the benefit.

The question is why. It means that people are somehow dissatisfied with the proposed conditions. But it is also clear why. A family making a decision to buy housing certainly makes plans for a long or at least medium term, a lasting investment. But with this programme, they take out a loan, start paying the instalments, and the grace period ends. The interest is actually subsidised only for the first 3 or 5 years. I propose extending the benefit for the entire term of the mortgage loan.

Yes, of course, it will require additional funding, and the cost will be rather high: 7.6 billion rubles in 2019, 21.7 billion rubles in 2020, and 30.6 billion rubles in 2021. But the programme is estimated to reach as many as 600,000 families. We certainly need to find the money. We know where to get it. We have it, and we just need to use it in the areas that are of major importance to us.

And one more direct action solution. Considering the sustainability and stability of the macroeconomic situation in the country and the growth of the state’s revenues, I consider it possible to introduce another measure of support for families having a third and subsequent children. I suggest paying 450,000 rubles directly from the federal budget to cover this sum from their mortgage. Importantly, I propose backdating this payment starting January 1, 2019, recalculating it and allocating relevant sums in this year’s budget.

Let us see what we have. If we add this sum to the maternity capital, which can also be used for mortgage payments, we will get over 900,000 rubles. In many regions, this is a substantial part of the cost of a flat. I would like to draw the attention of the Government and the State Duma to this issue. If need be, the budget will have to be adjusted accordingly. An additional 26.2 billion rubles will be required for this in 2019. The relevant figures for 2020 and 2021 are 28.6 billion rubles and 30.1 billion rubles, respectively. These are huge funds but they should be allocated and used in what I have already described as a very important area.

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Colleagues, we are facing ambitious goals. We are approaching solutions in a systematic and consistent way, building a model of socio-economic development that will allow us to ensure the best conditions for the self-fulfillment of our people and, hence, provide befitting answers to the challenges of a rapidly changing world, and preserve Russia as a civilisation with its own identity, rooted in centuries-long traditions and the culture of our people, our values and customs. Naturally, we will only be able to achieve our goals by pooling our efforts, together in a united society, if all of us, all citizens of Russia, are willing to succeed in specific endeavours.

Such solidarity in striving for change is always the deliberate choice of the people themselves. They make this choice when they understand that national development depends on them, on the results of their labour, when a desire to be needed and useful enjoys support, when everyone finds a job by vocation one is happy with, and most importantly, when there is justice and a vast space for freedom and equal opportunity for work, study, initiative and innovation.

These parameters for development breakthroughs cannot be translated into figures or indicators, but it is these things – a unified society, people being involved in the affairs of their country, and a common confidence in our power – that play the main role in reaching success. And we will achieve this success by any means necessary.

Thank you for your attention.

Vladimir Putin

As he stated at the outset, Vladimir Putin’s annual state of the nation address today before a joint session of the nation’s bicameral legislature was devoted preponderantly to domestic policy. He was expanding on the practical implications for the Russian population of the policy priorities for his current six-year term that he set out in decrees of May 2018. These have in the meantime taken the form of national projects organized around support to families to encourage childbearing and stabilize the national demographics; housing construction and financing; roads, ports and other transport infrastructure development; improved health services; upgrading public education; encouragement to business innovation and export; and the like.

This material was delivered with a human touch, drawing on many experiences of contact with people from all walks of life that the President has gathered in specially organized meetings focused on these national projects at various cities around his vast country. He cited in particular his time in Kazan last week talking about housing.

For most political observers outside of Russia, myself included, the domestic policy story was marginal to our interests, though we did sit up and pay close attention to his brief remarks on one achievement illustrating the strides the country is making in state of the art applied sciences. This was his description of the breakthrough represented by the design and production of the hypersonic Avangard missile system. He likened it to the launch into orbit of the first Sputnik and he promised spill-over of the science into the civilian economy.

Otherwise, we foreigners had to wait until the very end of his speech to hear what brought us to watch this annual ritual in the first place. The raisins in our cake came when the President finally turned to international affairs. And there, after a rather cursory summary of Russia’s foreign policy priorities, his discourse shifted to defense issues raised by the recently announced American withdrawal from the Intermediate- Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty. Indeed, notwithstanding the mention a few moments before of the key importance of bilateral ties with China and also with India, Putin’s focus on Washington and the way the whole Russian defense industry is directed to meeting threats from the USA, highlights the centrality of that one country in Russian thinking. Thus, Putin allowed himself to mock Europe as US “satellites.” Further to the point, he went on to use folksy language that Nikita Khrushchev would surely a have approved to describe the Europeans as so many little piglets oinking their assent to Washington’s allegations of Russian INF violations. The audience in the hall turned to smiles and applauded enthusiastically.

Western mainstream media have been quick to note the direct threat by Putin in his speech to respond to any US placement of nuclear armed cruise missiles in Europe by targeting not only the European host countries of such installations but the decision-making centers authorizing their use, meaning Washington. By its new hypersonic weapon systems, Russia would be able to reach targeted American cities within the same 10 – 12 minutes that the Americans would enjoy by lobbing their slower cruise missiles at Moscow from perches in Poland and Romania.

This is tough talk over basic issues that suggest not so much a revisiting of the US-Russian Cold War confrontation over European based Pershings versus Soviet medium range SS20s targeting Western Europe in the 1980s, as a revisiting of the issues underlying the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. At that time, US missiles secretly based in Turkey brought a mirror image response from Russia (the Soviet Union) in the form of missiles positioned just off the American coast and having comparable flying times to hit the American heartland.

Surely, as I have remarked in recent essays, the highly polished Putin is no Khrushchev, and he is careful to avoid appearing to issue threats. But the toughness is there under the velvet glove in speeches like today’s.

To allow readers to draw their own conclusions, I offer below my translation of the complete text of the speech relating to the United States.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2019

Source of Russian text: http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/59863

Excerpt – the final 12 minutes devoted to foreign and defense policy of a speech that ran approximately 90 minutes.

During the 14th annual Q&A marathon with the President of Russia, Ukrainian journalist Roman Tsymbalyuk asked a string of questions that were rhetorical in nature and bore a provocative character. However, Vladimir Putin was having none of it and Mr. Tsymbalyuk received answers he was not expecting. A dose of reality, maybe?