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Gaza Update: Anglo-Zionist Pier & Bifurcation Road

Par : AHH

Along with the latest news from the resistance in Gaza and the West Bank, Jon Elmer takes a look at the US military operation to build a pier in Gaza City and how that plan lines up with Israel’s ongoing construction of a highway south of Gaza City that will divide the Strip between north and south.

The Terms of Surrender

Par : AHH

Putin presented the West with a bill of exchange that it is not able to repay

By Irina Alksnis, RIA Novosti columnist.

“In an interview with Dmitry Kiselyov, Vladimir Putin stressed that the West will not just have to offer Russia guarantees of compliance with the agreements, but these guarantees: a) must be spelled out; b) suit Moscow; and c) the Russian leadership must actually believe in them.”

In an interview with Dmitry Kiselyov, Vladimir Putin paid great attention to the issue of potential negotiations with the West over Ukraine. At first glance, this might even seem somewhat unexpected, but the topic is really becoming more and more relevant and is increasingly heard in the public field, which means that it is time to clarify Russia’s position as clearly as possible. Which the president did.

The reality of the situation on the Ukrainian front, which is unpleasant for the West, is reaching more and more people on the other side. This entails quite natural consequences: the voices demanding to negotiate with Moscow are getting louder and louder. And if initially they were mostly marginal figures, on whom it was very convenient to hang the label “Russian agent” or “useful idiot of the Kremlin”, now the most mainstream and very influential forces – the media, think tanks, politicians and statesmen – up to the Pope are saying the same thing.

This point of view has not yet become dominant there and still meets impressive resistance, but it can no longer be called marginal. And judging by the way events are developing in Ukraine, the moment when it will become dominant on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean is not very long away.

However, these changes worry the politically active patriotic part of Russian society. The reason is obvious: people fear that in the course of negotiations, Russia will lose the achievements for which our soldiers pay with their blood and lives. Either the West will simply deceive us, as it has done so many times in the past, or a part of the Russian elite that remains pro-Western will be inclined to make concessions, surrendering our military victory. But no one is immune from mistakes and failures in the negotiation process – even the most ardent patriot of his country.

This is probably why the president gave a detailed and detailed commentary on this issue, touching on very different aspects that affect Russia’s position. And this is the answer primarily for us-the citizens of the country. But it can also be very useful for the West, if there are still smart enough and qualified people there who are able to hear and understand what is said, and not invent their own version of Putin’s answer in accordance with the agenda and personal beliefs (and with this there are more and more problems lately). Well, for the insufficiently nationalized representatives of the domestic establishment, who are hoping to turn the stuffing back, the president’s answer is also very useful – and makes them understand that you should not dream of the impossible.

The West, in the form of Ukraine as anti-Russia, prepared a very powerful weapon against our country, but when it did not work as expected, it had to openly enter the war itself – and this became its huge, downright fatal mistake, because it turned on the patriotic war regime in our people. Putin said that “deep Russian society”, ordinary citizens, had long been waiting for their demand for the country and the state, and the war of the West against us was exactly the situation that turned on the mechanism of national consolidation.

This means that the state has a free hand in relying on powerful and active (literally combative) popular support. He is not under pressure from public opinion, which insists on ending the fighting at any cost and as soon as possible – on the contrary, citizens consider it right to solve the issue radically, eliminating the threat to Russia in the south-western direction once and for all. This means that the SVO can continue for as long as it takes, until the West is not just ripe for negotiations (this will happen soon), but reaches the point where it hears Moscow’s position and accepts its conditions (but this may take much longer).

By the way, the president’s words made it clear why Russian officials are so actively pedaling the topic of deception on the part of the West, which Moscow has encountered many times in recent decades. You can often hear criticism of this position – saying that it exposes Russia as weak and stupid. However, it has now provided the state with an extremely comfortable and strong negotiating position: what are your guarantees, gentlemen? Because the old and, alas, unkind principle of “gentlemen take their word for it” has finally broken down.

Putin stressed that the West should not just offer Russia guarantees of compliance with the agreements, but these guarantees should: a) be spelled out; b) suit Moscow; and c) the Russian leadership should actually believe in them.

In fact, in the sphere of reputation and moral authority, the West finds itself in exactly the same situation as with the American debt, which is storming to astronomical heights and whose mere maintenance is increasingly shaking the financial system. Everyone has already realized that this is just a pyramid scheme, but it still holds, and the world is watching with curiosity (although not without concern about the consequences) what will become the “pebble” that will start the crash.

Well, by demanding guarantees at the talks, Putin swung the “pebble” of another tower – the tower of Babel of Western hypocrisy and lies.

Perhaps this is understood by American and European hawks, who are now actively rocking the topic of the need to introduce a Western contingent to Ukraine. Realizing that Moscow will not be able to push through or deceive in negotiations, they see direct participation in the conflict as the only remaining option to try to reduce the conflict to a more or less acceptable outcome for NATO countries.

However, Putin also had words for these hotheads – in particular, the word “interventionists”. Moreover, the president explicitly stated that it is precisely as an intervention on the territory of Russia that we will regard the entry of Western troops into Ukraine. And he reminded that our country has a rich experience of successfully solving this problem, which everyone in the West should remember.

In essence, Ukraine has become a conflict in which the bankruptcy of Europe and the United States – military, moral, economic – threatens to turn from expected to actual. And in his interview, Putin presented the West with a bill of exchange, which in principle it is not able to repay.

Russia’s Victory in Ukraine resonates in Central Asia

Par : AHH

Russian victory against NATO and personal approach won over the Taliban and Central Asian stans

By Amb. MK Bhadrakumar at Indian Punchline

Russia’s stunning victory in the battle of Avdeevka and the rout of the Ukrainian military, boosts the credibility of Russia as provider of security for the Central Asian region. The point is not lost on the erudite Central Asian mind that Russia has single-handedly put the NATO on the back foot. 

This becomes a defining moment, as it complements the comfort level stemming out of the new normalcy in Afghanistan, thanks to Russia’s effective diplomatic engagement with the Taliban.

Yet another vicious cycle of western propaganda is petering out  — predicated on the false assumptions that Russia’s influence in Central Asia is in “decline” (Wilson Centre); that the Central Asian states are “are emerging from Russia’s shadow and asserting their independence in ways not seen since the collapse of communism in 1991” (Financial Times); that in the wake of the war in Ukraine, Central Asian leaders “might well be now considering how long Putin will be able to remain in power in Russia” (Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty).

In reality, the economic performance of the region in 2023  registered an impressive GDP growth of 4.8%. And Russia contributed to this success story. The Ukraine war led to the vacation of western firms from the Russian market, which created new opportunities for regional states. At the same time, the conditions under sanctions prompted Russian firms and capital and Russian citizens to relocate their businesses to the Central Asian region.

Central Asian entrepreneurs haven’t missed the lucrative opportunities to source Western goods and technology for the Russian market — walking a very tight rope by ensuring compliance with Western sanctions, while also nurturing their interdependence and integration with Russian markets. The recovery of the Russian economy and its 3.6% growth last year created business opportunities for Central Asian countries.

Moscow’s policies aim at a ‘Renaissance’ in the region’s relations with Russia. The new thinking in Moscow meant that Putin took a hands-on role to maintain a high momentum of contacts with the Central Asian leaderships at a personal level, making use of all available formats of interaction bilateral as well as regional. The Russian approach allowed space for the regional states to adopt a ‘neutral’ stance on the war.

A comprehension problem for outsiders is very often that the Central Asian attitudes are seldom in overt mode, and under specific circumstances (such as Ukraine war), they need to be discerned in terms of preferences. Thus, the political message out of the May 9 parade in Moscow last year when all the Central Asian presidents joined Putin at the ceremonies on the Red Square was a massive gesture of support for Russia — and for Putin personally.

Throughout 2023, the Central Asian states found themselves targeted in an unprecedented diplomatic effort by the West to uphold the sanctions against Russia. The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and French President Emmanuel Macron visited the region. Two historic summits in the ‘C5+1’ format were hosted by President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz respectively in Washington and Berlin.

But the western interlocutors refused to see the writing on the wall. Blinken’s Kazakh counterpart told him that Astana ‘does not feel any threats or risks from the Russian Federation.’ The joint statements issued after the two ‘C5+1’ summits did not even mention Ukraine!

Putin’s new thinking puts the great game on the back burner and instead prioritises the accretion of content in Russia’s relations with the Central Asian states, especially in economic and humanitarian spheres. This approach has palpably dissipated the ‘Big Brother’ syndrome. Putin’s meetings with his counterparts from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in Kazan  on Wednesday took place in a palpably relaxed atmosphere. (herehere and here)

Interestingly, Emomali Rahmon, Tajik president, wished not only Putin’s success “in everything you do” but his “nerves of steel” as well. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Kazakh president underscored meaningfully that “under your (Putin’s) distinguished leadership, Russia has achieved notable, impressive successes. In fact, your statements and actions are shaping the global agenda.” Tokayev’s remark is particularly noteworthy, as western analysts had spotted him as a potential mutineer against Putin in the steppes!

However, in the final analysis, if Russia’s security relationship with the Central Asian region has transformed during the past couple of years, it is because Moscow’s coordinated efforts to forge ties with the Taliban has gained traction lately. They helped diminish the threat perceptions regarding Afghanistan in the Central Asian region.

If the traditional pattern of addressing the threat perceptions was to resort to military means and by sequestering the region from Afghanistan, Russian diplomacy switched to a radically different approach by constructively engaging with the Taliban (although Taliban continues to be a proscribed organisation under Russian law) and strove to make the latter a stakeholder in building cooperative ties within a matrix of mutual interests. It paid off.

Moscow estimated that Taliban rule has stabilised the Afghan situation significantly and it is in Russian interests to help the Kabul administration to effectively counter the extremist elements in the country (especially the Islamic State, which is known to be a legacy of the US occupation of Afghanistan.) Russia leveraged its influence with the Central Asian states to ensure that western-backed anti-Taliban ‘resistance’ forces did not get sanctuaries. 

Of course, the strategic objective is that the western intelligence will not be able to manipulate free-wheeling Afghan elements to destabilise the Central Asian region or the Caucasus all over again.

Taliban has been most receptive to the Russian overtures aimed at strengthening the Afghan statehood. Recently, Taliban went to the extent of boycotting a UN-sponsored conference on Afghanistan on February 18-19 in Qatar, which was, in reality, an invidious attempt by the US to re-engage the Taliban on the pretext of promoting “intra-Afghan dialogue” (which essentially meant the return of the West’s Afghan proxies living in exile in Europe and America.)

To be sure, the Taliban saw through the western game plan to rebuild their intelligence network in Afghanistan and countered it by setting conditions for its participation in the Doha conference, including that it be the sole representative of Afghanistan at the meeting. The Taliban also opposed the appointment of a UN special envoy to Afghanistan, whose main task would be to promote “intra-Afghan dialogue”.

The Taliban’s Foreign Ministry, in a statement ahead of the Doha meeting, accused the international community of “unilateral impositions, accusations, and pressurisation.” The most interesting part of the pantomime playing out in Doha was that at the Taliban’s request, the Russian delegation that participated in the Doha meeting refused to meet the so-called ‘civil society representatives’ from Afghanistan. It signalled that Russia has begun working with the Taliban as the de facto rulers of Afghanistan.

Indeed, the Central Asian states heartily welcome this brilliant diplomatic initiative by Russia to strengthen regional security and stability. The region’s confidence level vis-a-vis the Taliban rulers has already reached a point that at the meeting with Putin in Kazan on Wednesday, Uzbek president Mirziyoyev raised the “important question” of Uzbekistan and Russia moving ahead with the construction of a new railway via Afghanistan connecting Central Asia with the adjacent regions and the world market.

 

Two Years after 22.2.22, the West is Paralyzed

Par : AHH

Two years after the start of the SMO, the West is totally paralyzed … The geopolitical moment: “You are irrelevant, and the Global South / Global Majority don’t care”

by Pepe Escobar at the Strategic Culture Foundation.

Exactly two years ago this Saturday, on February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin announced the launching – and described the objectives – of a Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine. That was the inevitable follow-up to what happened three days before, on February 21 – exactly 8 years after Maidan 2014 in Kiev – when Putin officially recognized the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

During this – pregnant with meaning – short space of only three days, everyone expected that the Russian Armed Forces would intervene, militarily, to end the massive bombing and shelling that had been going on for three weeks across the frontline – which even forced the Kremlin to evacuate populations at risk to Russia. Russian intel had conclusive proof that the NATO-backed Kiev forces were ready to execute an ethnic cleansing of Russophone Donbass.

February 24, 2022 was the day that changed 21st century geopolitics forever, in several complex ways. Above all, it marked the beginning of a vicious, all-out confrontation, “military-technical” as the Russians call it, between the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder, its easily pliable NATOstan vassals, and Russia – with Ukraine as the battleground.

There is hardly any question Putin had calculated, before and during these three fateful days, that his decisions would unleash the unbounded fury of the collective West – complete with a tsunami of sanctions.

Ay, there’s the rub; it’s all about Sovereignty. And a true sovereign power simply cannot live under permanent threats. It’s even feasible that Putin had wanted (italics mine) Russia to get sanctioned to death. After all, Russia is so naturally wealthy that without a serious challenge from abroad, the temptation is enormous to live off its rents while importing what it could easily produce.

Exceptionalists always gloated that Russia is “a gas station with nuclear weapons”. That’s ridiculous. Oil and gas, in Russia, account for roughly 15% of GDP, 30% of the government budget, and 45% of exports. Oil and gas add power to the Russian economy – not a drag. Putin shaking Russia’s complacency generated a gas station producing everything it needs, complete with unrivalled nuclear and hypersonic weapons. Beat that.

Russian Winter Soldier

Ukraine has “never been less than a nation”

Xavier Moreau is a French politico-strategic analyst based in Russia for 24 years now. Graduated from the prestigious Saint-Cyr military academy and with a Sorbonne diploma, he hosts two shows on RT France.

His latest book, Ukraine: Pourquoi La Russie a Gagné (“Ukraine: Why Russia has Won”), just out, is an essential manual for European audiences on the realities of the war, not those childish fantasies concocted across the NATOstan sphere by instant “experts” with less than zero combined arms military experience.

Moreau makes it very clear what every impartial, realist analyst was aware of from the beginning: the devastating Russian military superiority, which would condition the endgame. The problem, still, is how this endgame – “demilitarization” and “denazification” of Ukraine, as established by Moscow – will be achieved.

What is already clear is that “demilitarization”, of Ukraine and NATO, is a howling success that no new wunderwaffen – like F-16s – will be able to change.

Moreau perfectly understands how Ukraine, nearly 10 years after Maidan, is not a nation; “and has never been less than a nation”. It’s a territory where populations that everything separates are jumbled up. Moreover, it has been a – “grotesque” – failed state ever since its independence. Moreau spends several highly entertaining pages going through the corruption grotesquerie in Ukraine, under a regime that “gets its ideological references simultaneously via admirers of Stepan Bandera and Lady Gaga.

None of the above, of course, is reported by oligarch-controlled European mainstream media.

“Parade on Red Square in Moscow on November 7, 1941” — Konstantin Vasilyev

Watch out for Deng Xiao Putin

The book offers an extremely helpful analysis of those deranged Polish elites who bear “a heavy responsibility in the strategic catastrophe that awaits Washington and Brussels in Ukraine”. The Poles actually believed that Russia would crumble from the inside, complete with a color revolution against Putin. That barely qualifies as Brzezinski on crack.

Moreau shows how 2022 was the year when NATOstan, especially the Anglo-Saxons – historically racist Russophobes –  were self-convinced thar Russia would fold because it is a “poor power”. Obviously, none of these luminaries understood how Putin strengthened the Russian economy very much like Deng Xiaoping on the Chinese economy. This “self-intoxication”, as Moreau qualifies it, did wonders for the Kremlin.

By now it’s clear even for the deaf, dumb, and blind that the destruction of the European economy has been a massive tactic, historic victory for the Hegemon – as much as the blitzkrieg against the Russian economy has been an abysmal failure.

All of the above brings us to the meeting of G20 Foreign Ministers this week in Rio. That was not exactly a breakthrough. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made it very clear that the collective West at the G20 tried by all means to “Ukrainize” the agenda – with less than zero success. They were outnumbered and counterpunched by BRICS and Global South members.

At his press conference, Lavrov could not be more stark on the prospects of the war of the collective West against Russia. These are the highlights:

  • Western countries categorically do not want serious dialogue on Ukraine.
  • There were no serious proposals from the United States to begin contacts with the Russian Federation on strategic stability; trust cannot be restored now while Russia is declared an enemy.
  • There were no contacts on the sidelines of the G20 with either Blinken or the British Foreign Secretary.
  • The Russian Federation will respond to new Western sanctions with practical actions that relate to the self-sufficient development of the Russian economy.
  • If Europe tries to restore ties with the Russian Federation, making it dependent on their whims, then such contacts are not needed.

In a nutshell – diplomatically: you are irrelevant, and we don’t care.

That was complementing Lavrov’s intervention during the summit, which defined once again a clear, auspicious path towards multipolarity. Here are the highlights:

  • The forming of a fair multipolar world order without a definite center and periphery has become much more intensive in the past few years. Asian, African and Latin American countries are becoming important parts of the global economy. Not infrequently, they are setting the tone and the dynamics.
  • Many Western economies, especially in Europe, are actually stagnating against this background. These statistics are from Western-supervised institutions – the IMF, the World Bank and the OECD.
  • These institutions are becoming relics from the past. Western domination is already affecting their ability to meet the requirements of the times. Meanwhile, it is perfectly obvious today that the current problems of humanity can only be resolved through a concerted effort and with due consideration for the interests of the Global South and, generally, all global economic realities.
  • Institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, the EBRD, and the EIB are prioritizing Kiev’s military and other needs. The West allocated over $250 billion to tide over its underling thus creating funding shortages in other parts of the world. Ukraine is taking up the bulk of the funds, relegating Africa and other regions of the Global South to rationing.
  • Countries that have discredited themselves by using unlawful acts ranging from unilateral sanctions and the seizure of sovereign assets and private property to blockades, embargoes, and discrimination against economic operators based on nationality to settle scores with their geopolitical opponents cannot be considered guarantors of financial stability.
  • Without a doubt, new institutions that focus on consensus and mutual benefit are needed to democratize the global economic governance system. Today, we are seeing positive dynamics for strengthening various alliances, including BRICS, the SCO, ASEAN, the African Union, LAS, CELAC, and the EAEU.
  • This year, Russia chairs BRICS, which saw several new members join it. We will do our best to reinforce the potential of this association and its ties with the G20.
  • Considering that 6 out of 15 UN Security Council members represent the Western bloc, we will support the expansion of this body solely through the accession of countries from Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Call it the real state of things, geopolitically, two years after the start of the SMO.

The Axis of Asymmetry Rolls the ‘Rules-based Order’

Par : AHH

World War III is here, playing out asymmetrically in military, financial, and institutional battlefields, and the fight is an existential one. The western Hegemon, in truth, is at war against international law, and only ‘kinetic military action’ can bring it to heel.

By Pepe Escobar at The Cradle.

The Axis of Asymmetry is in full swing. These are the state and non-state actors employing asymmetrical moves on the global chessboard to sideline the US-led western rules-based order. And its vanguard is the Yemeni resistance movement Ansarallah.

Ansarallah is absolutely relentless. They have downed a $30 million MQ-9 Reaper drone with just a $10k indigenous missile.

They are the first in the Global South ever to use anti-ship ballistic missiles against Israel-bound and/or -protecting commercial and US Navy ships.

For all practical purposes, Ansarallah is at war with no less than the US Navy.

Ansarallah has captured one of the US Navy’s ultra-sophisticated autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV), the $1.3 million Remus 600, a torpedo-shaped underwater drone able to carry a massive payload of sensors.

Next stop: reverse engineering in Iran? The Global South eagerly awaits, ready to pay in currencies bypassing the US dollar.

All of the above – a maritime 21st-century remix of the Ho Chi Minh trail during the Vietnam War – spells out that the Hegemon may not even qualify as a paper tiger, but rather as a paper leech.

from the Resistance archives: Ho Chi Minh trail

Lula tells it as the Global South sees it

Into the Big Picture – linked to the relentless ongoing genocide perpetrated by Israel in Gaza – steps a true leader of the Global South, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Lula spoke in the name of Brazil, Latin America, Africa, BRICS 10, and the overwhelming majority of the Global South when he cut to the chase and defined the Gaza tragedy for what it is: a genocide. No wonder the Zionist tentacles across the Global North – plus its Global South vassals – went bonkers.

The genocidals in Tel Aviv declared Lula as persona non grata in Israel. Yet Lula did not assassinate 29,000+ Palestinians – the overwhelming majority of whom were women and children.

History will be unforgiving: it’s the genocidals that will eventually be judged as personae non grata to all of humanity.

What Lula said represented BRICS 10 in action: this was obviously cleared before with Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, and, of course, the African Union. Lula spoke in Addis Ababa, and Ethiopia is now a BRICS 10 member.

The Brazilian president was extremely smart in timing his Gaza fact-check to be on the table during the G20 meeting of Foreign Ministers in Rio. Way beyond BRICS 10, what’s happening in Gaza is a consensus among the non-Western G20 partners – who are actually a majority. No one, though, should expect any serious follow-up inside a divided G20. The heart of the matter remains in the facts on the ground.

Yemen’s fight for “our people” in Gaza is a matter of humanistic, moral, and religious solidarity – these are foundational tenets of the rising eastern “civilizational” powers, both domestically and in international affairs. This convergence of principles has now created a direct link – extrapolating to the moral and spiritual spheres – between the Axis of Resistance in West Asia and the Slavic Axis of Resistance in Donbass.

Extreme attention should be paid to the timescale. The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) forces and Russia have spent two hard-fought years in Novorossiya just to arrive at the stage where it becomes clear – based on the battlefield and cumulative facts on the ground – that “negotiations” mean only the terms of Kiev’s surrender.

In contrast, the job of the Axis of Resistance in West Asia has not even started. It’s fair to argue that its strength and full sovereign involvement have not been deployed yet (think Hezbollah and Iran).

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, with his proverbial subtlety, has hinted there’s, in fact, nothing to negotiate on Palestine. And if there would be a return to any borders, these would be the 1948 borders. The Axis of Resistance understands that the whole Zionist Project is unlawful and immoral. But the question remains how to throw it, in practice, into the dustbin of History?

Possible – avowedly optimistic – scenarios ahead would include Hezbollah taking possession of the Galilee as a step toward the eventual retaking of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Yet the fact remains that even a united Palestine does not have the military capability to reconquer stolen Palestinian lands.

So the questions posed by the overwhelming majority of the Global South that stands with Lula may be: Who else, apart from Ansarallah, Hezbollah, Hashd al-Shaabi, will join the Axis of Asymmetry in the fight for Palestine? Who would be willing to come to the Holy Land and die? (After all, in Donbass, it’s only Russians and Russophones who are dying for historically Russian lands)

And that brings us to the way towards the endgame: only a West Asian Special Military Operation (SMO), to the bitter end, will settle the Palestinian tragedy. A translation of what happens across the Slavic Axis of Resistance: “Those who refuse to negotiate with Lavrov, deal with Shoigu.”

Operations Prosperous Genocide (USUK) & Viperous (EU)

The menu, the table, and the guests

That out-of-his-depth closet neocon, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, let the cat out of the bag when he actually defined his much cherished “rules-based international order”: “If you’re not at the table, you are on the menu.”

Following his own hegemonic logic, it’s clear that Russia and the US/NATO are on the table while Ukraine is on the menu. What about the Red Sea? The Houthis defending Palestine against US–UK–Israel are clearly at the table, while Western vassals supporting Israel in a maritime way are clearly on the menu.

And that’s the problem: the Hegemon – or, in Chinese scholarly terminology, “the crusaders” – have lost the power to place the name cards at the table. The main reason for this authority collapse is the build-up of serious international meetings sponsored by the Russia–China strategic partnership during the past two years since the start of the SMO. It’s all about sequential planning, with long-term targets clearly outlined.

Only civilizational states can do that – not plutocratic neoliberal casinos.

Negotiating with the Hegemon is impossible because the Hegemon itself prevents negotiations (see the serial blocking of ceasefire resolutions at the UN). Additionally, the Hegemon excels in instrumentalizing its client elites across the Global South via threats or kompromat: see the hysterical reaction of Brazilian mainstream media to Lula’s verdict on Gaza.

What Russia is showing the Global South, two years after the start of the SMO, is that the only path to teach a lesson to the Hegemon has to be kinetic, or “military-technical.”

The problem is no nation-state can compare to nuclear/hypersonic/military superpower Russia, in which 7.5 percent of the government’s budget is dedicated to military production. Russia is and will remain on a permanent war footing until Hegemon’s elites come to their senses – and that may never happen.

Meanwhile, West Asia’s Axis of Resistance is watching and learning, day after day. It’s always crucial to keep in mind that for all the resistance movements across the Global South – and that also includes, for instance, West Africans against French neo-colonialism – the geopolitical fault lines could not be starker.

It’s a matter of the collective West versus Islam; the collective West versus Russia; and sooner rather than later, a substantial part of the West, even reluctantly, versus China.

The fact is we are already immersed in a World War that is both existential and civilizational. As we stand at the crossroads, there is a bifurcation: either escalation towards overt “kinetic military action,” or a multiplication of Hybrid Wars across several latitudes.

So it’s up to the Axis of Asymmetry, cool, calm, and collected, to forge the underground corridors, passages, and trails capable of undermining and subverting the US-led, unipolar, rules-based international order.

Medvedev Unplugged

Par : AHH

“A dog’s death is a dog’s death.”

Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev gave a long interview to the Russian media. He discusses the fate of the SMO, camps for pests in Russia, and WW3 (Eng Subs). The conversation was attended by journalists from Komsomolskaya Pravda, RIA Novosti, TASS, Radio Mayak and Lenta.ru.

Transcript:

Question: Thank you for the traditional invitation to this round table Kolya the beginning of the year then my first question will be just a global one.  Judging by your January and February posts on social networks subtle discussions about preventing Etsi training, I trained for a very long time in this year from you You shouldn’t expect such subtle reasoning, what do you expect from what year

Medvedev (DM):  Well, the year is actually already in full swing, after all, it’s mid-February like this What It’s absolutely obvious that certain trends have formed, what am I waiting for, but I’m thinking how and the vast majority of our citizens are waiting for Victory in a special military operation and this is probably where all our efforts are concentrated, waiting for the return of all our defenders who are taking part in this operation. Well, it means it will work out or not. This is a question that will be resolved just this year, but the trends that have formed a lot. The sun is working and developing Despite all the difficulties of current life I hope that all this will continue and during the remaining months of the year it will be good

1:45 Well, as for subtle existential problems, you know there are always more subtle arguments, less subtle questions about the degree of depth of analysis of certain problems, which means since you are reading there mo Nina, you probably notice that there are subtle arguments interspersed with very ordinary simple ones, sometimes harsh ones, that’s why it will be both, like this

2:17 Question: Dmitry Anatolyevich I will continue; Komsomolskaya Pravda Elena Revyakina: When you were president and prime minister both in Russia and in the West you were considered, well, if you look at the top of the Russian government, you were considered very liberal democratic politicians in recent years, your political image has changed a lot and you are called the main hater on behalf of the Russian authorities on the Internet. I’ve written out some of your expressions here that have become popular. I’ll read them; “to my colleagues from The USA and the EU are Atlantic impotents, a pack of barking dogs from the Western kennel, a motley pack of grunting pigs. And in relation to the French Foreign Ministry, you didn’t even expect us to use a swear word at all. It’s interesting that in relation to you and, well, our authorities, we fortunately didn’t do that we hear.” And the question is that history is cyclical and sooner or later But you will have to put up and somehow come to an agreement, so you personally are not afraid to become an unshakable politician in the international arena. You probably want to continue your political career in this direction

3:33 DM: Well, look at – firstly, those Qualities that were attributed to me and are attributed to me are always someone’s subjective assessments, these are those who wanted to see me as a liberal politician, these are certain circles in the West in our country, some circles or people. They saw it, which means I really am like this and there remained, as they say among the Russian people, another question: that of course the external situation will change for one simple reason because we believe that we were treated unfairly with the Russian Federation and therefore harsher assessments appeared, but as for my internal assessments and feelings, I dare to assure you they are completely probably haven’t changed,

I had, like any politician, illusions that were a little different, but they didn’t change much, but recently the president said that we’ve been with them for too long and this is the phase of our country’s development, it was necessary to give them answers to all the questions earlier extremely strict form regarding the fact that I’m afraid there that someone there won’t say hello or won’t shake hands, firstly, let them ask me to give them a hand, and secondly, when relations are normalizing and I’ll say about some because recently some of them will simply die. That’s why those who want to build relations with Russia must show this in a direct, openly frank form. There are such people and of course the number will grow, but in this sense I am absolutely I am confident that in the near future there will not be a major rapprochement with the West, Western Europe, the United States of America with the Anglo-Saxon world, there is too deep a gap, a divide has formed between us, if you like, and it will be very, very difficult to overcome it.

6:04 Question:  Recently, a number of Western publications have published articles on the topic of the fact that it’s worth dreaming of some possible defeat of Russia in Ukraine Because the focus has switched, the focus of the West has switched, the focus of the United States has switched to the Middle East, so what do you think such publications say, who are they really addressed to, and what conclusions should the Western audience and the West of Eli draw from these publications?

6:30 DMWell, only the Western elites themselves, who need to be properly nurtured and give them the right signals. So before this, the main calculation was for the defeat of Russia, taking into account the hybrid war that was unleashed against us, taking into account the fact that we are opposed by the entire Western world , of course, all Westerners with what Rus is – it will collapse and be divided into parts; Russia will not have enough power to resist the Atlantic military machine. And so on and so forth, events are developing in a completely different scenario.

7:17 Well, naturally, they must react somehow. If we talk about signals like it’s time to take a break, it’s time to start negotiations to a large extent, of course, this is such a cunning move, it means it’s not very cunning, let’s be honest, but the proposal is designed for the fact that we will stop our military actions, the Russian lands will not take place, they will not return to their native bosom, and at this moment they will receive a respite, concentrate, captivity, which will turn out to be several more successful than the failure that took place last year.

8:08 This is also what such publications are designed for. Well, partly. If you want, this is part of such a propaganda campaign and even means those visits that they make to special services, punching through this story in a variety of ways. social fear of different social environments This is nano Calculated. But we are absolutely indifferent to this, let them write what they want, it means it is obvious that they cannot ignore the current situation But what is happening in the Western media is only a reflection of a real-life picture of the real-life events of the day

8:56 Question:  Dmitry Anatolyevich, Anagen and here in the last DB the success of the Russian Armed Forces near Avdeevka Yesterday literally the president met with the Minister of Defense they discussed all the details, but in Ukraine immediately after this, naturally many began to accuse the new commander in chief that it was his fault and to remind him of Russian origin here In your opinion, Syrsky and I were so lucky or is this still the result of long-term combat work and I will immediately allow myself to ask in continuation of this question, they took Avdiivka and Donetsk, well, the shelling of Donetsk continues Unfortunately, And what in your opinion are the general limits of a special military operation? Should we will reach Kiev, maybe to Lvov, will there be any part of Ukraine that we will consider a legitimate state? Whose borders will it remain? We will be ready to recognize

10:07 DMAvdiivka yesterday, an analysis was given of what happened, this is certainly a major success of the Russian Armed Forces, everyone who took part in this operation is heroes and this needs to be said directly. This, of course, is not some kind of Syrsky. But these are our valiant Armed Forces who concentrated, conducted long-term preparations and made this Breakthrough. You probably all paid attention, because such a fortified area was created in the Avdeevka area, it took more than a year or two to create, these are really very serious fortification protective structures and this made it possible to hold this settlement, so it was a difficult task, but our Armed Forces coped with it brilliantly, I want to congratulate everyone again on this event.

10:59 Well concerns where to go. Well, I’ll express my point of view, which in my opinion corresponds to the current picture of the day, we need to fully ensure our interests What does it mean to fully ensure our interests, firstly, fulfill our tasks that the president said, and secondly, create the necessary protective cordon that will insure from any kind of encroachment on our land, not only shelling but also active offensive operations, and so on and so forth, and only in this case it will be possible to admit that the tasks have been completed, I don’t know where to stop. I think that, taking into account what I said, it means we will still have to will it work a lot and seriously, will it be Kiev?

11:45 Yes Probably it should be Kiev too. If not now then after some time maybe in some kind of this conflict for two reasons [1] Kiev is a Russian city and [2] from there comes a threat to the existence of the Russian Federation International threat because at least Kiev and a Russian city by its roots, it is controlled by the International Brigade of opponents of Russia, led by the United States of America, all who formally perform their functions there are Puppets who have neither conscience nor fear for the future of their country; it is impossible that all decisions are made overseas and at headquarters NATO is absolutely obvious, that’s why Yes, it could be Kiev, which means that if something remains from Ukraine as a result of everything that is happening, then probably such a state has a chance of surviving, although not very great, which means, and in any case, this is certainly not a question for today, but it will be on the agenda after a while

13:05  We must guarantee the future of Russia and without the defeat of this nationalist pro-fascist clique in Kiev it is impossible. This regime must fall. It must be destroyed. It should not remain in this world what will be left for later what will be left in this territorial entity I can’t call it a country now, I don’t know, maybe Lemberg is a region with a center in the city of Lemberg if the Poles or some other regions are very concerned about it. But this is a complex not only military but also a political process and have your say in this in the process they must play or say only war , but the people themselves inhabiting these lands, I have said this many times, that the current Ukrainian state is dangerous for the Ukrainians themselves, and for them this choice looks like this: either life in a normal common state with Russia, or at least in some close principles to the common state of frost, we must make this choice for ourselves.

14:33 Question:  RIA Novosti Maria [sit..] continuation of the topic of Ukraine; How do you assess Zelensky’s prospects today, in your opinion, how loyal are his subordinates to him, can another coup d’etat happen in Ukraine and If so, with whom then to negotiate, if at all,

14:53 DMit is a secondary question from the point of view of who to negotiate with negotiations, a holy place is never empty As for this character, his fate is certainly sad in the history of his country in the history of the world, he will remain as the Bloody Clown who became known thanks to famous publications and who did not bring anything good to his people. Well, he will probably be remembered for the fact that he is delicately individual he played the piano with parts of his body. That’s probably all I can say about him, but the point is not in him.

The point is that the elites themselves who now rule in Kiev must leave, some out of goodness and health, and some forcibly and must appear completely different people who are aware of their responsibility for the future of the people inhabiting this complex There is still an existing entity called Ukraine, when such people appear, somehow you can negotiate with them, although we did not refuse negotiations even with this clique, but you yourself know that they did, they forbade these negotiations for themselves, and even attempts by Western countries to push them in this direction have not yet brought success. You can understand why. Therefore, they will realize. As soon as they say, We are ready for negotiations with the Russian Federation, and their conditions are understood; this recognition of the results will immediately tear off their head. will be demolished And therefore they naturally try as much as possible to delay the moment when they have to pack their bags and leave there for Warsaw or London. Well, this is the best

16:57 Question: case of the technical options about how Ukraine will disappear from the world map; the best was considered the third when the Western lands join a number of EU countries, people central and some other economically unruly regions declare self-determination by joining the Russian Federation; Hungary, Romania and Poland, as you know, have already made territorial claims of their own. This year, at the end of last year, more and more people are appearing in the west. As you just said. We discussed supporters fix the situation along the line of military conflict, but at the moment it’s the end of February, according to which of your options are events currently developing?

17:36 DMWell, in fact, none of these options can yet be rejected, the main thing is that events are developing as a whole in the trend that I’m talking about wrote, it means how it will all end with slow erosion and the fall of power in Kiev or the instant collapse of the call system and the rapid replacement of the main political characters, it’s difficult to say yet, but this process is underway and obviously it cannot be stopped, and everything that happens on the line of combat contact, everything that happens in the holding area its the best proof of these trends. I don’t know how it will happen. I don’t know, but it will happen without any doubt and everyone understands it, so a lot of analysts are there either openly or those who are still afraid and embarrassed somewhere on the sidelines are saying that Well, that’s it That’s how we will certainly not be able to defeat Russia there in this sense. Although publicly they declare all sorts of nonsense, they carry some kind of political blizzard, such as that we should not allow Russia to win this war.

I was recently forced to speak out on this very topic. This is what it means to prevent Victory This means on the terms on which Kiev speaks, that is, to take away from Russia our territories that were included in the Constitution of the Russian Federation as a result of a referendum and that means our new lands were annexed. Our subjects of the Federation returned to Russia. Well, it’s clear this is a global catastrophe. This is a real full-fledged Third World War. Knowledge of all sorts of shoals and other things they are designed only for the public. They themselves are not into it. they believe but are forced to repeat it like a mantra simply in order to justify the gigantic expenditures on the corresponding military budgets. Well, so far everything is developing. It is according to this scenario of more accurate forecasts

19:57 Question:  Yushchenko in his interview with Deutsche Welle said I allow myself to quote the question not in Putin, but the bearers of Putinism are 140 million of these little Putins who need to be destroyed. Do you think our media should rebroadcast such statements in order to show the essence of this Nazi regime and all the Elites in Ukraine, or, on the contrary, it is better not to focus attention on such statements, which are essentially a call for genocide?

20:32 DMmy opinion should be emphasized to the maximum extent Yushchenko is rare with a lumpy one so nasty that it ’s unpleasant even to look at on TV, but this information must be conveyed to everyone in the world and socially to the military personnel who defend our country, this opinion despite my assessment of this character of the former president of Ukraine means they are in something then they try to reproach But the former president of Ukraine makes such statements, however, his essence was clear to me, in any case, already in 2010, when I was forced to give the future president the most harsh assessment of the leader of Ukraine, which was extremely unusual in general for the period, we still tried with them somehow building relationships and so on, but already then, in fact, he actively began to move towards NATO and well, preparing for a war with Russia, it’s not even Kuchma who said that Ukraine is not Russia. This is a completely different character, that’s why my opinion about it it needs to be told so that everyone knows that.

21:54 Question:  I stated that Odessa can be both a bone of discord and a symbol of conflict resolution; since then, monuments to Empress Catherine II have been demolished in Odessa. And in recent months, there have been discussions about dismantling the monument to Prince Mikhail Vorontsov, which stood even in Soviet times on the spot Here’s How do you assess such a policy of the Ukrainian authorities, what can Russia oppose to the destruction of Russian cultural historical heritage other than military force and what fate would you wish for Odessa and its residents?

22:32 DMWell, about Odessa, I can just say Odessa come home and that’s it. So we’ve been waiting for Odessa in Russia Federation, even due to the history of this city, what kind of people live there, what language they speak, this is our Russian city. As for their behavior of this clique of the Kiev regime of Kiev, but at least this is short-sighted because they thereby simply alienate some of the people even those who were loyal until recently Their authorities Well, in general, it looks monstrous because we are talking about measures to counteract the entire Russian culture in general and our entire common path. Well, they are demolishing monuments. We have never even thought about this, all the main Ukrainian characters with the exception of outright Nazis, Banderites of various kinds. So we have always treated them with respect.

I’m not even talking about those people of those classics who, in general, are the pride of the Ukrainian people in the known world and the Ukrainian people were, I mean, Shevchenko. Although he a significant part of the works was written in Russian by Lesya Ukrainka, I’m not talking about Gogol, who is generally one of the outstanding Russian Ukrainian writers, as if immediately answering the question that may arise here, I proceed from the fact that in general the Russians of Ukraine are one people , which means this started talking only in XX century after the destruction of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, this is one people. Yes, there are linguistic features ; there is a classical Russian language; there is a South Russian dialect; years they were together, they were separated by various historical events.

Well, I’m not even talking about the fact that Russia at some point was forced to come to the aid of the inhabitants of these Little Russian territories and drive out all the uninvited guests there. The Poles and others concluded the necessary agreements that allowed this part of Russia to develop autonomously and not under the heel of individual Western countries, the composition of Ukraine actually included certain territories that are not directly related to Russia, this is true, but there are different moods and different approaches, and they were always looking in a certain direction, you know, it was always like that.

[I] was probably about 15 years and the school and I went to Tallinn. Well, Tallinn also had its own moods, that was known. But nevertheless, we were accepted there as schoolchildren. We were placed as I remember now, in the sports hall, we were put to sleep on mats, which means that suddenly, we were almost lost there, as they say. a crowd of guys come in, so dressed up, excited, says Let’s go talk Well, we went together Swa where the schoolchildren are from, the same as and say Lvov no, everything was decent, we chatted something there, talked, but you know what I noticed, it was extremely surprising for me, I was normal, normal A Soviet schoolboy, this is some kind of eightieth howl, the first year in their words. And these were children, there was an undisguised hatred for everything Soviet. Well, and partly Russian, for me, as a person who was brought up in international traditions, we didn’t even know who was what nationality in the class. It was very It’s amazing.

Maybe at first I didn’t even attach such importance to it, I didn’t attach such importance, but then I understood. These children who came to meet us were also children from the families of those same Banderites who were brought up in this atmosphere and already, what is called mother’s milk, absorbed hatred to everything Russian. But this is a completely special part of that territorial community, I cannot call it in the full sense a country, and then it was not a country, it was just a republic within the USSR which was called Ukraine, as you know, appearing there as a result of the political events of the first half of the century. I remembered this and wanted to tell you.

28:12 Question: Thank you. About relations with the United States. I wanted to talk what do you think if Trump wins the American elections Will it be more convenient for Russia to build relations with him and in general is it possible to improve relations between Russia and America in the coming years. If yes, under what conditions could this happen and is it possible to return to at least a discussion of treaties that have ceased to be valid?

28:42 DM Now my current position allows me to speak more categorically openly than in certain other periods without regard to the need to build [communication]. I will answer simply Marie, [it] impossible in the coming years of the decade. There will be no normal relations between the United States of America after what happened and, by and large, we are absolutely indifferent to who is at the helm of power in the United States. Yes, they have personal characteristics. Although, looking at the current president and the previous one, I always get the feeling, I don’t know about you, that I watching comics. In a certain sense, the heroes who uttered memes form memes, which means that they are the reason for endless jokes and everything that the Internet and social networks are replete with.

29:53 Why am I talking about this? Well, compare, let’s say Biden on the one hand and Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, […] America is strong here I am I ask you not to think about some kind of conspiracy theory. I talk about this completely seriously when they talk about the deep state, if you don’t take any stupid theories. But to be serious, this deep state is just a very strong state apparatus at the middle level that doesn’t care who is in power a democrat or a republican, a funny grandfather who forgets the names of the leaders of other countries or a completely strong leader of the state, the APT holds the VH that allows America to overcome a variety of obstacles, in fact, to create such a state apparatus is a very serious and big task and this must be treated with respect This allows them to overcome a lot of difficulties.

31:13 But even this state apparatus is not able to fully remove the problems and contradictions that this or that leader can bring , but when you look at what is happening on the border with Mexico, I can hardly imagine this under another president. Well that there is direct disobedience of the Federal authority and the supreme ruler, so to speak, of the United States cannot do anything about it when the head of the state says I will not carry out your instructions, we will not carry out the decision of the Supreme Court, we do not obey the National Guard, we obey our laws and we have our own guard We will carry out these tasks in this sense, this is such a very colorful touch showing the depth of the contradictions and they are connected with the fact that the states are trying, despite their waning strength, to play first fiddle in the international arena instead of really in this case it is difficult to disagree with a number of legislators in In America, instead of strengthening their own country, deal with these problems at the border and solve social problems there, which are more pressing problems that in any state, including rich America, they spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a country that for most Americans does not know Where it is Well, this is a well-known thing Ask where e Ukraine, they will be there for a long time looking for where it is on the world map And that it is clear that this money largely goes to maintaining the military-industrial complex of the United States But on the other hand, it is not spent on social tasks, economic tasks are also of a different order. That is why giving so much a detailed answer with whom it is better for us to work, it doesn’t matter who we work with, because we have direct antagonism now and this gap will not be bridged in the next year.

33:14 Question:  Dmitry Anatolyevich developing the previous question and when Europe stops listening to the USA and to be their salt?

DM:  you know by these things the feelings that I now have in the coming years this will not happen for several reasons, firstly, the Americans took very good advantage of the weakness of Europe, they recaptured a number of economic spheres from them, they completely ensure their security, that is, the Europeans march in formation on the orders of the United States, and secondly, in Europe about m as you have said many times, a generation of dull Technocrats has arrived who are only separated by the Eurohangar, […] again Compare Macron and many of his predecessors to the same Mitterrand whom Biden confuses with Macron But these are different presidents and Francois Mitterrand and Immanuel Macron are different presidents, maybe this will be important information for them, but I’m not talking about General de Gaulle. Compare the liverwurst of Scholz and Kohl or Schmitt. These are different politicians.

The previous generation had well, what is called the internal strength to object on issues important to their countries, this does not mean that they they went over to our side or abandoned some European ideals, no, but they could secretly object that during the period when De Gaulle was President of France, France suspended participation in the military component of NATO considered this correct. Can you imagine that now at least someone about he stuttered about this and they will tear him into pieces, he will say yes, the Russians will attack us instantly again, the Cossacks will gallop around Paris and it means that there will simply be a world collapse, which is why it means that in this sense there is no way to talk to.

35:58 If such people appear, it will be easier to find a common language with them. I hope that they will appear, if not tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow. It’s just that people will ask such people to come because they will feel that the current generation of politicians does not live up to their hopes, technically, it’s possible to redly close to six hundred. I was on M.

36:31 Question:  You just touched on several already now which you’ve raised several times on social networks the topic of possible Independence of the state of Texas Could the situation with illegal migrants lead to the loss of a star on the US flag and the emergence of a new independent state?

DM:  I wrote in my humorous forecast that this will happen. Now we are all waiting for the conclusion of an agreement on friendship and cooperation between the TPR and the DPR of the Texas people republic and the Donetsk People’s Republic But in fact, speaking seriously Just 20 years ago this would have seemed nonsense Yes United States Federation The Federation has more internal problems, we know from the experience of the Soviet Union and our experience too, but nevertheless it is a very strong country Leader There and so on, and now this is a completely discussed main thing. Why Because there has been such a division of values, if you want, even a civilizational one between parts of America, and the relationship between supporters of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party used to laugh, they said yes, it’s all the same thing, it’s all big capital from them It means they have a unified position, they just put forward certain points that they use during the election campaign. But now you can’t say that anymore, it’s not a difference in ideology, but the fact that they don’t hear each other and even hate each other.

38:21 Look what the attitude of the nuclear democratic electorate is to Donald Trump, they hate him more than all of us put together because they see him as a threat and, on the contrary, the Trumpists, the conservative wing of the Republican Party, believes that this course of the Democrats of this frenzied globalization will lead America to a dead end from here yes So this is the slogan of [MAGA]. The Revival of internal forces America is actually their problem. But the fact that this will happen 20-25 years ago was impossible to imagine, but it happened. This is precisely because of the mediocre course pursued by the US leadership after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

39:25 Question:  Well, that is, a state may appear, but

DM:  Well, it seems to me I said this, isn’t the agreement between the People’s Republic and the DPR a sign of the statehood of the Armed Forces? Maybe now this is really not an excluded option, as they themselves talk about it. By the way, if you think that we are very happy about this, then no. Because with all the costs of coexistence, let’s say honest enmity united states for It is more important for us that there be a situation there than for a managerial collapse to occur or some unpredictable civil war to break out like in the 19th century.

Well, for one simple reason, America is still the most important world player; America has colossal military potential; America is our direct enemy in this sense, but on the other hand parties partner for negotiations on nuclear potential America Unfortunately for the world, the ENO is the leading issuer of a reserve currency, if this currency is crap, then in fact there will be consequences. For everyone, this also needs to be aware of this; it is necessary to gradually displace the dollar from the first positions; there must be a set of reserve currencies what we have been talking about for decades Yes, but if you suddenly pull out the dollar, the balance between reserve currencies in the world needs to develop electronic currencies, digital currencies are the future. But you need to understand the risks that exist

41:10 Question:  In the Middle East, the situation is also tense. And what will happen if Iran gets involved military conflict, can this completely switch the attention of the backside from supporting Ukraine and breaking this and [Mikh]

DM:  About the dream of that character who is now sitting in Kiev that all attention will be switched by an element of the psychotype if a person is used to an actor playing there That’s how I said on different instruments that absence his attention makes him completely unsure that I am not needed, this is sad, but in fact, the World lives, of course, according to different laws, attention and so will largely be diverted from Ukraine in the Middle East and in a number of other regions, Iran, which you mentioned, seems to me to be very occupied a balanced, calm position does not allow itself to be drawn into any showdowns.

This speaks of the wisdom of the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but in the end, no matter how trivial it may sound, in everything that happens there, the sleepy States are to blame, again. This is who is blocking the fulfillment of the year on the creation of the Jewish and Arab states The Americans have been blocking for many decades, the first few decades they behaved more or less normally and then they stopped being active here, and we understand that the controlling stake in the settlement in this region in Chita lives in the decision-making autonomy of the Israeli authorities, this is of course not the case and they largely dependent on financial and military assistance from the United States.

Therefore, if the United States wanted peace in the Middle East, in any case, by creating two states, these decisions would be much better to manage the conflict from the point of view of the leadership of the United States of America, divide and rule, it is easier to give everyone a little and to show their indispensability, all the more so. They believed in this again after the disappearance of the Soviet Union from the world map because the Soviet Union was still quite actively pursuing its own policy in the Middle East, then a vacuum arose and the United States decided that they were in control of everything there, but the result was that [conflicts of interest] killed it is sad

44:00 Question:  You just spoke about the USA as a nuclear power I have a question about the use of nuclear weapons if it seemed like it a year ago Well, some horror stories and you also somehow spoke about it quite easily, but now your rhetoric is again is changing to a tougher one and you are talking about the threat of using nuclear weapons. Well, it seems quite serious in the public space. And we all understand it like this, if humanly. Yes, understand that if Russia, for the same reasons for itself , presses the nuclear button, then overseas it presses the answer is well, or on the contrary, they press, we press this is a threat to all humanity and probably there are not so many masochists even in the highest echelons of power, after all. Explain how scary these are or do you really believe in the reality of such a scenario, we need to now at least all of us run to some kind of bunker

DM:  Well now there is no need to run. But no matter how sad this scenario sounds, this scenario is real, this scenario is real, we must do everything to prevent it from happening. But this very clock that is ticking there in a certain direction has now accelerated very much and in this I also see the inability. Excuse the impotence of these Western authorities who constantly repeat the same thing No, this is the Armed Forces, the Russians are scaring them, they will never do this, they are mistaken.

45:26 If we are talking about the existence of our country, I also said this recently. What choice will be left for leadership for the head of state , no, that’s why this is unfortunately real the existing threat is a direct and obvious threat to all humanity, there are also arguments that, unfortunately, can be given in this direction, firstly, when humanity created something from weapons. It was always used. [i.e.] by the Americans. What do they think? By the way, they dealt a then unnecessary blow to Japan, which was our common enemy And after that that ‘s all Nobody will ever take this out of the Arsenal, I’m not even talking about our nuclear weapons now, that’s not true, there can be a lot of motives. This first and second is also an accident from which no one is immune, and the accidental unintentional start of a nuclear conflict cannot be dismissed as accounts, therefore, all these games around Ukraine are extremely dangerous

46:43 Well, look, if it occurs to someone, and periodically these clever guys in NATO talk about this. So they will put planes to fly for them While there is nowhere special from Ukraine, let some Starton plane from a NATO country take it this is an attack on Russia I won’t even describe further What can happen Although it can happen Well, almost by accident and not intentionally it may not even be sanctioned at the level of the entire leadership of NATO and the United States as the holders of the main, so to speak, NATO package and the main levers, so unfortunately such a development of events. Perhaps we must do everything to prevent this from happening.

47:36 Unfortunately all instruments of control, full-fledged nuclear deterrence, they are now destroyed, in our opinion, thanks to the efforts of Western countries, because even the last agreement that we once signed with both Obama and which was extended Vladimir Vladimirovich, together with Biden, he has now practically exhausted himself; other agreements are also practically ineffective. So the world is in a tense state.

Question:  Well, there’s no need [for use of nuclear weapons] for now.

DM:  Yes [there’s no need], but I won’t deceive the readers of Komsomolskaya Pravda or all those present; this is not whipping up passions. This is just a reason to think about where For some reason, we people, you know, when we think, well, we almost started a nuclear war, but that was a long time ago, it wasn’t true, it was there because of Cuba, it was also because of something, and now it’s impossible. What’s the difference? in no way is the situation even more tense, then there was no conflict between Russia and America. But now it exists and everyone understands it. That ’s how

48:48 Question: I would like to defuse the situation a little, so let’s talk about the future. Well, in particular, let’s probably turn to the internal agenda and talk about those who have returned Russian regions, this is how it is in the Russian leadership the situation there is being assessed from the point of view of the political construction of economic restoration. Surely there is such a problem as waiting, what should those people who do sports do with them? Because it’s more convenient And deep down they are waiting for the arrival of Ukrainian tanks and there is one more nuance, it’s quite subtle and probably painful. But for sure there are people who are registered according to documents somewhere in the regions of Donbass, but it so happened that they are fighting in the ranks of the Armed Forces, no one canceled the oath And when it all ends when it ends when we win [Medvedev interjects: When we win unconditionally] And what will happen to them will they receive Russian passports or what

50:04 DMWell, look, it means about the general situation with new regions, new subjects of the Russian Federation, they are developing, there are obvious changes for the better, the housing stock is being restored, industry is being restored within certain parameters , the social sphere is being restored, payments are being made, this is seen by the people who live there, the situation is different everywhere, there are regions and, say, populated areas points that live essentially on the line of combat contact, this is a very difficult story, our people there risk their lives every day and everyone needs to remember this. These people are essentially at the front, but nevertheless life is changing and a lot has already been done there, but not enough to to give life to the level that we expect is the task set by the president by this year so that, according to the main parameters, the residents of these territories of these regions are equal to other regions of our country; this task is absolutely feasible.

Just look at our experience that we gained in Crimea when I went there for the first time got it It seemed to me that a generation separates us from the point of view of the development of the social sphere of medicine and education. Well, nothing [did not happen] in just 5 years, everything has been greatly improved, and here the same can be done, but only when everything is finally decided on the military front, which means this is the first thing.

As for the people, you know, there are different people there, you said, they sit and wait for Ukrainian tanks. I think there aren’t many of them there. There are just people who sit and think, that’s how the Whites will come and rob, the Reds will come to rob, which means in other words, who will be stronger, that’s who we will serve.

There are certainly such people there, but nevertheless, we must work with everyone, so to speak, there is nothing like that if it’s just caution. Well, we need to convince these people that we are back forever, if these are people who are harming Russia, they need to be exposed and punished — sent to Siberia so for re-education correction to labor camps. As for those who are now fighting, you understand, well here what can you remember what events in the history of the [last] century, but when did the Second World War end, the leaders of Hitler’s Germany, the NSDAP SS activists, the party and political apparatus were tried.

Well, some they executed a few, some were simply convicted, but the vast majority of participants in the corresponding German military machine returned home; they were forgiven if they were not convicted of crimes against humanity in genocide, extermination of people on ethnic grounds, and so on. In a certain sense, the same scale should be applied here. We don’t destroy prisoners, on the contrary, we treat them humanely, as you can see lately, They are actively surrendering, but they understand that they are still a pony in the middle.

53:58 Question:  United Russia is taking part in the preparation of Putin’s election program and your forecast for the elections. What do you think? what will the result be?

DM:  The President is the leader of our country. The United Russia party, as is known, unanimously supported his candidacy at its congress. We are trying our best to keep this in mind. Vladi is in order, he has enormous authority in our country. As for the election program, the President himself forms it.

Moreover, I’ll say straight out that the president’s program can be broader than the program of United Russia, even taking into account the fact that the president is supported not only by those who vote for a bully candidate, so that means we will certainly be ready to implement the ideas with which the president goes to the polls, some of them, well essentially in this pre-election vein. He will probably voice this during the delivery of his message at the end of the month.

Well, as for the forecasts for everything else, I think there is no doubt that Vladimir Vladimirovich will win these elections and show the highest results.

55:27 Question:  Dmitry Anatolyevich is no secret that you are an active Internet user. [DM: Well, yes..] and in this regard, your opinion is very interesting. Is it necessary to block the external Internet and how to provide, well, some kind of protection against well, our Internet space from toxic content from Internet scammers who simply demonstrate miracles of ingenuity in an attempt, [DM: they are scammers] and you guys are chasing money, but what’s the saddest thing is that these funds often go to our enemies to support the Armed Forces and some other things that are destructive for us, this is like one moment, and I also have one here in question, probably Well, not directly related but indirectly, we often talk about the need to ensure intellectual sovereignty, and our citizens are also savvy here, probably. Well, in your opinion, it plays an important role. Is it necessary to speed up the announced Steps on education reform?

56:40 DM:  You have several questions, which means I’ll start with: Do we need to isolate yourself No, of course, yes, this is almost unrealistic in the modern world. You can tweak something a little, block something, let’s put it bluntly. But completely isolating it is unrealistic and not necessary, the more such segments arise, the more interest there is in them; you need to understand that

Another question is that you really need to put blocks on destructive things destructive various kinds of criminal activity, for example, there are the same [as] drugs and so on. But this should be very, very selective with regard to the protection of our critical technologies, our elements of critical information infrastructure. This is the most important task that was set in general. We need to move faster for quite a long time. You know, I head a commission on this, so to speak, digital sovereignty on critical information technologies, there is a task to bring all the software regarding critical infrastructure to Russian rails, the task is not easy because we don’t have everything, plus it exists.

Well, such conservatism of thinking in companies is because foreign is better than ours and therefore Let us work on it some more, but everyone was convinced that such threats exist after the way Western countries behaved, for example with ordinary household appliances, people bought cars from them, then there are no updates, but it’s just a car or something else some kind of equipment. When we are talking about power plants, elements of other infrastructure, key transport, and so on. This is already a very serious threat.
Therefore, we will definitely cover this topic. Promoting concerning education reform, in view of what exactly is in the reform?

58:53 Question:  Well, now we very often have, as it were , and we are trying to build a patriotic Education education and a savvy person, he resists much more easily the same destructive content, he just bounces off it, it does no good [DM: black is always capable of distinguishing from white], so then it’s not scary to have to be poisoned by some kind of iron curtain of the Internet, and so on

DM:  I understood yes. Well, of course, it’s absolutely certain that a person who is well advanced in these areas is easier to navigate in this and it’s more difficult, so to speak, for scammers to have a conversation with him although every time they come up with something new. But this is a question of general enlightenment. Look at how it happened Well, I probably remember this You also, one way or another, remember Russia’s integration into the Internet environment when the Internet became popular among us

Well, this is not about the nineties Although a user In the nineties of the Internet, some people, especially people of the older generation, believed everything that was on the Internet, well, on TV they always tell the truth. Yes, in the newspapers they always write the truth and Wikipedia tells the truth Pete Ilya VN information, she was prepared to visualize and then growing up came.

I’m not talking about what to believe. no one is allowed, but still, a significant part of almost everyone in our country today understands that there can be lies and fakes on the Internet and everything. What is connected with this in the future there will be more [technology] most likely to the fact that we will have to expose various falsehoods on this topic and that means fighting these fakes, since this is already happening now, so education in this area is necessary. You are right. But you know, as if I would say this is not just some kind of courses, it seems to me a general maturation of the audience.

Strangely enough, our children are often in this I mean, Horseshoe is better than a child, they have been using all this since childhood and they understand that it’s all wrong, it’s all not working, it’s all there, so to speak, somehow they’re talking in a different language. If you paid attention to how millennials communicate, zoomers communicate. It’s like that further This is a slightly different language Although it irritates me now to say it, but this is already the grumbling of an adult. That’s why society will grow up. This is obvious, but we must move society towards this, probably , we probably need to make some decisions in education too on this topic

I really to be honest, I can’t even imagine what the basics of information hygiene are. It seems to me that this is a course that is unlikely to be difficult, unlikely to be easy to teach, but I’ll say it again, I don’t even have some skills in this sense, but who more often falls for the bait is precisely people who are more adults who didn’t have this information hygiene that you said since childhood That is, they just absorbed it all And absorbed it all, we just need to fight the scammers This is absolutely obvious.

1:02:43 Question:  Let’s talk about the economy. Is there any hope that Russia will return frozen assets Do we need them or will we be able to survive and without these 2, if the West comes up with a withdrawal mechanism, how can we respond?

DM:  I will express my position. I think that the chances of returning this money are small, although I feel sorry for them, but this is an element of confrontation, part of that hybrid war that is unleashed against us. Note, I want to draw attention to one point that they understand in the West, look, the West is legally not officially a participant in the war with our country. The West did not declare war on Russia, but we did not declare war on the European Union, on Western
countries.

Yes, we understand there is a hybrid war going on, they pump them up with weapons with money, instructors. But officially, and this is very important, we are not in now here is a continuation of the thought Why in certain cases a country pays reparations because something is confiscated from it, confiscated because other countries are participants in the conflict with it, they are in a state of war, and the West is with us and it talks about it all the time in the Kama Foundation

Because of this, they have such confusion in their brains, “I want to take it away, I want to give this money to the Ukrainian authorities” and with on the other hand, this is an explosion, this is a hacking of the legal world order, this is a rejection of the principles of the basic principles of protecting global private property, and so on, which has already been there for hundreds of years, which is why this task is still difficult for them.

But if they want, of course, they will refuse everything based on their principles and take it away this is the Sun. We will survive without this. As for our answers, they may be different, there are even a number of decisions on this matter, but they are still of such a fragmentary nature; for obvious reasons, we do not have investments from foreign countries on our territory on which we could impose our own penalties This is how our investments are, let’s say.

But we have a fairly large fund of obligations for which we must fulfill something in relation to Western investors, this set of obligations is estimated differently, but it can range from 250 to 300 billion dollars, this is completely different history, but in principle it is asymmetrical; the answer in this case will not be fulfilled by the private investor, although we would frankly not really want to go down this path. But this is still just reasoning out loud. Moreover, no decisions have been made there either, even regarding income for our assets but most likely this will happen I think. We are preparing for this.

1:06:25 Question:  About Texas you said but about the Texas problem I aggravated a little the marketplace losses were quite large and again raised a painful issue around the topic of migration – this is ethnic crime and unwillingness to follow the norms of our society and in the current conditions There are risks of using the migrants who are here with us for sabotage purposes. You yourself said that the situation should not be allowed to destabilize due to conflicts between migrants and the local population. Now maybe it’s time to tighten the migration policy in your opinion.

DM:  Well, if we talk about various types of criminal actions. Here you are they mentioned sabotage and so on in fact Unfortunately, not all acts of sabotage are committed by migrants, we understand that some of them will be committed by our criminals who did not migrate at all and who were bought by traitors, which is why we should immediately say here that it all came from there incorrectly and the migration problem is complex American — here is an example that we just spoke to you proves that there are migration problems that are much more complex than those that face our country.

So, in short, I will say that those who commit crimes on the territory of Russia among migrants are subject to strict criminal liability in this There can be no doubt about those who are legally obedient participants in trade relations of economic relations in our country. Well, that means they can actually come and work. You and I understand that without this source of labor resources we also very often cannot survive.

But what needs to be done? And this is this probably the main thing is to put everything under control. And this can be done through digital services that are now being actively implemented and such a task has now been set, because what is the problem, some people are moving in under someone else’s name, there is even such a topic as the difficulties of transliteration, one letter changes And we no longer understand the same person is not the same person whether he has an entry ban or not. He has a ban.

This database needs to be digitized by the Armed Forces and then the situation will become much more manageable, in other words, these processes need to be managed competently. We are learning to do this. Although there are problems here, this is true, but without any doubt, we will have to do this precisely because our situation as a whole is not the simplest right now. [Q: That is, like in Europe.] Yes, yes, I mean this, including biometrics.

But this is an even broader statement of the problem in addition to biometrics. just so that all this is in a single database and not scattered across different sources because often in one place they don’t know what was done in another, such a universal database with elements of biometric information that you are talking about will allow you to put it under control And of course In general, the practice of applying Russian administrative and criminal law should also be used with all its might; those who were told at some point goodbye should no longer return.

1:10:10 Question:  Dmitry Anatolyevich I’ll touch on the military topic again, but from a slightly different angle, all the form of armature in parades, but the WTO when qi old tanks Really someone threw dust in the eyes of the management by talking about the successes of the Russian defense industry and now you are visiting enterprises, inspecting in your opinion whether there is enough capacity to realize your goals and whether there are problems with personnel because the enterprises work 24/7, enough for specialists?

DM:  Clear means, (well parades are parades and war is war). These mean completely different things. And here you just need to understand the different criteria that are used. The Armata tank is a new tank, it has not yet been fully tested, it is not the cheapest Tank. We have other tanks that are brilliant have proven themselves during their period, this is
the T90m breakthrough, which the president recently called the best tank in the world. I would like to completely share this position. All my conversations, for example, with those who take part in it both at the training grounds and, in fact, on the line of combat contact prove that it is just that simple. I’m here

When I came to inspect individual recruitment units under a contract, the commanders, the combat commanders who were in the front line, they are forming a unit then they will leave, they asked, they say, help us get the T90, this is a very good weapon, but also other tanks . Well, if we started talking about tanks, the T-80 BVM and T-72 B 3M Why do I call these letters with numbers modernized Tanks? Yes, their project is, well, the eighties and seventies, so to speak. But these tanks definitely show themselves no worse and better than Western ones, especially in the modernized version. But the most important thing is that we were able to supply armored vehicles to the Armed Forces and this equipment is used, these are thousands and thousands of armored vehicles.

1:12:54 Now regarding the military-industrial complex. Well, you need to understand that the military-industrial complex or the defense-industrial complex works differently during military operations and in ordinary life; no one ever produces weapons of destruction only to the warehouse This is absolutely obvious during the period of hostilities. It takes completely different forms as with work in three shifts are huge. We have a defense order for individual positions, but about tanks. I said through defeat. I mean missiles, shells, bombs, production there has increased from DH to 10 or 15 times, that is, by 1%, this allows us to actively use them in combat work and in general, to achieve results, therefore, the defense industry In my opinion, it passed the test, it has proven itself in the best way, quite

By the way, read Western analytics, at first they scoffed, they said, they are pulling out something old, they are missing this, this is not enough, and now we have piled on everyone with NATO and we will be them supplying all this means tanks and shells and walkie-talkies, and that means UAVs and so on, but now they don’t laugh anymore. They see that in a significant part of a significant part of the components we are superior to them.

A separate issue is unmanned aerial vehicles, before we really started ours, this component was not really was well developed, this is true, but to the credit of the agro-industrial complex, it must be admitted that over the last year and a half, this gap has been bridged and now our drones operate in all segments, from large vehicles to loitering supplies, that is, one-time drones that perform a single task, destroy an object and are disappearing and all this is also put on stream, so I can only say that our Code of Criminal Procedure has passed the test of a special military operation and I can thank everyone who works in this complex, these are actually enthusiasts of their work, this is how

1:15:26 Question:  Dmitry Anatolyevich the Western media wrote that in what year the expenses Russia’s federal budget for defense will increase, while the head of the Ministry of Finance, Anton Siluanov, insists that the country’s budget cannot be called military, so whether the Russian economy has switched to a war footing has not been left out. Social issues have been ignored. And what is more important now, at the moment, military or social spending?

DM:  Igor I think that Silanov is right, Anton Germanovich, our budget is not military in the narrowly special sense of the word. Well, for example, if we compare it with the budget of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Great Patriotic War, we have so easy to understand the numbers and approximately 30 trillion rubles in expenditure are social expenses all education health care not a single social obligation is lost; money for everyone salaries are paid in this sector;  benefits are paid and even for individual positions they are growing. this is a third

The second third this is just the development of the country this is the economy this means transport; this is the development of cities; the development of communications of all kinds and knowledge the remaining part of the budget or is otherwise related to its own in the broad sense of the word, this is not in the narrow sense defense spending.

But in the broad sense it means, well, this is exactly what the Minister of Finance said, this is the budget of a developing state. But of course with very significant defense spending needs, this is true. We’ll see , we’ll just say that for this component, even after the completion of the active part of the special military operation, we will, of course, still have to work on defense for a very long time so that everyone understands that our reserves are very strong and no one even thought about encroaching on them, on our interests, plus returning to the Code of Criminal Procedure, this means that I am sure that after what has been done, our military equipment will be in demand on world markets, more than it was before; it’s one thing to just show beautiful pictures, but another thing to actually fight, and in this sense that’s all this is very proof.

1:18:06 Question:  Let me continue the series of tense and probably not very convenient questions for you, but I have to ask after the death of Alexei Navalny in the colony, many people at once PAMM acted tactfully, let’s call it that in St. Petersburg, packs of people grabbed a man in a paddy wagon in Sali Cardi brought flowers separately to the monument, brought the police station, presented a VK pistol to his head and demanded to explain why he brought Flowers.

And Navalny’s mother cannot receive the body yesterday, she appealed to the president, did not receive an answer, they did not explain the actions, but it turns out that this only raises additional questions about the reasons for his death and uh, additional seething Well, among Navalny’s supporters, I have a question: why is it that the authorities continue to fight Navalny? And even after his death, and Why are people given 15 days for silent laying of flowers for pickets at monuments that, in fact, are not even monuments to Navalny, they are monuments victims of political repression

DM:  Well, regarding what is being done in the regions, I’ll say frankly. I’m just not ready to comment on it, there are always some costs. If we are talking about laying flowers, then probably there is no corpus delicti or even an administrative offense. No one is fighting it right now, that’s also It’s clear. Therefore, no, I won’t develop this idea further, because it’s customary for us to talk about the departed either good or nothing good about him, I can’t say anything bad, I won’t say it, it means if there are supporters. Well, this is also part of life, this must be taken into account, but don’t add this fact to your friends I was talking more about something else, here’s how they reacted to it not in our country.

In the end, this man was trying to work here and conduct his political activity. And abroad, this is the same barrel that I was talking about, it was agreed upon that they need to name sanctions packages there by His name and so on, it all looks so surprising because they don’t even have data about what happened, however, it’s all already turned into a political program, it’s all turned into Propaganda, although the same barrel is not about him to reason about this, if I were in his place, I would generally prepare for the earth, which means bearing in mind his venerable age, and somewhere there in the Madrid Polytechnic Institute of Technology, in my opinion, which he graduated from, already negotiated scholarships in his name and would not think about naming the sanctions lists in the name of a person unfamiliar to him, in general, such incidents are always tragic, of course they give rise to very different emotions once you started talking about it.

Look at the smiling happy face of Navalny’s widow, it feels like she’s been waiting for this event all these years to unfold her love and she’s already said about it, but that’s all sad. It seems quite sad to me, but I won’t comment on this anymore.

1:22:05 Question:  I’m just drawing attention to the second question. It coincided that two such high-profile fatalities in Spain killed a former Russian military pilot, defector Maxim Kuzminov, who six months ago hijacked an Mi-8 helicopter to Ukraine, previously Russian the military threatened Kuzminov with death Well, now IT corias from the Rhone of Russia from the West Everyone says everything is so interesting, everyone agrees on one version that this is Retribution, but the main question is Whose Retribution is this, how do you comment on this whole situation?

DM:  Very briefly dogs dog death. [Q: doesn’t matter. DM: affirmative]

Question:  from chkh spoke harshly about the rela ants, but at the same time you did not comment at all but not about everyone I if you are quoted there from a post known to him in the telegram, yes, then it applied [DM: Not to everyone] Yes, who speak out about Russia, but you did not comment in any way, for example, on the same naked party of Nastya Ivleeva Although even the president in his speeches made a remark about a weirdo showing his genitals What do you think, after all, will the people’s love return to the participants of this party and the trust of the concert venues, have they apologized enough?

DM:  Can I not talk about this [liberal exhibitionist club] party, it has set my teeth on edge, it is such a dregs compared to what is happening in the country, in the world. It’s just a pity our time with you, but I’m commenting on something else in relation to those who are moving the company abroad. You called them relocation, and among them there are different people, look at those people who just went there, scared of something, without fully feeling what was happening. Well, for some reason for their own reasons And they just sit there and sit there. Well, God be with them. Let them sit.

That means there are no legal claims against them at the moment and there cannot be any moral ones, but these are already categories: moral, this is a separate story, but among them there is a small part of famous people who moved there or after the start of their own or even before their own they lead an aggressive anti-Russian company, not just an anti-Russian company that directly wish the death of our military personnel, participate in programs to support the Armed Forces that wish the defeat of Russia and its division into parts.

But these people are these [… ryokan …] and they should be subject to criminal liability in any way case, as I wrote, I will repeat once again, we will have a reason in some situation to spit on their graves, these are different people, so they need to be separated from each other, but about what you asked about Let me just not even comment on

1:25:53 Question:  Anato, they have been very tough lately changes occur in legislation almost every week, such news reaches us, deputies accept and tighten them, including, well, I’ll list a few of these and the confiscation of property from those who criticize their own, here’s the recent ban on advertising on the pages of those who are recognized by agents and recognizing writers as extremists even to think we couldn’t even be there 2 years ago Why, they will end up with criminal cases against directors and screenwriters who are sitting in pre-trial detention centers and it’s as if nothing is happening and society in society is happening in response to this, also an interesting phenomenon, society in general begins to denounce its neighbors or colleagues and so on there are no Yani company turned out to be So, but such a witch hunt has already happened, you know the history very well and it didn’t bring anything good, [DM: it wasn’t dangerous, it didn’t inform anyone, thank God,] don’t you think this phenomenon is dangerous and this kind of reaction of the people is dangerous knife shadow

DM:  Guys, look , that means, well, this is a continuation of what we just talked about, because even those who are accused of criminal offenses will not be accused systematically, let’s take some Akunin here, his value system and the words that he said there in relation to that that I understand everything and it is necessary to bomb Russian cities, these are absolutely different things, a person can you can you can you can never do it, it is to wish for the defeat of your fatherland.

Even if you are disappointed with something and the death of your military personnel is both a terrible sin and, according to current laws, a criminal offense and such people need to be persecuted and very strict laws should be adopted and this is lowly depravity. The man sits on
the edge and says yes, bomb Russian cities on the other side of his book there are their scripts being sold or are they being bought? Well, it shouldn’t be like that, but let’s get back to reality. This is, so to speak, that during the Great Patriotic War we would have had some fees go to Berlin??

From the department about denunciation and everything connected with it, you understand this This problem is also partly philosophical and worldview, depending on what is meant by this. I also agree that we don’t need the atmosphere of the [nineteen] thirties, this is absolutely obvious, on the other hand, attention to what is happening must be, otherwise the enemies will take advantage of it, the same saboteurs, terrorists, I think that any citizen should report this to the special services to law enforcement agencies

1:29:22 This is completely normal by the way. Here we are far from ahead of the rest. Look at the number of signal messages that occur every day in the United States of America. In Europe I was once amazed in the nineties I went to Finland while I was still a completely private person with my comrades, there were no cameras on the roads, nothing. Well, the roads are good. It’s not like our roads at that time, they were 40 kilometers faster than the standard, they were driving fast in 10 minutes, they slowed us down. Why, I emphasize, there were no cameras they didn’t measure anything there, some vigilant person has already called there, there’s a car with Russian license plates going at pig speed So not every message to law enforcement agencies or intelligence services is Well, morally condemns the mosfete Swa is not needed You are right, such a spirit does not need to be supported but to react especially in a situation where your country is at war, it is necessary both in the sense of adopting tough laws and in the sense of controlling what is happening even among your neighbors. You can, of course, about the holiday that was stolen from us.

Question:  I mean soon the Olympics in which we will not participate because war has been declared on Russian sports and we cannot influence the governing bodies of world sports in any way because everyone who governs there is all supporters of the West, which we see in the decisions of the respective appeal commissions. Well, it seems to me that our allies who did not help them participate there in Asian associations and tournaments, for example We also don’t really need it, so in this case we need to isolate ourselves and conduct your favorite rowing in inland waters.

1:31:30 DM:  Well, they are now holding it in inland waters and they are trying to hold competitions there, including in your favorite rowing and in other sports, you know, in this situation, of course, I’m very sorry for our professional athletes. Well, they dedicated their whole lives to this, they were preparing for this holiday, they were deprived of this holiday, and this is an absolutely disgusting story that characterizes the International Olympic Committee and international sports structures on the other hand, when I think about it, it’s an honor to say so at such a level the first reaction is to slam the door and say, well, live by your own laws, try to create something of your own, but it’s very difficult. You’re right.

Obviously, SPO [International Olympic Committee] lies absolutely does not correspond to the precepts of Pierre Coubertin. Sport is business. Sport is politics, and sport in some cases is crime. And this also needs to be kept in mind when we make individual decisions, it means we participate and participate in those iht life sports Our athletes and it’s really a pity for them.

1:32:57 When everything returns to normal I don’t know because ahead of these great testaments of the founding fathers of international sports there is politics in life, but it’s absolutely obvious, it showed up. By the way, not during your period, remember very well. When we were at the Olympics Yes, no one is sinless No one says that we didn’t have doping there Of course there was, but it was in volume I think Well, it’s certainly comparable to the doping that athletes in other countries used,

But they pulled us out first because it was part of a political program because the leadership of all these structures like WADA and so on had people who were aggressive towards our country, then the opportunity arose to isolate us for something after the Crimean events, after other events. And after the start of theirs, they were just everywhere so to speak, freeze our participation, but I don’t know, I’ll say this thing. Maybe not everyone will agree with me ahead of this Olympics in Paris. Yes, to be honest, I don’t want to watch it, I don’t even want to look at the performance of our athletes under a neutral flag who swore an oath that they do not support the Russian state, this is their choice, I don’t blame them from a legal point of view, but from a moral point of view this is such a very complex topic. So I think that in the end the Olympics in Paris will be very sad. Well, we’ll wait and see

1:34:44 Question:  Dmitrich in one resonant message in Telegram you explained why your posts are so harsh; “I answer I hate them” you wrote. Who you had in mind and who in the political arena you, on the contrary, could call a friend?

DM:  well here everything is just I hate those whom I consider enemies of our country and today this category is not virtual, not evaluative but it is objective. Unfortunately, what about our friends, there are many of them, they live in different countries, they are ordinary people, millions of hundreds of millions of them, just look at social networks, these are the leaders of large countries who are friendly towards Russia, let’s say this. Among our friends we can conditionally include everyone who is not {refers to the political class} of the Anglo-Saxon world, this is a very large number of leading countries. I’m not talking about ordinary people, that’s why everything is simple here.

Thank you Dmitry Anatolyevich

Question:  Well, I’m finishing I propose, but on a satirical note, probably such a satirical cinematic note, I wanted to know if you’ve watched the American satirical film Don’t watch to the top and it came out a long time ago Yes, but it raises the topic of the destruction of humanity and a very important topic of how people manage to massively reject the truth that would seem obvious Well, first of all, if you watched it Did you like the film and don’t you actually think that it’s very relevant today

1:36:19 DM:  I’ll start from the last. Unfortunately very relevant now is another film Oppenheimer. The clock is ticking. As for the film “Don’t Look Up,” I really watched this film. The film is witty ironic showing the ravs of the elite their ravs ru their character there are memorable images, for example the image of the president who plays if not both Meryl Streep who is such a very interesting, completely cynical girl, I don’t know who to compare her with in a modern panopticon, but she probably reminds me partly of a gynecologist Ursula von der Leyen in terms of the degree of deceit and desire to fool the brains of a huge number of people

The Spiritual Beat in Wartime Donbass

Par : AHH

“… Deep down in the Donbass countryside, in communion with those living life during wartime, we feel the enormity of something inexplicable and vast, full of endless wonder, as if touching the Tao by silencing the recurrent loud booms. In Russian there is, of course, a word for it: “загадка”, roughly translated as “enigma” or “mystery”…”

by Pepe Escobar at Sputnik International.

Pepe Escobar embarked on a journey across Donbass to share his thoughts on the many first-hand encounters with the locals, who show unbreakable resilience.


You are given a name by the War:/it’s a call sign, not nickname – much more./Lack of fancy cars here and iPads,/But you have APC and MANPADS./Social media long left behind,/Children’s drawings with “Z” stick to mind./’Likes” and “thumbs up” are valued as dust,/But the prayers from people you trust./Hold On, Soldier, my brother, my friend,/The hostility comes to an end./War’s unable to stop its decease,/Grief and suffering will turn into peace./Life returns to the placid format,/With your callsign, inscribed in your heart./ From the war, as a small souvenir:/Far away, but eternally near.

Inna Kucherova, Call Sign, in A Letter to a Soldier, published December 2022

It’s a cold, rainy, damp morning in the deep Donbass countryside, at a secret location close to the Urozhaynoye direction; a nondescript country house, crucially under the fog, which prevents the work of enemy drones.

Father Igor, a military priest, is blessing a group of local contract-signed volunteers to the Archangel Gabriel battalion, ready to go to the front lines of the US vs. Russia proxy war. The man in charge of the battalion is one of the top-ranking officers of Orthodox Christian units in the DPR.


A small shrine is set up in the corner of a small, cramped room, decorated with icons. Candles are lit, and three soldiers hold the red flag with the icon of Jesus in the center. After prayers and a small homily, Father Igor blesses each soldier.

This is yet another stop in a sort of itinerant icon road show, started in Kherson, then Zaporozhye and all the way to the myriad DPR front lines, led by my gracious host Andrey Afanasiev, military correspondent for the Spas channel, and later joined in Donetsk by a decorated fighter for the Archangel Michael battalion, an extremely bright and engaging young man codename Pilot.

There are between 28 and 30 Orthodox Christian battalions fighting in Donbass. That’s the power of Orthodox Christianity. To see them at work is to understand the essentials: how the Russian soul is capable of any sacrifice to protect the core values of its civilization. Throughout Russian history, it’s individuals that sacrifice their lives to protect the community – and not vice-versa. Those who survived – or perished – in the Siege of Leningrad are only one among countless examples.

So the Orthodox Christian battalion were my guardian angels as I returned to Novorossiya to revisit the rich black soil where the old “rules-based” world order came to die.

The Living Contradictions of the ‘Road of Life’

The first thing that hits you when you arrive in Donetsk nearly 10 years after Maidan in Kiev is the incessant loud booms. Incoming and mostly outgoing. After such a long, dreary time, interminable shelling of civilians (which are invisible to the collective West), and nearly 2 years after the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO), this is still a city at war; still vulnerable along the three lines of defense behind the front.

The “Road of Life” has got to be one of the epic war misnomers in Donetsk. “Road” is a euphemism for a dark, muddy bog plied back and forth virtually non-stop by military vehicles. “Life” applies because the Donbass military actually donate food and humanitarian aid to the locals at the Gornyak neighborhood every single week.

The heart of the Road of Life is the Svyato Blagoveschensky temple, cared for by Father Viktor – who at the time of my visit was away on rehabilitation, as several parts of his body were hit by shrapnel. I am shepherded by Yelena, who shows me around the impeccably clean temple bearing sublime icons – including 13th century Prince Alexander Nevsky, who in 1259 became the supreme Russian ruler, Sovereign of Kiev, Vladimir and Novgorod. Gornyak is a deluge of black mud, under the incessant rain, with no running water and electricity. Residents are forced to walk at least two kilometers, every day, to buy groceries: there are no local buses.

Yelena, the caretaker of Father Michael’s temple at the ‘Road of Life’ in Donetsk.

Alexander Nevsky’s icon at Father Michael’s temple

In one of the back rooms, Svetlana carefully arranges mini-packages of food essentials to be distributed every Sunday after liturgy. I meet Mother Pelageya, 86 years old, who comes to the temple every Sunday, and would not even dream of ever leaving her neighborhood.

Svetlana organizing food packages out of donations by the DPR military to civilians close to the front line

Mother Pelageya, 86, at Father Michael’s temple in the ‘Road of Life’ in Donetsk

Gornyak is in the third line of defense. The loud booms – as in everywhere in Donetsk – are nearly non-stop, incoming and outgoing. If we follow the road for another 500 meters or so and turn right, we are only 5 km away from Avdeyevka – which may be about to fall in days, or weeks at most.

At the entrance of Gornyak there’s the legendary DonbassActiv chemical factory – now inactive – which actually fabricated the red stars which shine over the Kremlin, using a special gas technology that was never reproduced. In a side street to the Road of Life, local residents built an improvised shrine to honor the child victims of Ukrainian shelling. One day this is going to end: the day when the DPR military completely controls Avdeyevka.

The Donbass Activ chemical plant at the entrance of the ‘Road of Life’ in Donetsk

‘Mariupol Is Russia’

The traveling priesthood exits the digs of the Archangel Gabriel battalion and heads to a meeting in a garage with the Dmitry Donskoy orthodox battalion, fighting in the Ugledar direction. That’s where I meet the remarkable Troya, the battalion’s medic, a young woman who had a comfy job as a deputy officer in a Russian district before she decided to volunteer.

Onwards to a cramped military dormitory where a cat and her kittens reign as mascots, choosing the best place in the room right by the iron stove. Time to bless the fighters of the Dimitri Zalunsky battalion, named after St. Dimitri of Thessaloniki, who are fighting in the Nikolskoye direction.

At each successive ceremony, you can’t help being stricken by the purity of the ritual, the beauty of the chants, the grave expressions in the faces of the volunteers, all ages, from teenagers to sexagenarians. Deeply touching. This in so many aspects is the Slavic counterpart of the Islamic Axis of Resistance fighting in West Asia. It is a form of asabiyya – “community spirit”, as I used it in a different context referring to the Yemeni Houthis supporting “our people” in Gaza.

Mariupol building

Mariupol. Destroyed to the left, rebuilt to the right.

So yes: deep down in the Donbass countryside, in communion with those living life during wartime, we feel the enormity of something inexplicable and vast, full of endless wonder, as if touching the Tao by silencing the recurrent loud booms. In Russian there is, of course, a word for it: “загадка”, roughly translated as “enigma” or “mystery”.

Lidia Trofimova, a resident of Mariupol, born in 1978, died after being treated for arthritis with untested foreign drugs at Mariupol Hospital No. 7, her son Mikhail Trofimov told Sputnik

In this hospital those drugs were tested on patients for research in the interests of… pic.twitter.com/Q75fLjV9QC

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) February 13, 2024

I left the Donetsk countryside to go to Mariupol – and to be hit by the proverbial shock when one is reminded of the utter destruction perpetrated by the neo-nazi Azov battalion* in the spring of 2022, from the city center to the shoreline along the port then all the way to the massive Azovstal Iron and Steel Works.

The theatre – rather the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre – nearly destroyed by the Azov battalion is now being meticulously restored, and the next in line are scores of classical buildings downtown. In some neighborhoods the contrast is striking: on the left side of the road, a destroyed building; on the right side, a brand new one.

At the port, a red, white and blue stripe lays down the law: “Mariupol is Russia”. I make a point to go to the former entrance of Azovstal, where the remaining Azov battalion fighters, around 1,700, surrendered to Russian soldiers in May 2022. As much as Berdyansk may eventually become a sort of Monaco in the Sea of Azov, Mariupol may also have a bright future as a tourism, leisure and cultural center and last but not least, a key maritime entrepot of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Eurasia Economic Union.

The Mystery of the Icon

Back from Mariupol I was confronted with one of the most extraordinary stories woven with the fabric of magic under war. In a nondescript parking lot, suddenly I’m face to the face with The Icon.

The icon – of Mary Mother of God – was gifted to the whole of Donbass by veterans of the Zsloha Spetsnaz, when they came in the summer of 2014. The legend goes that the icon started to spontaneously generate myrrh: as it felt the pain suffered by the local people, it started to cry. During the storming of Azovstal, the icon suddenly made an appearance, out of nowhere, brought in by a pious soul. Two hours later, the legend goes, the DPR, Russian and Chechen forces found their breakthrough.

The icon is always on the move along the SMO hot spots in Donbass. People in charge of the relay know one another, but they can never guess where the icon heads next; everything develops as a sort of magical mystery tour. It’s no wonder Kiev has offered a huge reward for anyone – especially fifth columnists – capable of capturing the icon, which then would be destroyed.

The shrine set up at one of the Orthodox Christian battalion, where Fath Igor blesses the soldiers.

Father Igor reciting prayers.

The Orthodox icon “Mary Mother of God”, gifted to the people of Donbass.

At a night gathering in a compound in the western outskirts of Donetsk – lights completely out in every direction – I have the honor to join one of the top-ranking officers of the Orthodox units in the DPR, a tough as nails yet jovial fellow fond of Barcelona under Messi, as well as the commander of Archangel Michael battalion, codename Alphabet. We are in the first line of defense, only 2 km away from the front line. The incessant loud booms – especially outgoing – are really loud.

The conversation ranges from military tactics on the battlefield, especially in the siege of Avdeyevka, which will be totally encircled in a matter of days, now with the help of Special Forces, paratroopers and lots of armored vehicles, to impressions of the Tucker Carlson interview with Putin (they heard nothing new). The commanders note the absurdity of Kiev not acknowledging their hit on the Il-76 carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs – totally dismissing the plight of their own PoWs. I ask them why Russia simply does not bomb Avdeyevka to oblivion: “Humanism”, they answer.

The DIY Rover From Hell

In a cold, foggy morning at a secret location in central Donetsk – once again, no drones overhead – I meet two kamikaze drone specialists, codename Hooligan and his observer, codename Letchik. They set up a kamikaze drone demo – of course unarmed – while a few meters away mechanical engineer specialist “The Advocate” sets up his own demo of a DIY mine-delivery rover.

That’s a certified lethal version of the Yandex food delivery rovers now quite popular around Moscow. “Advocate” shows off the maneuverability and ability of his little toy to face any terrain. The mission: each rover is equipped with two mines, to be placed right under an enemy tank. Success so far has been extraordinary – and the rover will be upgraded.

‘The Advocate’ setting up his DIY mine-delivering rover test

There’s hardly a more daring character in Donetsk than Artyom Gavrilenko, who built a brand new school cum museum right in the middle of the first line of defense – once again only 2 km or so away from the frontline. He shows me around the museum, which performs the enviable task of outlining the continuity between the Great Patriotic War, the USSR adventure in Afghanistan against the US-financed and weaponized jihad, and the proxy war in Donbass.

At the school/museum in Donetsk only 2 km away from the front line

That’s a parallel, DIY version of the official Museum of War in central Donetsk, close to the Shaktar Donetsk football arena, which features stunning memorabilia from the Great Patriotic War as well as fabulous shots by Russian war photographers.

So Donetsk students – emphasis in math, history, geography, languages – will be growing up deeply enmeshed in the history of what for all practical purposes is a heroic mining town, extracting wealth from the black soil while its dreams are always inexorably clouded by war.

We went into the DPR using backroads to cross the border to the LPR not far from Lugansk. This is a slow, desolate border which reminds me of the Pamirs in Tajikistan, basically used by locals. In and out, I was politely questioned by a passport control officer from Dagestan and his seconds-in-command. They were fascinated by my travels in Donbass, Afghanistan and West Asia – and invited me to visit the Caucasus. As we left deep into the freezing night for the long trek ahead back to Moscow, the exchange was priceless:

“You are always welcome here.”

“I’ll be back.”

“Like Terminator!”

Putin’s Visit to Vishnevsky Central Military Clinical Hospital

Par : amarynth

The cameras are on, otherwise I would make a certain gesture here now; you all know what kind of gesture it is.

I think that the realisation is starting to dawn on them, and the rhetoric is changing: those who were talking just yesterday about the need to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia are now looking for the right words on how to quickly end the conflict. We also want to end the conflict, as quickly as possible, but only on our terms. We have no desire to fight endlessly, but we are not going to cede our positions either. You fought there, you were wounded there; are we going to surrender everything now? The cameras are on, otherwise I would make a certain gesture here now; you all know what kind of gesture it is. So, it is not going to happen.

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/73205

The President visited Branch No 2 of the National Medical Research Centre of High Medical Technologies – Vishnevsky Central Military Clinical Hospital of the Russian Federation Defence Ministry, where the Armed Forces military personnel injured during the special military operation are undergoing treatment.

Together with State Secretary – Deputy Defence Minister Nikolai Pankov, Vladimir Putin inspected the transcranial magnetic stimulation unit, the therapy pool, the therapy gymnastics room, the hydropathic, as well as the rehabilitation educational centre, physical therapy rooms, and a housing consultation centre for military personnel.

The President was briefed about the way the issues of housing provision for military personnel are being resolved, and how the work of military medical commissions is organised.

After that, Vladimir Putin met with military personnel.

* * *

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Hello, guys! Glad to see you. I would like to congratulate you on the New Year.

How is your treatment here going?

Remark: Excellent.

Vladimir Putin: I walked around here, from what I have seen the equipment looks solid, this is clear of course. But, first and foremost, it must be used effectively. I hope, it does.

Remarks: Yes.

Vladimir Putin: You know, of course, I wanted to come here and congratulate you on the New Year, but there was also something I wanted to see. You might have seen me on Direct Line, at least some of it; it is impossible to watch it in its entirety, four hours, it is crazy just how long it is. But there were things that concerned the Armed Forces and you directly: for example, people asked whether you really had to return to your units after your wounds and treatment and even rehabilitation to obtain the corresponding medical certificates there and even be cleared by military medical commissions. The Defence Ministry denies this, saying it does not happen, at least, not now. Moreover, they said – as I requested some time ago – that housing issues are being resolved during treatment and our service personnel undergo additional training to be able to continue serving, if they want, even those who sustained severe injuries, at military enlistment offices and so forth.

I wanted to hear from you what is really going on, if this is so, if you need to go somewhere else to obtain the necessary documents and certificates. No? So, do you get everything here? The military medical commission examination, all the documents – everything is done here, right?

Remarks: Yes.

Vladimir Putin: Are housing issues being resolved too?

Remarks: Yes.

Remark: Already been resolved.

Vladimir Putin: Ok, I see. They have been resolved for you and they are being resolved for our other fighters. At least, the system for resolving housing issues has been created and it is working, that is the most important thing, right?

And you are also receiving some additional professional training to allow those willing to continue their service in the Armed Forces but in different positions, health permitting. Is that so? Is that the reality?

Remark: Yes.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you. So, how is it going?

Remark: Good.

Vladimir Putin: This is one of the best medical institutions of the Defence Ministry. Not all of them are so well-equipped, so shiny, so to speak. But gradually the Ministry will bring everything up to the standard, to this level in terms of quality.

Any questions you want to ask me, guys? Don’t be shy.

Alexander Dublyanin: Comrade Supreme Commander-in-Chief,

During the special military operation we are liberating Russian territory. How do you feel about Western countries helping our enemy?

Vladimir Putin: The point is not that they are helping our enemy. They are our enemy. They are solving their own problems with their hands. That is what it is all about. This has been the case for centuries, unfortunately, and continues to be the case today.

Ukraine itself is not our enemy whereas those who want to destroy Russian statehood and to achieve, as they say, a strategic defeat of Russia on the battlefield, are mainly in the West, but still, there are different people there. There are people who sympathise with us and who are with us at heart. But there are the elites who think the existence of Russia (at least in its current state and size) is unacceptable. They want to disintegrate it. As a matter of fact, you are young people, some have read about this, perhaps: they do not hide it. They speak and write about this publicly, and have been doing it for decades, if we are talking about contemporary history. For decades, they have simply been writing frankly about it: divide Russia into five parts, one is too much. I can talk about this till morning, but it is obvious.

Therefore, they have been nurturing the Kiev regime for quite a long time, precisely to create this conflict. Unfortunately for us, they have achieved this: they started this conflict and are trying to achieve their objective, namely the task of fighting Russia, with the help of Ukrainians.

You probably see on the battlefield that they are gradually losing their zest. When a projectile flies, it is difficult to understand whether they are losing it or not, but in general you probably know that the situation on the battlefield is changing. This is despite the fact that the entire “civilised” West is fighting us.

You, too, have probably heard many times: the Ukrainian army expends 5,000–6,000 155-calibre shells there per day of combat operations, and the United States produces 14,000 per month. Per month! And they use 5,000 per day. Yes, they are planning to increase it during 2024, but still, they produced 14,000–15,000, they will produce up to 20,000. But if you use 5,000 a day, then the supply depletes quite quickly. It is close to that now. And we are building up and will continue to, exponentially at that. They were supplied with more than 400 tanks (450 or whatever it is), and in a year we will produce and overhaul 1,600. This is not a state secret; in fact, there will be probably more. It is like this almost across the board. Therefore, though it has been their goal to deal with Russia from time immemorial, we will deal with them faster, it seems.

And the most important thing we have is, of course, what I have spoken about repeatedly: the unity of our people and society, because there is an understanding of how important the job you are doing on the battlefield is in the armed struggle for our country and our future. That is what’s most important. The point is not that we do not like that they are supplying Ukraine, that’s not the core of the problem. The problem is not with Ukraine, but with those who are trying to destroy Russia using Ukraine. That is the problem. But they will fail: it is simply out of the question, absolutely out of the question.

I think that the realisation is starting to dawn on them, and the rhetoric is changing: those who were talking just yesterday about the need to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia are now looking for the right words on how to quickly end the conflict. We also want to end the conflict, as quickly as possible, but only on our terms. We have no desire to fight endlessly, but we are not going to cede our positions either. You fought there, you were wounded there; are we going to surrender everything now? The cameras are on, otherwise I would make a certain gesture here now; you all know what kind of gesture it is. So, it is not going to happen.

So, what else? Yes, please.

Denis Shamalyuk: Comrade Supreme Commander-in-Chief,

I am Sergeant Shamalyuk. I have a question. From the very beginning of the special operation, our enemies have been constantly and regularly shelling the territories near the border, killing civilians and children, destroying villages and cities. I have the following question for you. Do you think it is possible and necessary to take tougher measures against the adversary so that the thought does not even cross their minds to commit these atrocities?

Vladimir Putin: What has happened in Belgorod is of course a terrorist attack. Why? Because of what they have done under the cover of two missiles – I think it was Olkha: they fired from multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS). You, as military people, know what MLRS is. This weapon is not selective, it hits areas. This weapon struck right in the centre of the city, where people were walking before the New Year. It was a targeted strike on the civilian population. Of course, this is a terrorist attack; there is no other way to describe it.

Should we respond in kind? Of course, we can hit squares in Kiev or any other city. But Denis, there are children walking there, mothers with strollers. I understand, because I am quite angry, too, but I want to ask you: do we need to do this, target the squares?

Denis Shamalyuk: No, I am not saying that it should [be] against the civilian population, but specifically against military infrastructure…

Vladimir Putin: That is what we are doing.

Denis Shamalyuk: So that they will not be able to come round and respond.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, but that is exactly what we are doing. We strike with high-precision weapons at locations where they make decisions, where military personnel and mercenaries gather, at other similar centres, and at military facilities, above all. These blows can really be felt. We will continue to do this. You probably noticed that the very next day after these attacks were carried out. I think they are continuing today, and tomorrow, too.

Do you know why they are doing it? They want to intimidate us and to create some uncertainty within our country. For our part, we will increase the strikes that I have mentioned. Of course, not a single crime like that, and this is certainly a crime against the civilian population, will go unpunished, this is for sure, there can be no doubt.

Denis Shamalyuk: Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Please.

Ivan Shushakov: May I?

Vladimir Putin: Yes, please.

Ivan Shushakov: Comrade Supreme Commander-in-Chief,

Major Shushakov.

For two years now, our country has been fighting for its future. Please tell me, how do you assess the progress of the special military operation?

Vladimir Putin: I have already said this, I can repeat, but you can feel this yourselves. Our Armed Forces are getting more capable and prepared to use advanced weapons than any other army in the world.

First, we have weapons that are not available in any army in the world, and second, we can use everything that is being developed and produced. Third, everything that is being developed is being produced and supplied rather fast. I know, there is probably not enough on the front lines, and they would like more of all the latest stuff there, such as drones, as well as more means of suppressing enemy drones, which are flying over you like flies. I understand everything, but still, what is being produced appears quickly enough.

You know what else is rather important? Modern means of warfare and their effectiveness depend on how quickly an army can find out what is the most important thing at this moment and respond in terms of producing and introducing that in combat as quickly as possible.

We are doing this better and better, probably better than anywhere else. And these are very huge advantages that our Armed Forces are gaining. I think that no one else could do the same today. And these capabilities of the Russian Armed Forces are constantly increasing, multiple times over. So, in general, you are already a senior officer, so you know, we try not to give high marks…

Ivan Shushakov: Exactly.

Vladimir Putin: Satisfactory.

Please.

Alexander Davydov: Comrade Supreme Commander-in-Chief, may I ask a question, sir?

We can see that you are very busy. How do you manage to maintain such high performance?

Vladimir Putin: Meeting you gives me strength. I am not joking. I am being honest. When I meet people like you, it gives me extra strength and confidence that we are doing the right thing.

Alexander Davydov: Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: This is a very important element. In fact, I am not being ironic, this is an important element, for me, at least.

Please.

Yevgeny Korsun: Comrade Supreme Commander-in-Chief,

Guards junior sergeant Korsun.

Mr President, first of all, Happy New Year.

My question is, what are the results of the past year and what are the real plans for this year? What should everyone, not just the Armed Forces and military personnel, be prepared for?

Vladimir Putin: The country in general, right?

Yevgeny Korsun: Yes. Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: You know, as far as the results of last year are concerned, I spoke about this on Direct Line, what can I say. The most important thing is that you keep everything tight at the front and, moreover, the practical strategic initiative is in our hands today. Senior commanders have learned to act carefully instead of carrying out combat missions at any cost. At least that is what they report to me. I always insist that everything must be done and any offensive operations carried out after the adversary has sustained heavy fire. This is what concerns the battlefield.

Talking about the country as a whole, of course, the fundamental thing is not only that we preserved the country’s economy, we did not allow it to be destroyed, which is what the enemy was counting on – this is also in response to your question. It was not Ukraine that hoped to destroy our economy; it is not capable of doing it. It has already been completely destroyed itself; there is nothing left there, it lives entirely on handouts. All its leaders travel around with hat in hand, begging for an extra million dollars.

Our situation is completely different. In 2022, our economy contracted by 2.1 percent. But recently, the Government has reported to me – the calculations are ongoing, and new data appear – the latest data are that it declined not 2.1 but 1.2 percent. This is of essence. In 2023 year, the economy grew 3.5 percent. Gross domestic product (GDP), the main economic indicator, is how much the country has produced. You can use money to calculate how much you produced, plus 3.5 percent. And the decline was 1.2 percent. We made up for the decline and moved forward. This is an absolutely fundamental matter. This is the first point, and it is a very important one.

This shows that the economy is stable. Inflation has gone up a little, which means prices have risen, but we are keeping everything under control. You know, we have never seen anything like this. We have always noted with sadness that our main revenues come from oil and gas. For the first time in many years, the growth of processing industries in our economic structure far exceeds revenues from oil and gas. I think that oil and gas revenues grew three percent, while the processing industry has yielded many times more. This has never happened before. This indicates that we are undergoing structural changes in the economy. It is very important.

And why is that? When Western companies left our market, they apparently expected that everything would collapse overnight: businesses would shutter and thousands of people would be left without work. And, in the best-case scenario for the adversary in the broad sense of the word: for the opponents of Russia in general, and not just on the battlefield, people will take to the streets and demand bread and work.

We have the lowest unemployment rate in the history of Russia: 2.9 percent, which has never happened before. And real incomes of the population have grown (there is such a thing as real disposable income of the population) and real wages have grown, and quite significantly. All this suggests that we have a stable economy and stable financial system.

Russia was disconnected from the international payment system known as SWIFT. Apparently, they hoped that everything would collapse here too. We supply our traditional export goods, but what about the settlements? However, everything works.

Everyone thought that enterprises would stop because they stopped supplying us with components, but it turns out that everything is possible. Yes, there are problems, but nevertheless they are being addressed.

Small and medium-sized businesses are also working effectively. Some foreign enterprises have left, but our businesses have taken their place. Firstly, there are highly qualified personnel who have not left; there are good production managers in a variety of sectors both in industry and in the services sector, and everything works. This is the most important thing: the stability of the country’s economy and financial system because this is the foundation for everything.

And, of course, as I have already said, the number of weapons produced in Russia has increased multiple times over, including when I talk about the growth of industrial production, but not only: one third of the growth was achieved in civilian production branches, which is very important. So, the stability of the financial and economic system and the real sector of the economy is probably the most important thing.

In addition to this, we are implementing all our previously planned projects. In terms of infrastructure, as you understand, this means trillions, and we are building roads and opening new routes every week. This is very important, because it is not just to take one ride there and back. A road means life, and economic life too begins with it: small and medium-sized businesses appear immediately, because there was no other way to get there, but now it is possible. A completely different picture of the world emerges.

Despite the difficulties involved, housing issues are gradually being resolved in the country. Social issues are also very important. Many of you have families and children, right? And there is maternity capital, which no one is shutting down. The country continues to meet all social commitments in full. Moreover, we have created quite a powerful and balanced system of support for families with children (this is very important for the future of the country), starting from the woman’s pregnancy until the child is 18 years old. This is important for real people, and therefore for the country as a whole.

So, strange as it may seem, despite the fact that we are in a state of armed conflict, all the main indicators of the country’s viability and effectiveness have gone up. And this is probably the most important indicator of Russia’s situation.

Yevgeny Korsun: Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: What else? Is that all?

Happy New Year to you. All the best. Best wishes. Get well!

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