Question: Profits from oil and gas exports are falling markedly, the ruble has collapsed, and inflation is rising. At the same time, drones fly to Moscow almost every day. How much longer will Russia be able to continue this conflict?
Answer: It’s funny to listen to you. The US calculated that we would not last a month in 2022, after they would bring down on us, in their own words, “infernal sanctions”. And they are right in something: they behave like real demons, and neither Italy, nor Germany, nor France, nor Britain, nor the United States itself would recover from such sanctions. Any NATO country would collapse within a week. And we are living, developing, moving forward.
Our economy is growing at a good pace. Despite, frankly speaking, the pessimistic forecasts that were made and are still being made by some experts, first of all, of course, Western experts, Russia by the end of 2022 – despite all these forecasts – entered the “top five” largest economies in the world. According to the World Bank, the Russian Federation has moved ahead, overtaken the Federal Republic of Germany in terms of purchasing power parity, in terms of economic volume. This is one of the most important indicators. Thus, in the second quarter of this year, gross domestic product grew by 4.9% compared to the same period last year. Moreover, industries that are not related to the extraction of natural resources, including oil and gas, are growing at a higher rate.
With some states whose leaders do not succumb to boorish external pressure, but are guided not by others, but by their own national interests, the volumes of our mutual trade have not even increased by some tens of percent, but at times and now continue to grow further.
Our natural resources are being bought, despite the imposed price ceilings. Russian fuel at a competitive cost allows friendly countries to restrain price increases, increase industrial and agricultural production. This strengthens their energy security and economic stability.
And this reality terrifies the entire NATO axis of evil (and you are the axis of evil, of course). The truth and the whole free world are behind us. And for NATO, “soap bubbles”, thirst for money and power, nostalgia for colonialism.
Now about “how long will we last”. As we say, you won’t wait. We have rallied, we know that we are going to the end, we see that the truth is behind us.
And a little bit about the facts that do not reach the Western audience.
Today, Russia is actually single-handedly opposing the NATO-Ukrainian military-industrial conglomerate, in which Ukraine plays the role of a springboard, a battlefield and an instrument of armed struggle against Russia, while Western countries perform the functions of headquarters, rear, supplier of weapons, intelligence and targeting.
The Kiev regime, indeed, actively uses drones to attack civilian infrastructure and civilians. We see in such actions of Kiev and its NATO curators a cowardly attempt in impotent anger to take revenge on civilian objects and civilians for the failure of the so-called “counteroffensive” and the inability to change the situation on the line of contact in their favor, despite massive Western assistance.
As for the duration of the special military operation, it largely depends on how quickly Kiev and the West will understand that we will not tolerate the existence of an openly anti-Russian state on our borders, whatever its borders may be. This is impossible neither from the point of view of Russia’s security, nor from the point of view of the security of any other state.
Question: A senior NATO official, S. Jensen, suggested that Ukraine could cede its territories to Russia in exchange for joining NATO. What is your opinion about the possible spread in the West of the idea of ceding part of the territory of Ukraine? Can Russia be satisfied with this compromise? And what else could Russia offer in exchange?
Answer: It was a throw-in to gradually accustom Kiev to the idea that NATO will not fight for Ukraine. For the Western officialdom, the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis by diplomatic methods is not a priority. His plans are to prolong the conflict so that the Kiev regime leads a war of attrition with Russia. At the same time, losses among Ukrainians do not matter to NATO. For the alliance, they are just expendable in achieving geopolitical goals.
In addition, it is not entirely clear what territorial concessions we are talking about. Crimea and Sevastopol, DNR and The LPR, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions became part of the Russian Federation in full compliance with international law: as part of the realization of the right to self-determination in accordance with the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation between States in Accordance with the UN Charter. Residents of these territories voted in referendums for independence and accession to Russia. The fact that these regions are part of our country is an objective reality.
By the way, have you heard what Blinken, Borreli, Stoltenberg have been saying for 1.5 years? They declared that everything should be decided on the battlefield. They have strengthened our positions with their statements: From the point of view of international law, we legally incorporated new territories into Russia, and, as Westerners say, defended them on the battlefield.
Everyone knows our demands for resolving the European security crisis provoked by Washington and Brussels. First, the parameters of the security guarantees provided to each other by Russia and the West must be agreed, in the spirit of the proposals made by the United States and NATO in December 2021.
The United States and its allies must finally learn that the purpose of a special military operation is not to seize the territory of Ukraine, but its denazification and demilitarization, ensuring the non-aligned status of this country. Only in this case can we talk about eliminating threats to the security of Russia and its citizens.
Question: During Cardinal Zuppi’s visit to Russia, he was not received by either President Vladimir Putin or Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, although in Washington, US President J.Biden had a two-hour conversation with him. Does this fact mean that Russia does not believe in the Vatican’s peace initiative?
Answer: I think that your question is not formulated quite correctly. Relations between Moscow and the Vatican today, unlike most other European countries, are distinguished by a mutually respectful and constructive approach to building a bilateral dialogue. Russia has repeatedly stressed that it highly appreciates the Vatican’s balanced line on the conflict in Ukraine, the efforts of the Holy See and Pope Francis personally to find a peaceful settlement, which, unfortunately, are openly rejected by the Kiev regime.
Moscow remains open to contacts with all countries seeking to contribute to the restoration of peace. That is why on June 27 of this year, as soon as the Vatican side made a request to us, Cardinal M. Zuppi was received in Moscow. Indeed, the exceptionally busy schedule of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov did not allow for meetings with the cardinal, but the program of his visit to Moscow was extremely busy. He had two conversations with Presidential Aide Yu.V.Ushakov, which well demonstrates the importance that Moscow attaches to the dialogue with the Holy See on Ukraine, as well as his separate meetings with the Commissioner of the President of the Russian Federation for the Rights of the Child M.A.Lvova-Belova and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia.
I would like to emphasize that the dialogue with the Vatican continues. Our country is ready to cooperate with all those who seek to contribute to the peaceful settlement of the conflict around Ukraine, taking into account Russia’s well-known interests and existing realities.
Question: Will the day come when Russia and Italy will become friends again, as it was in the past?
Answer: Unfortunately, everything suggests that the current deep crisis in bilateral relations is for a long time. Following in the wake of the United States in a disciplined manner, Italy has chosen a course to purposefully dismantle the decades-old complex of Russian-Italian cooperation in various fields, supplies increasingly heavy and deadly weapons and military equipment to Ukraine, used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including for strikes on Russian territory. Rome fully supported the hybrid war being waged by the West, aimed at exhausting and weakening Russia, undermining its international positions, limiting sovereignty and the ability to pursue an independent domestic and foreign policy. If it seems to someone that such actions go unnoticed by the Russian leadership and our citizens, then this is not so. All the necessary conclusions have been made.
At the same time, we have a lot of good things connected with Italy, with its wonderful people, who – we know this well – despite all the Russophobic exercises of the paid mainstream media, retains deep sympathy and interest in Russia, its culture, its people. The Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Italian Republic, concluded in Moscow on October 14, 1994, remains in force.
It seems to me that sooner or later economic reasons, the cultural and historical proximity of peoples, the objective needs of global development will lead the Italian leadership to understand the need to restore the bilateral ties that have been destroyed today. Russia is open to the revival of the entire complex of relations with Italy on the principles of mutual respect, equality and consideration of each other’s legitimate interests, including in the field of security.
It is time for the Italian government to see clearly and see the true causes of the global crisis created by the West.
Do you remember the economic crisis of 2008, which had a devastating effect on the global economy? It didn’t come into being by itself. Its causes were the “burst bubble” of the American real estate market. Manipulations with real estate could no longer be covered by Washington, and this segment of the American economy then collapsed, dragging the whole world with it. At that time, it was not the United States that saved the world economy, and not the notorious economic “seven”, but the rest of the countries that became victims of American financial pyramids. The countries united in the “twenty” and began to lead the world out of the crisis.
That’s how the collapse of American already international political manipulations has led to the Ukrainian crisis. Instead of admitting their criminal mistakes in the form of interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine, carrying out coups there, sponsoring nationalist regimes, they began to persist in their rightness and prove that they will be able to dictate their will to the region further. But in fact, the Anglo–Saxon plan is much more insidious – Ukraine with a puppet regime is only a tool, direct targets, as it seems, are Russia and China, and the indirect, but the strongest blow fell on the EU. I don’t know if Ms. Meloni plays billiards, if not, then let them tell her what a “brother-in-law” is.
