Briefing by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Moscow, April 6, 2022
- Sergey Lavrov’s upcoming talks with Foreign Minister of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan
- Update on Ukraine
- Western campaign to cancel Russian culture
- Italians’ response to the Russian special operation in Ukraine
- Restricted access to the Foreign Ministry and other Russian government agencies’ websites in the Western social media
- Anti-Russia statements by Japanese authorities
- FIFA’s recognition of Russian as an official language
- World Russian Language Day initiative
- The 41th meeting of the World Coordinating Council of Russian Compatriots
- Promoting Russia-ASEAN relations
- 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Tajikistan
- 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Russian Federation and Turkmenistan
- 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Russia and India
- Anniversary of the Crimean offensive by the Soviet troops during World War II (April 8, 1944)
- Anniversary of Odessa’s liberation from Nazi invaders (April 10, 1944)
- The anniversary of the armed uprising in Buchenwald (April 11, 1945)
- NATO. Chronicle of Cruelty
- Statement by the Interdepartmental Coordination Headquarters of the Russian Federation for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine
Answers to media questions:
- Attempts by the United States to suspend Russia’s membership in the Human Rights Council
- Statements by Ukraine’s Ambassador to Australia
- Offensive publications in the Ukrainian media against Ho Chi Minh
- Russia’s retaliatory measures following the expulsion of diplomats from European countries
- New US sanctions
- Incident at the Russian Embassy in Bucharest
- UK sanctions against the Russian media
- Russia-DPRK relations
- DPRK’s nuclear missile programme
- Situation with the JCPOA
- Ukraine update
- Impact from statements by US politicians on the Russian public opinion
- Developing Russian communications services
- Appointment of Afghanistan’s charge d’affaires to Russia
- Ongoing developments in Pakistan
- Cancel culture
- Consular services at Russian foreign missions
- Whipping up anti-Russia sentiments in Europe
Sergey Lavrov’s upcoming talks with Foreign Minister of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan
On April 8, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will host his Armenian counterpart, Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ararat Mirzoyan, who will be in Russia on a working visit.
The foreign ministers are expected to discuss in detail steps on further promoting bilateral cooperation in all areas, intensifying concerted efforts in the countries’ common integration associations – the EAEU, the CSTO and the CIS, and within other international associations. In addition, the ministers will conduct an extensive exchange of views on implementing the agreements reached by the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian leaders on November 9, 2020, January 11 and November 26, 2021.
We hope the forthcoming talks in Moscow will facilitate allied cooperation with Yerevan and promote peace and stability in the South Caucasus.
The special military operation continues in Ukraine. Its goals and tasks are to free the DPR and the LPR, demilitarise and denazify Ukraine and remove threats to Russia from Ukrainian territory where neo-Nazis are committing atrocities. The Russian military are doing all they can to avoid civilian victims. They are not striking civilian facilities and they are opening humanitarian corridors for people to leave dangerous areas every day.
Against this backdrop, the Kiev regime is shelling residential neighbourhoods, destroying its own people and is leading the country into a humanitarian disaster with support from its American and European curators that are building up lethal arms supplies to Ukraine.
Recently, Ukrainian nationalists have been focusing on provocations, disinformation and fabricated episodes that are aimed at accusing Russia of war crimes. We saw similar staged shows in Syria several years ago and not just in Syria and not just several years ago.
On April 3, 2022, the world saw another crime by the Ukrainian authorities in Bucha where they faked the alleged murder of civilians by the Russian military. After checking the relevant reports and comparing information the Russian Defence Ministry promptly came up with a detailed rebuttal. Until March 30, 2022, when Bucha was controlled by the Russian military and up to and including April 3 when they left, local residents freely moved around the city and used mobile phones.
They could have complained about any action by anyone, including the Russian military but there was nothing to complain about. The Russian military delivered to the people of Bucha and other places in the Kiev Region 452 tonnes of humanitarian aid. Not a single civilian was hurt by a violent attack while Bucha was under the control of the Russian armed forces. There has been no information to this effect. The roads from Bucha to other places, including Kiev, were not blocked. In the process, Ukrainian troops shelled around the clock the southern outskirts of the city, including its residential areas (as they always do everywhere). They used large caliber artillery, tanks and multiple rocket launchers for this purpose.
On March 31, 2022, Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk of Bucha, who said in a video address that Russian forces had pulled out of the city, did not mention any executed residents. I suggest that you watch this video before it is deleted from YouTube, Twitter and other US platforms that are accomplices in this crime. By spreading fake news and blocking the truth, alternative views, investigation material and straight talk, these platforms have become accomplices in this terrible tragedy in Bucha, which is the result of Kiev’s crimes. Assuming these crimes were not directly ordered by Kiev, we must state that they were committed by forces which have broken off from President Zelensky’s control, or that he never controlled.
I am accusing Western and primarily the US media of not only spreading fake news and disinformation, but of being an accomplice in the massacre in Bucha. Newspapers, television and analysts are accomplices in this punitive act. I also know that this is not the first time they did this.
The world has seen similar operations before. Regrettably, it was in Europe. In October 1944, the Soviet army fighting in Germany occupied the city of Nemmersdorf and held it for several days. When the Soviet troops had to retreat, German propaganda specialists entered the city, including the head of the NSDAP Propaganda Department for East Prussia, Karl Gebhardt. After a bloody two-day information campaign, the Nazi newspaper Volkischer Beobachter published an article on the “fury of the Soviet beasts.” Times have changed, but they are still working very fast, when they need to. Does this remind you of anything? Even the headlines are almost identical; they didn’t even bother to write a new one. They are just copying items from the period the revival of which we are now fighting. That article ranted about the “horrors” and “mutilation” of Nemmersdorf civilians by Soviet soldiers, writing in detail about “torture” and “murder” evidence for which the Nazis allegedly found in the city.
The Third Reich organised an international commission to investigate the massacre and invited representatives of rubber-stamping governments, including Estonia. Barely a week later, the commission of Hjalmar Mae, published a report putting the blame on Moscow. I mentioned the almost identical headlines. As for the international reaction, it was the same as well. Within moments the world was reading statements by various representatives, officials and heads of European countries who drew conclusions and appointed criminals just by looking at the photographs.
The “international commission” organised by the Nazis passed the verdict. The Mae commission report was the most frequently cited document, and a favourite weapon of the Goebbels’ propaganda machine in late 1944. Foreign language copies were forwarded to many international news agencies. Berlin issued instructions to use the “Nemmersdorf case” as proof of the atrocities allegedly committed by the Red Army.
Many historians investigated the massacre after the war. German military historian Bernhard Fisch, who took part in the battles of Nemmersdorf, wrote that the German authorities did not try to identify the bodies found in the city and that the victims in the published photographs were brought to the city from several East Prussian villages. Wasn’t it the same in Srebrenica? Or in Aleppo and Douma in Syria? Absolutely the same. Who is paying for this? The sponsors are Washington, London and the collective Brussels.
The German Foreign Ministry admitted in the 21st century that the Nemmersdorf fake was prepared by Lieutenant Pfeiffer from the secret military police of the German Wehrmacht and circulated via Berlin. It looks as if the ideologists and PR experts who reared the Bucha massacre knew about that. But how did they do it? Did they collect the bodies somewhere, or did the Ukrainian forces ordered the shooting right in the city? This must be investigated. But the methods, forms and goals are identical. The signature is the same. Evidence of the Russian forces’ innocence is so numerous that the accusations against them must be lifted, and charges must be brought directly against the Kiev regime and all those who assisted it or who inspired this massacre.
Western media can block us on Twitter all they want. They can cut things out, apply labels and threaten users that certain information is supposedly “hazardous to human health.” They are spreading fake stories and presenting them as fact. They can do this as long as they like but they must remember that history always dots its i’s and crosses its t’s. The truth will always prevail. It will in this case, too. Just a few days passed and even the most rabid accusers have fallen silent. They realised the scale of what was done in Bucha by Ukrainian extremists, neo-Nazis, security forces, or non-people – whatever you want to call them.
So, on April 3, 2022 after employees of the Security Service of Ukraine and, probably, the special services of other countries as well (this will have to be established) arrived in the city, the evidence of what was left in the city was revealed. In fact, it was not left but committed after militants controlled by the Kiev regime (or not controlled by it) arrived in the city.
Without making a single attempt to verify anything (are the photos fake or authentic?), Western politicians and media instantly passed a verdict of guilty on Russia. Is this anything new? For many years, they have done the same: passed a verdict and made good on their threats without bothering to check anything. The President of France, the Federal Chancellor of Germany and the US Secretary of State instantly demanded that the Russian authorities answer for their crimes. All these people are personally responsible for supporting the crime committed by the Kiev regime and the forces it associates with, whether it controls them or not.
I was asked why Moscow did not start refuting these accusations as soon as they appeared in the media. It is necessary to figure out what happened first, and this requires time. This is what they were counting on. They used the element of surprise, with this huge fabrication, to elicit comments. But no one should go along with it. It is impossible to make official comments without preliminary verification, which has now been done. It was hard to believe that fakes like this could spread to such an extent. Despite the complete absurdity of these statements and accusations, they were checked.
Following the check, Russia immediately requested a meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss this situation and probably to share information if someone had additional evidence. It was also important to call a spade a spade – a criminal provocation had to be called a criminal provocation. However, the British Presidency of the UN Security Council brushed aside our initiative twice in one day. A meeting on the situation in Ukraine was held only yesterday but it was planned before as part of the programme. We have the right to an emergency meeting, considering how far and wide these fabrications were spread, how zealously the countries mentioned demanded that these fakes be countered, and what accusations were made. But the main thing is what we saw in the photos. We know London – it does not need a single fact to support its accusations, issue a verdict and carry it out, all it needs is just the desire and decision to act.
We used the UN Security Council meeting to share our facts with the world and remind everyone about Kiev failing to deliver on its promises to end the war in Donbass and to respect the rights of the Russian-speaking people. The Russian side called on everyone to at least keep in mind the fact that the issue is about civilians. Ukraine and its people should stop being pawns in someone else's game that has been played within its borders for many years now by countries that do not even share borders with it. They do not have deep, vital, or real interests in that country. They are simply playing out another geopolitical scenario of global chaos.
We used the UN Security Council meeting to draw the international community’s attention to the ongoing flooding of Ukraine with weapons of all kinds. It was flooded with weapons to the point that their warehouses became empty and there was nothing left to supply to Ukraine. This is not about humanitarian aid, bread, grain, or medicine. It’s about weapons so that people keep crippling themselves. According to Berlin officials, they have sent so many weapons that they have nothing more to send. Can you imagine? This flooding continues. The same is being done in eastern, central and northern Europe.
The course of the discussion at the UN Security Council showed that our Western colleagues refused to consider the glaring inconsistencies in the footage from Bucha, which was aired by their media. As a matter of fact, they were not going to discuss anything in those videos. They made their accusatory statements and were done with it. It has always been that way, hasn’t it? Was it any different after the provocation in Syria? Or after the faked scenes in Salisbury or Amesbury? Has there been at least one investigation that has been brought to conclusion, based on the law, or that was done within the legal field? Never. Nothing. Everything has always been left hanging in the air. On the other hand, political accusations backed up by the expulsion of diplomats and sanctions are a tradition which was invariably maintained.
Obviously, this terrible and criminal fake was fabricated in order to justify yet another pre-planned package of sanctions, including mass expulsions of Russian diplomats from a number of Western countries, and to complicate (if not completely thwart) the talks in which Kiev began to show signs of taking a realistic approach. The third, most important factor is to once again heighten tensions not only in the region, but around the world as well. They have to provide explanations to the people affected by the sanctions that the West imposed on Russia, which either backfired or ricocheted around the world.
They need to explain why sanctions continue to be imposed. People all over the world are taking to the streets and demanding that their representatives, officials and political circles explain why these countries are being impacted or are supporting sanctions on Russia and why the people of the countries that are not involved in the situation around Ukraine or in the problems of Europe in general continue to be impacted by these restrictions.
I think that these countries and political forces were asked to provide at least some explanations to the public in their respective countries as to why they are leaving it with record high fuel prices, food crises and supply chain problems due to flight cancellations, border closures, etc. There has to be some explanation. If it doesn't follow from the logic of the events, it has to be invented which they did. They just took the 1944 script off the shelf and reenacted it.
That is why we are calling these people in Ukraine neo-Nazis and death squads. They preach the same logic. There is nothing about them that makes them any different from the people who were back then called fascists and Nazis. They glorify that ideology, revel in it, and believe that it is an effective tool for settling scores and intimidating and destroying people who do not share their ideology or do not join them under their banners. We are fighting against this. The Ukrainian regions rebelled against this. For many years now they have been upholding their rights, surviving and dying unbroken by the neo-Nazi machine. It can only be accepted once. This “blackness” sucks everyone in and then there is no way back.
There are matters of crime and punishment. Humans are neither angels, nor saints. Everyone can make a mistake, do something bad like break the law and be punished for it. But this is something else. It is not about crime and punishment but about dehumanisation. This process may not be reversible. People are completely infected with this ideology. It is an all-encompassing ideology for humans. It does not allow for any exceptions.
Ukrainian nationalists continue perpetrating war crimes against the backdrop of these horrible, blood-stained fabrications. One more example is yesterday’s explosion of chemical containers in the city of Rubezhnoye in the Lugansk People’s Republic. They were blown up taking into account the wind direction to make sure the poisonous cloud moved eastward, deep into of the LPR. This is yet another act of genocide against the people of Donbass.
New neo-Nazi atrocities are becoming public knowledge as Russian forces liberate Mariupol and evacuate civilians from it. City residents are talking about them. Monstrous crimes were revealed in the secret prison known as “the library” in Mariupol Airport where Ukrainian nationalists tortured and killed people for years. There exists evidence of this but none of it breaks through to the Western media.
Now it is clear why American social media platforms declared their policy of blocking such footage and started carrying it out. This is information genocide. It comes in different forms, such as deleting information that is objective and essential for the people representing the nation and the country. This deletion amounts to information genocide.
You won’t see reports about death squadrons of Ukrainian Nazis that drove through the streets of Kharkov in cars taken from civilians. They fired at random at residential buildings to intimidate the population. There are just a few journalists out of hundreds of thousands who are able to describe this. But they will be bound in tape and stuck to the Western pillar (like what is happening now in Ukraine) and ostracised if they dare say even one word against the official mainstream line.
They won’t say anything about mass disappearances in this city of those who were suspected of sympathy for Russia or for sticking to their views. The animal barbarism and sadism with which Ukrainian Nazis treat Russian POWs have no justification and are beyond comprehension. There was footage on the internet not of beatings, torture or murder but of sacrifices to evil. We are talking about the 21st century, which put an end to the monstrous era of fascism and Nazism with its gas chambers and experiments on live people. If only. It is all starting over.
I talked to my colleagues. They warned me not to view this footage. I didn’t watch everything. Some things are too much to bear. I am not talking about enduring torture but about enduring this footage: eyes being gouged out and people being dismembered alive in the very heart of Europe. Who are you defending Mr Di Maio and Mr Macron? I won’t mention the Brits. It’s useless. But you are Europeans, you come from the countries that established not only democracy but also the current legislation of Europe and the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, Westerners do not see this, not because there is no information, but because they don’t want to. They have chosen the other side of history. Just like eight years ago, when they shut their eyes to Kiev’s war crimes in Donbass. They simply didn’t want to see them. They knew about them but did not want to admit it.
As regards the inhuman atrocities committed by the Ukrainian security forces against our military, I would like to say that we are working with the information received. The Foreign Ministry of Russia and our offices abroad are collecting evidence. We are closely coordinating our efforts with our colleagues from the Defence Ministry, the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General’s Office with a view to sending this information to international agencies. Of course, we have no hope of a response. We are seeing how world institutions are discrediting themselves one after another. This is not because their structure is wrong.
The founding fathers of the United Nations did a good job of making it universal. But the people represented there, the decision-makers are now discrediting the UN with their inaction and agenda-pushing.
The leaders of our country and our law-enforcement agencies that investigate crimes have made their position very clear: all those involved in such crimes against Russian servicemen will be located and brought to justice – the manner will be determined later, but they will get what’s coming to them.
Western campaign to cancel Russian culture
The West has horrified itself by launching a campaign to cancel Russian culture, which has taken very strange forms indeed. This is not righteous indignation but a feeling they are trying to inspire in people. It is being done by “professionals.” Take a statement made by Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Culture and National Heritage Piotr Glinski, who said that “Russian culture must disappear from the public space.” Who are you, Mr Glinski, to say things like that? Who has given you the right to say this? It would take more than a billion years to thoroughly study the subject he wants to cancel. He is not even aware of the boundaries of Russian culture. How can people in charge of culture speak about cancelling the culture of entire nations? On the other hand, this has happened before, in the 1930s and 1940s, and this is exactly what we are fighting against now.
Here is another thing that is stranger than fiction but turned out to be true in the 21st century. The National Gallery in London has altered the title of French impressionist Edgar Degas’ drawing Russian Dancers. They are no longer Russian now. Such things happen. They have become normal in the West, where a man wakes up one morning to declare that he is a woman. And next day s/he can become a non-binary person. You can also change nationality, as in the case of Degas’ painting, especially since he died long ago. And they have done it. It’s only a name, you don’t have to request a new ID or have a sex reassignment surgery. You just cross out the name. They cancelled history long ago. They were tearing down monuments across Europe so that their children don’t ask their mother and father, or rather Parent A and Parent B, about monuments to soldiers in red star caps. Culture must be cancelled to eradicate any link to history.
The names of Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff have been removed from concert bills in several countries. The Netherlands has cancelled the tour of the Anatoly Kvasov State Academic Song and Dance Ensemble of Don Cossacks. This will definitely make life better in the Netherlands.
They are banning Russian writers and their books. The University of Milano-Bicocca has cancelled a series of four lectures about Fyodor Dostoyevsky, which were to be delivered by writer Paolo Nori, so as “not to cause polemic” and, of course, to avoid any questions. There can be no disputes in the state described by George Orwell, nothing but the truth. The Italian university’s decision was reversed the following morning, but the precedent has been created. Teatro Rina e Gilberto Govi in Genoa has cancelled the annual Dostoyevsky festival, and it has not changed its decision. I urge you to re-read Dostoyevsky’s Demons, which is about what we see happening today. It is a unique, a truly immortal novel. You can cancel it, but this won’t make it disappear.
We note with regret that Russophobia is rapidly gaining ground in the West, and that the unthinkable measures being taken there are destroying the fundamental principles of civilised behaviour. The aggressive promotion of “cancel culture” is turning into the cancellation of culture and is fraught with a complete loss of one’s bearings in the contemporary world. You cannot say now who you are dealing with, a man, a woman, or a non-binary person and which sex that person prefers to be at this time of the day. It is difficult to say who wrote or painted what, because the name can be changed overnight. It is difficult to see the difference between the truth and lies. What happened in our history? Monuments are destroyed, museums are closed, and history textbooks are rewritten. It is no longer clear who attacked who, but not because there are no factual data but because the dates, directions, figures and geography have been changed. Everything has been changed. What do you want from people? Do you want them to lose any touch with reality? Public ostracism, the cancellation and banning of facts and names is a path towards self-destruction.
We know about the Western attempts to “cancel” the Red Army’ contribution to defeating Nazism during World War II. We have been speaking about this every week for the past decades. This is happening right now. The Russian flag has not been raised at the Karlshorst Museum in Germany, where the Nazis signed the official act of surrender in 1945, and the building’s official name plaque – the German-Russian Museum – has been obscured with black tape. What is that place dedicated to? Who was there? Tell me now, who liberated who? Did the West Germans liberate the East Germans? What is the new version?
This “cultural” mayhem, or rather “uncultured Sabbath”, increasingly reminds me of medieval obscurantism, when it was not barbarism or pagan rites but Christianity and the New Testament with its compassion to thy neighbour which offered the Holy Inquisition the rationale for burning books. Why not throw people into the same fire, while they were at it? Doesn’t this remind you of anything? They were guided by good intentions and knew how to motivate people. World War II also started with high ideals, by telling our ancestors how to live, who is “pure” and who is not, which race has a greater right to exist than another one. The analogy with the Nazi campaign in Germany to destroy undesirable books is even more terrifying. The same campaign has been carried out in Ukraine year after year with all kinds of books perishing in the fire: history books, ethnic and cultural literature, religious and children’s books. They even banned cookbooks. Why? Because they did not want to share the borsch beetroot soup with anyone. Only one nation, one ethnic group could own it. There was no way they could share it with others, so that housewives could cook it their own way in every town and region. They did not want to compromise. This is precisely what we are talking about: xenophobia, Nazism and extremism in all their forms.
As part of the cancel culture, we have been facing attempts to black out specific cultures from the public space to give way to others. This has happened quite a few times in European and American history. Sometimes they do this simply to glorify something, and not necessarily against our country. This is what they do, in general. China has been treated this way a couple of years ago when it faced accusations of creating the coronavirus, as if it all came from a bat. This did not work out, but China still suffered a lot from this campaign. Sinophobia became the talk of the town, especially in the United States. Before that, there were attempts to cancel other countries. In the early 2000s, there were attempts to cancel French culture when Paris refused to support Washington in its campaign against Iraq. It went as far as attempts to stop selling French fries because the name referred to France. I am not even mentioning films, etc. This is how it happened: not a single talk show would spare the French for their principled position, which turned out to be the right one. At the time, the French leadership had the determination and independence to look and the facts and realise what is true, and what is a lie.
This cancel culture dates back decades, centuries, and even more. This may not be a direct analogy, by the ancient Romans introduced the term Damnatio memoriae, which stands for “condemnation of memory.” When a person died, he had to be removed from the public memory, forgotten. This did not happen naturally. Instead, the Romans went to great lengths to erase all traces of the person subject to this procedure. Interpretations may vary, but the facts are there.
The colonial powers of Europe and America sought to black out all references to ethnicity in their protectorates and destroyed dozens of invaluable cultural heritage artefacts in the process. Michel Foucault would use the term “cultural imperialism” to refer to these ugly practices. Entire societies became subaltern social groups. Researchers of colonialism like Antonio Gramsci and Gayatri Spivak taught that the cultural footprint left by these societies remained invisible for the mainstream culture with the West knowingly maintaining this status quo.
The Third Reich masterminds reached unreachable heights in the 1930s (unreachable until recently, since new heights, or rather new lows, have now been reached) when they removed all references to the way Jewish scientists and art figures contributed to Germany’s development and culture, as if these people never existed. It all starts in the beginning, by highlighting the achievements of just a single ethnic group or a few chosen races. Other races also existed, but this does not matter.
This phenomenon was aestheticised and adopted at the highest level. They called it the “cultural aryanisation.” There was a programme, tenets, ideologists and those who implemented this concept and oversaw compliance.
Throughout the second half of the 20th century, there was this witch-hunt against communism for rooting out everything “communist” in the United States – the infamous McCarthyism. The ideology has not changed. There is now cancel culture and a new cultural genocide. This time it targets everything related to the great Russian heritage without sparing anything. There is nothing new about this. The West has been suffering from this malady for ages.
It would be impossible to imagine something of this kind happening in our country. For centuries, the Russian masters of literature, music and fine arts created their masterpieces for humanity as a whole and served as moral and spiritual beacons for entire generations, enriching the world culture. At the same time, Russia has always appreciated and promoted works by foreign artists regardless of the relations it had with their countries of origin. The year 1812 is quite telling in this regard. Just reread War and Peace. Quite impressive, isn’t it? We believe that culture must remain in a league of its own. This is our heritage, a well of pure drinking water enabling humanity to preserve itself. It helped promote people-to-people ties at all times and facilitate dialogue, find common ground, mutual understanding, and simply survive.
Italians’ response to the Russian special operation in Ukraine
Russophobia has not engulfed the whole world in its entirety. There are many examples of that. Here is just one.
Since the time when the cogwheels of the Russophobic campaign were set in motion and everything Russian became subject to persecution, Russian embassies have been receiving numerous letters and telephone calls expressing people’s support.
The Italian people have been voicing solidarity with this country and its citizens. We have received a compilation of such reports from the Russian Consulate General in Milan. Ordinary Italians, including independent journalists, international law experts, representatives of the academic community, businesspeople, cultural workers and public activists, have sent hundreds of letters to President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. These letters express genuine emotions, and contain a profound analysis of the current developments, which should be done by the political establishment that has failed to accomplish its task.
Let me quote some passages from these letters: “Not all Italians are American puppets.” “I have always considered the Russian people a fraternal nation because they repatriated my father, an Italian prisoner of war, in 1945.” At that time, Italy sided with the Axis powers. Here is what other letters say: “I express solidarity with the Russian people and authorities, and I disagree with the shameful Russophobic campaign.” “I will exert every effort to prove that only sanctions against the Nazi-ruled Ukraine are justified.” “The criminal government of Ukraine alone is responsible for inevitable civilian victims.” “The propaganda of hatred, being incited by the Italian media, discredits my country and slanders the great Russian civilisation.” “I am distancing myself from the Italian government’s political and economic measures, and I will continue to work with Russian guests.” “We will continue to promote projects reaffirming the all-encompassing essence of Russian culture.”
Sanctions are a key to comprehending the entire situation. Why did they say on February 24, 2022 that other options had been exhausted? Today, we can see how the US-led “collective West” applies and invents ever more elaborate sanctions, including personal lists, bans, accusations, threats, economic blockades, appropriations, confiscations, robbery, blocking and freezing accounts. They have used everything. They can do it, and they are using these methods. It is quite easy to freeze an account and to seize other people’s private property. This concerns the citizens of a state where these measures are introduced, as well as Russian citizens and those who have personal and business ties with Russia. Nothing prevents Western countries from using all kinds of restrictions in order to attain a political solution.
Why didn’t they apply even one-billionth of these measures against the Kiev regime in the past eight years, so as to force it to fulfil the Minsk Agreements, which were co-signed by the President of Ukraine? It was possible to do this. All they needed to do was withhold one payment that was earmarked for stimulating the Kiev regime’s development, though it wasn’t Ukraine’s by right. They transferred the money for no reason at all, and it disappeared there. They could have said once that the multi-billion tranches would be sent only after Ukraine fulfilled just one clause and began fulfilling another. We know representatives of the 21st century Kiev regime very well. They will choke themselves for a penny, and they will strangle everybody else. They would have over-fulfilled the Minsk Agreements in order to see the money on their private, not state, bank accounts once again. Well, none of the measures that have been applied to different countries were ever used with regard to the Kiev regime.
The Kiev regime perpetrated every crime under the sun: murders, violence, abductions, shutting down television channels and intimidating journalists. One should also mention the facts of genocide, as regards people living in a certain territory. What prevented the enlightened Brussels, Paris, Rome, (I am leaving London out for now, since everything is clear there) Madrid, Lisbon and Berlin from delaying some bonus payments for Kiev and linking them with the fulfilment of the Minsk Agreements? This decision would have prevented everything that is happening now. The domestic political situation in Ukraine would have been resolved long ago, and two regions would have received the appropriate legislative guarantees and language (even in their part), as well as economic opportunities and social benefits. Everything would have been all right today. However, they didn’t do this. They only paid Kiev for its failure to fulfil the Minsk Agreements.
Now let’s go back to the Italian reactions. These are not anonymous letters; they are signed by concrete people, who are not afraid, who say so outright, and understand the meaning of the current developments.
There are many such letters. For example, almost 2,000 messages were sent to the Russian Embassy in Italy during just one day, March 25. They were not aggressive like those written by supporters of the neo-Nazis in Ukraine, but full of normal, human words of support and understanding. Maybe they were not even about support, but their writers were clearly aware of the etymology of the entire crisis. They openly state their disagreement with the Italian government’s policy, which is at odds with the interests of the Italian people, wish Russia an early victory, and thank it for helping their country to fight the pandemic within the framework of Russia’s humanitarian mission in the Apennines. The most widespread statement is that “this government does not represent me, nor is it acting on my behalf.” A relevant hashtag – #notinmyname – is increasingly popular in internet’s Italian segment. It unites all these people and conveys what they think.
I want to remind the Italian government, among others, which speaks so often about Russia: 2020, the pandemic. Italy was the first European victim of a new and mysterious disease, against which there were neither medicines nor vaccines. Have you forgotten how they wanted to “cancel” you, Italy? You have. But I will remind you. You made a fine 2-minute video, your creative people and public figures shot a fantastic short video lasting a couple of minutes about what Italy is all about. It says that Italy is a country that gave the world amazing composers, artists, architects, fashion and industrial designers. You were asking the peoples of Europe and the world how it was possible to forget and cancel the Italian culture, Italy, and the Italian people? Didn’t you go through this? Weren’t you hurt at the time? After all, they were not doing with you what they are attempting to do with the people who had suffered for eight years and who have been crucified twice today. Remember 2020? Do you remember who helped you then? Do you remember who blocked that “firing port” of yours with its body? Right, it was Russia, the Russian armed forces. You are asking: What did we need it for? Mr Di Maio can ask himself just one question: Why was this necessary? After all, at that time, we, as a country, were supposed to be making reserves for ourselves. For our own sake! But we were sharing assistance, knowledge, skills, resources, love… Sharing with you! And now you, though not representing the real people of Italy (because they write this about you), have launched a fierce anti-Russia campaign as a leader of the European community. You are cancelling yourselves, not us.
The Russian Embassy in Italy posted a comment in its official Facebook, Twitter and Telegram accounts, thanking the people of Italy who expressed support for Russia. The post sparked off an unprecedented positive response, with hundreds of thousands of visits, tens of thousands of likes, and thousands of reposts. I know this will not last long. I know that the US social media will remove and delete all this, pretending it never existed. But it did and it will!
We see and value the fact that the Italian people are not allowing the mercenary media to deceive them and that in the hardest of times, the times of global change, they are seeking to preserve close ties with Russia and its history and culture. The latest RAI polls are quite indicative in this sense: 55 percent of Italians are against the delivery of lethal weapons to the Kiev regime and 69 percent believe that Italy should maintain a dialogue with Russia. We would like Italy and other EU countries to listen to the opinion of this kind and be guided by the will of their own people.
The US IT giants continue to cleanse the digital space of any alternative views. This is being done methodically on Washington’s orders issued within the framework of the information aggression launched against Russia.
I remember very well how 15 years ago these global corporations accused China of preventing them from entering the Chinese market. Something went wrong now. They are doing now what they accused China of doing back then, even though China as a sovereign state is not obliged to allow US corporations to operate in its information space. They are blocking access, deleting information, intimidating people, preventing access to essential information, and doing many other things I will tell you about here.
Today YouTube has committed another act of digital censorship towards the Foreign Ministry’s verified account by blocking access to the video of my March 17 briefing over the alleged violations of its Community Guidelines and a desire to prevent “hate speech.” Can you provide an example of hate speech I allegedly used? Have they banned the London gallery for the discriminatory act of renaming Degas’ painting? Have they banned the streaming or blocked the resources of any Western politician for making discriminatory statements against Russia, the Russian culture and the Russian language? No? You can’t cite a single example? Neither can I.
I can only try to guess exactly what angered YouTube, because the platform never provides concrete explanations. We can only assume that its administrators didn’t like the facts I mentioned about the spread of Nazi ideology in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Ukrainian armed attacks on peaceful civilians in Donbass, or the details which came to light about the US military biological programmes in Ukraine. We are absolutely sure about the latter reason, because information about biological programmes is deleted from all resources. They are annoyed by and fear this information because the truth has been exposed. It is even possible that the horrible, criminal story in Bucha has been provoked by the questions people in the West are asking about their government’s involvement in the work of these laboratories. The labs that operated under the umbrella of the Ukrainian Health Ministry on the Pentagon’s money and with German and other countries’ involvement were far from ordinary American biological labs.
So, what’s wrong with YouTube? It was a barbaric infringement on the fundamental right of free access to information by a platform that is no longer trying to pretend to be neutral. I am sure that it was only a matter of timing, that they knew in advance what they were going to do, and they did it, deleting information about journalistic investigations and banning entire media outlets. They blocked and imposed restrictions on individual videos and individuals. We saw it happening and we commented on it. We have now become the target. The Foreign Ministry cannot stream its briefings on YouTube. But we opened an account on RuTube a year ago, and we will use it to stream our events soon. The pseudo-objective YouTube video hosting has banned the accounts of Russian media outlets, and now it has launched an arbitrary digital attack on the resources of the Russian authorities. Should we call on YouTube and its owner, Google, to act reasonably and responsibly? Or should we take a different path? We must stop talking and start acting. Enough of measures and half-measures. It’s time to get down to business.
We have always stood for freedom of speech, compromise, etc. However, in this case, they have gone beyond all reasonable limits. We have long lost any illusion about the platform’s future behaviour. They did say that the restrictions were temporary though. Still, the positioning of the West, the US special services and the political establishment is clear to us. They are entrenched in their frenzied unwillingness to accept anything that takes them out of their comfort zone. Probably, we hit them where it hurt the most – the biological laboratories and how President Joe Biden’s family members are linked to all the ugly things going on in Ukraine with these biological laboratories and their research.
I would like to remind you that the Foreign Ministry created its YouTube account back in 2012. In today’s reality, it is obvious that we will need to rethink the way we work with this platform and whether maintaining our presence there is advisable. However, we were not the ones who started this process. We would have just carried on as before. But how can we do this if they do not let us? We reserve the right to ask the competent agencies of the Russian Federation to take appropriate action in the context of this suspension.
This incident demonstrates yet again the total lack of integrity on the part of the American IT giants and their wholehearted involvement in the information war against Russia. Only yesterday, the Foreign Ministry released a statement saying that Twitter enacted unacceptable restrictions regarding materials about the provocation staged in Bucha, Ukraine. It took this platform less than 24 hours to announce new steps. Now they officially change the rules as they go along without referring to the community guidelines. Twitter moved to limit the access of its users to materials coming from the Russian state agencies. Why let anyone get information from alternative sources? Getting information from the State Department is enough. Read what the White House releases. They have the right perspective. Twitter intends to turn off the “recommend” function for Russian state bodies, which means that its algorithms will no longer suggest this content to users, even when it earns good viewer ratings. The idea is that users have to search for our materials on their own by elbowing their way through the veil of ‘reliable’ tweets. The real issue here is how they presented this. Twitter’s engine will be designed to remove our materials from search results even for users specifically asking for them.
Equally outrageous are Twitter’s plans to delete posts containing images of prisoners of war, if posted on accounts related to specific countries. How is that possible? A country’s armed forces are affiliated with its government. How can you ban government agencies from distributing this information on your platforms? Let me explain what this means in plain Russian. There are many photos and lots of video evidence of prisoners of war from the Russian military suffering horrible atrocities at the hands of Ukrainian armed forces, fighters and extremists. You will never find anything anywhere with Ukrainian prisoners of war being treated like this. Twitter uses this perverted phrasing to prevent Russia from informing the wider international public about the inhuman practices of the Kiev regime, while making sure that reports on Ukraine’s neo-Nazi machine remain a secret. There is no need to mention the proverbial Russophobic policy by Meta, recognised as an extremist company. They have already deleted everything or are about to do so.
Against this backdrop, we have been emphasising the need for alternative and competitive online services offering similar functions while guided by different content policies and working within the confines of the Russian law. We have already set up an account with RuTube.
We want others to join us in this effort. All Russian government agencies are beginning to focus on this platform, creating their accounts there and transferring content.
I do hope that this strong public demand will soon translate into specific software products, while the platform keeps growing.
Anti-Russia statements by Japanese authorities
With enviable perseverance, official Tokyo continues to whip up anti-Russia hysteria in Japanese society and to impose an ideologised agenda on foreign partners, while obediently fulfilling US instructions. One gets the impression that the Japanese leadership considers these efforts to be even more important than the country’s post-Covid-19 recovery and stable economic development.
Consequently, the Japanese authorities are consistently demolishing positive achievements in expanding mutually beneficial cooperation created by their predecessors over many years. While acting in line with the famous principle “Après nous, le deluge” (“After me, the flood,”) the administration of Fumio Kishida is deliberately sacrificing long-term socioeconomic interests, including those of the Japanese people and business community, to selfish political goals. And it is deliberately trying to make things as difficult as possible for those who will have to overhaul bilateral relations, sooner or later.
In turn, we intend to draft and effectively implement subsequent countermeasures.
FIFA’s recognition of Russian as an official language
Despite the ongoing campaign to bar Russian athletes from major international competitions, more and more people are beginning to make statements defending the rights of Russian athletes. The contribution made by Russian citizens to the development of the international sports movement, in the historical context, and to the promotion of various sports cannot be cancelled even if all things Russian are banned.
In this connection, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) has made a symbolic decision to grant official status to the Russian language. On March 31, 2022, an overwhelming majority of FIFA member countries voted for this decision at the 72nd Congress in Qatar, with 187 countries voting for and only four voting against it.
This is a good and positive message highlighting the recognition of Russian football and proving that the majority of international officials are acting in a reasonable manner.
We are expecting the international sports movement to further comprehend the fact that the development of international sport is impossible without Russia’s involvement. We hope that this step by FIFA will serve as a positive impulse for other international sport organisations and federations, so that they revise and renounce discriminatory measures against Russian athletes.
World Russian Language Day initiative
In the context of advancing multi-lingual concepts at international organisations, we would like to draw your attention to the issue of proclaiming World Russian Language Day, due to be discussed in the next few days at the 214th session of the UNESCO Executive Board at the Organisation’s headquarters in Paris. Apart from the Russian Federation, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Cuba, Iran, Kazakhstan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Nicaragua, Palestine, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Venezuela have all co-authored the draft resolution. We are expecting additional co-sponsors to join in.
Today, Russian ranks among the most widespread languages worldwide, and it is the most widely used Slavic language, spoken by over 258 million people on all continents. About 50 percent of Russian speakers live outside Russia. The Russian language has official status in five UNESCO member states, as well official language or working language status in an overwhelming majority of universal UN Family organisations and regional continental associations. It is widely used in education, science, culture, communications and information. It reflects the rich cultural and civilisational legacy and concepts of a number of nations living in the vast Eurasian space bound by a common history and culture.
The idea of proclaiming World Russian Language Day aims to raise the international community’s awareness, to strengthen multilingual concepts, a fundamental value of the UN Family’s organisations, encourage intra-cultural dialogue, as well as dialogue between civilisations and mutual understanding between nations. The submitted initiative is purely humanitarian and de-politicised, and it fully meets UNESCO’s practice of proclaiming language days. In preceding years, the Organisation proclaimed world days for the Arabic and Portuguese languages, as well as Romani and Swahili.
We are counting on the Executive Council’s unbiased and non-discriminatory approach towards reviewing the issue of the Russian language. We hope that the attempts of certain countries to cancel Russian culture that have also, unfortunately, affected the UNESCO sphere will not hamper our initiative, which has received preliminary support from the Organisation’s Director General Audrey Azoulay.
The 41th meeting of the World Coordinating Council of Russian Compatriots
On April 5, the World Coordinating Council of Russian Compatriots held a meeting via videoconference. The meeting was attended by Executive Secretary of the Government Commission on Compatriots Living Abroad and Director of the Foreign Ministry’s Department for Relations with Compatriots Living Abroad Alexander Nurizade.
The Council members noted the importance of maintaining internal unity in the ranks of Russian compatriots in the face of Russophobia rampant in many countries around the world.
The participants in the meeting discussed in detail the Russian diaspora’s preparations for Victory Day, including the holding of the regular patriotic events St George’s Ribbon and Immortal Regiment.
There was an individual focus on improving the World Council’s structure and creating within it a standing Commission on Preserving the Historical Truth.
Promoting Russia-ASEAN relations
There has been much activity in the Russia-ASEAN segment lately. Russia’s dialogue with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been developing dynamically in keeping with the Comprehensive Plan of Action for 2021-2025, approved by the leaders of Russia and the Ten at their meeting last October.
On March 25 and 29, 2022, the main working bodies of this dialogue – the Joint Cooperation Committee and the Joint Planning and Management Committee – held their regular meetings at the level of permanent representatives to ASEAN. The meetings focused on a broad range of tasks related to strengthening Russia’s strategic partnership with ASEAN in politics, security, the economy, and culture. The participation of over a dozen Russian industry-specific agencies and organisations provided a practical focus.
The agenda includes the continuation of the Russia-ASEAN Consultations of High Representatives for Security Issues, which were launched in 2021, and the Russia-ASEAN Dialogue on ICT security-related issues, as well as organising another informal meeting of defence ministers. Moreover, Russia sees the first Russia-ASEAN naval exercises in December 2021 as a very useful initiative.
Under the current circumstances, the focus is also on cooperation in science-intensive and high technology areas capable of ensuring an innovative breakthrough in the economy. A key event in this context is the launching of the Russia-ASEAN Year of Scientific and Technical Cooperation in February of this year. The draft Russia-ASEAN Working Plan for Education is at the final coordinating stage. We see that our partners have much interest in implementing joint projects in education, energy, digitalisation, medicine, interconnectivity, climate change, and smart cities. Myanmar and the Philippines have come up with interesting sectoral initiatives.
The experience of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic has confirmed the importance of pooling efforts to counteract infectious diseases. In this connection, it is of great importance that Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Protection and Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor) resumed its face-to-face refresher course for epidemiologists from the ASEAN countries in Vladivostok in March 2022.
An important part of the effort to implement the Comprehensive Plan of Action was the first Russia-ASEAN meeting of ministers of tourism, held via videoconference in January 2022. One of our priorities is to revive the tourism industry as soon as possible, which has been hit the hardest by the pandemic and is of great importance for the South East Asian economies. Implementing the related working plan for 2022-2024 will facilitate an all-out intensification of cooperation in this sector. We must also note in this context Singapore’s project to use social media to boost mutual tourist flows.
Russia and ASEAN are firmly resolved to maintain the current dynamics in cooperation and look for new opportunities with a focus on practical aspects.
April 8 marks the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Tajikistan.
For the past 30 years, the two countries have worked together on the most important issues of social and economic development, cultural and humanitarian interaction, and strengthening of the defence capabilities and security of Russia and Tajikistan. This has had a positive impact on the situation in the entire Central Asia region.
Our political dialogue has a packed agenda. The heads of our states hold regular meetings both in the bilateral format and at multilateral platforms such as the CSTO, CIS and SCO; consultations are held by the foreign ministers, parliaments, and heads of almost all ministries and agencies.
Our countries strongly condemn all forms of discrimination based on racial, linguistic and religious differences, and decisively speak against attempts to rewrite history and the results of the Second World War.
The Russian Federation and the Republic of Tajikistan value the achievements of their strategic partnership and allied relations based on the common interests and values, as well as the centuries-long friendship.
30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Russian Federation and Turkmenistan
April 8 marks the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Russian Federation and Turkmenistan.
The relations between Moscow and Ashgabat, which in 2017 were elevated to strategic partnership, are based on equal rights and mutual respect, as well as careful consideration of each other’s interests. Their core elements are the dynamic trade and economic ties, mutually beneficial interaction between regions, constructive cooperation within the key international and regional platforms, including the CIS, the Caspian Five, as well as the UN, CSTO and the C5+1 dialogue mechanism.
Our positions on the current international affairs are mostly the same or similar. Russia highly values the neutral status of Turkmenistan, which plays a role of the supporter of peace, security and stable development in Central Asia and the Caspian region.
To mark the 30th anniversary of our diplomatic relations, we have scheduled an entire range of joint events, including exhibitions, research conferences and cultural exchanges. The Russian and Turkmenistani foreign ministries will make their contribution to this work.
75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Russia and India
On April 13, 1947, diplomatic relations were established with India, Russia’s reliable partner with whom we are united by centuries-old ties of friendship and mutual trust. Over the entire history of our relations, our bilateral ties have been characterised by deep sympathy between our peoples, mutual interest in each other’s spiritual values and cultural achievements, and readiness to respect and take into account each other’s interests.
Russia-India interaction has reached a new level of a highly privileged strategic partnership that includes comprehensive cooperation, mutual support at the international stage, and consistent improvement of humanitarian cooperation, including combating the COVID-19 pandemic.
A distinctive feature of relations between India and Russia is a large number of political contacts. Every year, meetings are held at the highest and high levels. On December 6, 2021, a regular summit was held in New Delhi during which President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister of the Republic of India Narendra Modi discussed the key issues of bilateral cooperation as well as the current global and regional matters. On April 1, 2022, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited New Delhi and held thorough talks with Foreign Minister of the Republic of India Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, and also met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Anniversary of the Crimean offensive by the Soviet troops during World War II (April 8, 1944)
The 17th Army, including five German and seven Romanian divisions and a total of some 200,000 people, as well as over 3,500 artillery guns and mortars, 215 tanks and assault weapons, and 150 aircraft, were blocked in Crimea by autumn 1943. The enemy sought to hold on to Crimea in order to maintain the threat of attacking the Soviet troops in right-bank Ukraine from the rear, while providing cover for its strategic flank in the Balkans and the maritime communications between the straits, the seaports along the Black Sea’s western coast, and up the Danube.
The Red Army carried out the Crimean offensive to liberate Crimea from the invaders. Launched on April 8, it lasted until May 12, 1944, and was carried out by the 4th Ukrainian Front (Army General Fyodor Tolbukhin) together with the Black Sea Fleet (Admiral Filipp Oktyabrsky) and the Azov Flotilla (Rear Admiral Sergey Gorshkov). Chief of the Red Army General Staff, Marshal of the Soviet Union Alexander Vasilevsky coordinated the operation.
After five days of artillery shelling, the 51st Army of the 4th Ukrainian Front launched the offensive on April 8, 1944, from its bridgehead on the southern coast of the Sivash and breached the enemy defences two days later, outflanking the German troops near Perekop. At the same time, the 2nd Guards Army liberated Armyansk. In April, the Red Army liberated Dzhankoi, Kerch, Yevpatoria, Simferopol, Feodosia, Bakhchisarai, Alushta and Yalta. On April 15-16, the Soviet troops approached Sevastopol advancing from three directions.
Supported by aviation, the front’s assault forces breached the enemy’s defensive lines and took control of Mount Sapun on May 7, and went on to liberate Sevastopol on May 9.
The 19th Tank Corps pursued what remained of the German 17th Army, which withdrew to Chersonesus and was fully destroyed.
The victory in Crimea helped the country recover an essential region for its economy. The Red Army liberated some 26,000 square kilometres of land. During the occupation, Crimea suffered great damage from the Nazi invaders, with more than 300 industrial sites out of operation, decimated livestock, and cities and resorts in ruin with Sevastopol, Kerch, Feodosia and Yevpatoria suffering the most extensive damage. Sevastopol had only 3,000 residents left when it was liberated, down from 109,000 before the war. Only 6 percent of the city’s housing survived the occupation.
Moscow celebrated the liberation of Sevastopol with fireworks on May 10, 1944, firing 24 salvos from 324 guns. Following the Crimean offensive, 160 army formations and troops units received honorary titles named after the liberated cities: Yevpatoria, Kerch, Perekop, Sevastopol, Sivash, Simferopol, Feodosia, and Yalta.
To honour the defenders of Sevastopol, the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet issued an executive order on December 22, 1942, instituting the medal For Defending Sevastopol. It was awarded to more than 39,000 people. Sevastopol and Kerch received the Hero City status on May 8, 1965, and September 14, 1973, respectively.
Anniversary of Odessa’s liberation from Nazi invaders (April 10, 1944)
German and Romanian troops occupied Odessa from October 1941 until April 1944. The occupation lasted for 907 days. During this time, over 82,000 city residents died and 7,000 were taken to forced labour camps in Germany.
In late March 1944, the 3rd Ukrainian Front, under Army General Rodion Malinovsky’s command, carried out the Bereznegovatoye–Snigiryovka offensive, crossed the Southern Bug River and launched an offensive towards Nikolayev and Odessa.
The operation included 470,000 service personnel, some 13,000 weapons and mortars, 435 tanks and self-propelled artillery units, as well as 436 aircraft. The 17th Air Army supported the advancement of the troops, together with the air force and the Black Sea Fleet ships commanded by Filipp Oktyabrsky.
Germany’s 6th Army and Romania’s 3rd Army of Army Group A (renamed Southern Ukraine on April 5) fought against the 3rd Ukrainian Front. Together, they had 350,000 troops, more than 3,000 artillery guns and mortars, 160 tanks and assault weapons, and 550 battleplanes.
Partisans and resistance fighters assisted the Soviet troops and made a major contribution to liberating the city. During the war, they killed over 5,000 soldiers and officers, blew up 27 military convoys, destroyed 248 cars, and saved about 20,000 Soviet people from being taken to Germany.
The Odessa offensive dealt a heavy blow to the enemy with 27,000 people killed and 11,000 taken prisoner; materiel losses included 952 guns, 443 tanks and assault weapons, as well as 95 ammunition and food warehouses.
The German troops started planting mines around the city several days before withdrawing from it, focusing on the landmark buildings, factories, the power station, as well as the seaport. However, they did not have enough time to set off all the devices. The docks and port structures suffered the greatest damage. Many historical buildings lay in ruins. There were many trains at the train station loaded with equipment, machinery and metal structures, which the Germans failed to send to the Reich on time.
Odessa was liberated on April 10, 1944, when the Soviet flag rose above the opera and ballet theatre. The recovery effort started almost immediately. Many factories and manufacturing facilities lay in ruins, with over 2,000 buildings blown up or burnt down, the seaport, hospitals, clinics and health resorts were all destroyed. During the 907 days of occupation, Odessa’s population shrank by almost one half from 604,000 people.
Moscow marked this victory by firing 24 salvos from 324 artillery guns. On December 22, 1942, the Supreme Soviet Presidium of the Soviet Union issued an executive order instituting the medal ‘For Defending Odessa’ to be awarded to the defenders of Odessa. More than 30,000 people received it.
For their outstanding contribution to liberating the city, 27 formations and units received the honorary title “Odessa,” while 14 people received the Hero of the Soviet Union title, and 2,000 people earned other orders and medals for their heroism and courage in the battle for liberating the city.
On May 1, 1945, the Supreme Commander in Chief signed an executive order bestowing the Hero City title on Odessa. On May 8, 1965, the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet awarded the Hero City Odessa the Order of Lenin and the Red Star medal for the remarkable service to the Motherland, valour and heroism of the city’s working class when fighting the Nazi invaders.
The anniversary of the armed uprising in Buchenwald (April 11, 1945)
The International Day of Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camp Inmates is marked each year on April 11. This memorial date was established to commemorate the heroic uprising in Buchenwald, one of the biggest concentration camps in the Third Reich. Nearly 250,000 prisoners from all over Europe and the USSR went through Buchenwald, with 56,000 dying the death of martyrs, 8,500 of them Soviet prisoners.
The inmates lived in inhuman conditions and were used for hard labour, including at underground military plants. They were guinea pigs in monstrous medical experiments. But despite all the odds, there were several underground resistance groups, the most powerful of them being that formed by Soviet POWs. In the summer of 1943, at the initiative of German anti-fascists, an international committee was formed, which coordinated preparations for an armed uprising.
In the spring of 1945, when Allied forces were already approaching the camp, an order was issued to exterminate or evacuate the remaining prisoners. This provided the impetus for an armed uprising on April 11, 1945. The insurgents succeeded in capturing over 200 SS-officers and guards and taking control of the camp for two days. On April 13, units of the 3rd US Army entered Buchenwald.
The camp’s commanders and almost all supervisors were handed over to the International Military Tribunal and faced well-deserved punishment.
Yesterday, the Museum of Modern History of Russia opened a free exhibition entitled NATO: A History of Cruelty. Sponsored by the Russian Historical Society, the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Relations (MGIMO), the Association of Historical Parks “Russia – My History,” TASS, and the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency, the display presents documentary photographs from the collections of the above agencies, artefacts, and documents dating back to the Cold War period from the museum’s collection. The exhibition will run until April 24.
Timed to coincide with the anniversary of NATO’s establishment (April 4, 1949), the display is dedicated to key international events related the Alliance’s military activities, dating from the beginning of the Cold War to the present day.
The exhibition has nine sections devoted to plans for an attack on the USSR, which the US and its allies hatched soon after World War II, and to local conflicts that occurred in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, including the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s, and the conflict in Syria, as well as the current events in Ukraine brought about by Ukraine-NATO cooperation.
We invite all those who still believe NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s claims that “NATO is a defensive alliance,” to examine closely the documentary evidence of their so-called “defence” displayed at the exhibition.
I would like to draw your attention to a statement by the Interdepartmental Coordination Headquarters of the Russian Federation for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine. This is horrific information that has come to light today.
Russia and Ukraine negotiated a plan for exchanging prisoners of war. It was intended to do everything under the established procedure, as stipulated by humanitarian norms and in cooperation with international organisations. Commissioner for Human Rights of the Russian Federation Tatyana Moskalkova visited Ukrainian prisoners of war on the territory of the Russian Federation and assessed the conditions in which they were being kept. Her trip received wide media coverage.
The parties agreed to exchange prisoners, as required by the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. The exchange was to have taken place today, but it was thwarted by Ukraine. This is not the first setback. Each time, Ukraine thwarts such exchanges because the Kiev regime is reluctant to exchange prisoners.
Representatives of the Russian Defence Ministry repeatedly coordinated and specified the lists of prisoners. This work went on 24 hours a day. However, the Kiev regime manipulated the dates and made them conditional on various factors. The exchanges involved fewer and fewer prisoners, though their number has been previously agreed upon. At the final stage, their number was down to 38. This morning, Ukraine turned down all proposals and agreed-upon positions without explaining its motives.
In turn, the Russian Federation prepared to release all Ukrainian prisoners of war and delivered them to a preset area prior to the exchange. We have every reason to believe that the situation with captive Russian service personnel leaves much to be desired.
Authenticated reports show that Russian servicemen are tortured, beaten and subjected to degrading treatment, including various forms of torture practiced by punitive units during the Great Patriotic War. Some of this data is posted online. We also have such information, but we have not published it yet. The international community overlooks this glaring fact. I am talking about specialised institutions, including the UN, the OSCE and the International Committee of the Red Cross, rather than ordinary people or media outlets.
Not only are Western countries aware of Kiev’s crude violations of international humanitarian law with regard to Russian prisoners of war. They receive all information, and they are also trying to help Ukrainian authorities avoid responsibility. They are afraid of releasing people whose bodies bear signs of torture, and who will tell everyone what harm had been inflicted on them. It appears that the Kiev regime does not intend to do this.
This is proved by the fact that, on April 1, 2022, the Kiev regime notified the British Foreign Office that it does not intend to honour the Geneva Convention while dealing with Russian prisoners of war. This situation did not begin today. It lasted all these eight years and affected other people, including self-defence fighters and civilians, including children, women and senior citizens. They buried these people alive, killed them and branded their bodies with their ritual symbols.
These manipulations around Russian prisoners of war show that the authorities of many Western states are becoming accomplices to the inhuman crimes perpetrated by the Ukrainian neo-Nazis.
Today, Russia applied to the UN, the OSCE, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international organisations, as well as the leadership of Germany, Turkey and France and asked them to force Ukrainian authorities to allow representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Russian prisoners of war. They will assess their conditions in custody and will conduct in-depth medical examinations. Their reports must be later submitted to the Russian party and international organisations. This is yet further evidence of whom Russia is confronting in this region. The Russian leadership, the Defence Ministry and the Foreign Ministry continue to monitor this issue.
Answers to media questions:
Maria Zakharova: Washington and its allies have prepared and submitted to the UN General Assembly a draft resolution suspending Russia’s membership in the UN Human Rights Council – an initiative in line with other ongoing attacks on Russia on multilateral intergovernmental platforms.
A decision on this document is scheduled to be made on April 7. To implement its idea, the United States will have to enlist the support of two-thirds of the total number of delegations present and voting.
This is a manifestation of the Western “cancel culture;” this part of the Western-American mentality that if you have a problem, you don’t need address it. All you need to do is get rid of any mention of the problem.
I hope that the current US Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, is aware that the United States once scandalously withdrew from the Human Rights Council and snapped at those who remained, and at the body itself. This happened when someone at the HRC suddenly dared to ask Washington questions about what was happening in Afghanistan where the United States had been for 20 years, killing the civilian population at will. In fact, during the years of the US-led NATO presence there, they were not fighting drugs, but on the contrary, drug trafficking and related crime flourished there, on a huge scale. As soon as the HRC began voicing such concerns and releasing statements, the United States slammed the door and left, saying the HRC was superfluous anyway. This is how they do it.
Now they want to “cancel” Russia's participation in the HRC. This is an attempt to punish our country for its independent domestic and foreign policy, including in human rights, which does not fit into Western patterns. The “collective West” countries, which have declared themselves benchmarks of human rights and democracy, are now openly trying to use international platforms they did not create, platforms that were there long before the current situation, including the HRC, to promote their own vision of the international order and the development of culture, traditions and values, human rights and freedoms. You either do it like them or you don’t. Doing it like them is good. Doing it your way is not good, unless it is the same way as they do it. No options. They are increasingly resorting to using the HRC’s potential and tools to interfere in the internal affairs of other states, including in electoral processes, by adopting biased resolutions against “undesirable” countries and “regimes,” and setting up “independent international commissions” to investigate human rights violations. Such a policy, of course, hinders any real improvement in the human rights situation in the world, and undermines confidence in the UN human rights dimension and in the concept of human rights in general.
As practice shows, Western approaches and initiatives to resolve acute human rights crises in the world have failed: not a single conflict has been resolved. The recipes and scenarios of the “mature” democracies have, if anything, contributed to the aggravation of the human rights situation in certain countries, including as a result of the Westerners' active employment of their favourite toolkit of unilateral coercive measures.
Let me give you an example – Venezuela, a constant target for US attacks on human rights grounds. From year to year, for many years, on all international platforms, they crossed the country out, demanded that it leave, tried to expel it, and so on. Then the pandemic began. One would think it was a perfect opportunity for the Western democracy, the textbook democracy in the United States to show its worth, to lend a helping hand to the citizens of Venezuela, to send them medicines, vaccines, and food. They did exactly the opposite. Their sanctions, which Venezuela had suffered for many years, only became tougher, and the pressure ratcheted up. They thought the pandemic would add problems on top of those they had already created, and the people of Venezuela would riot against their government and “American-style democracy” would triumph. This did not happen. What happened was something the US had not expected. They suddenly realised they actually needed Venezuela, and the human rights situation was not so bad there after all. This was the reason for the “not really a visit” to that country by senior US officials to discuss energy cooperation when the United States became interested. It was just a couple of weeks ago. That was it. Venezuela’s human rights, faulty elections, and basic freedoms could wait, as soon as the US smelled oil and money.
The “collective West” seems to find it difficult to understand and accept the fact that their policy of “human rights neo-colonialism” has failed, that they can no longer unilaterally establish their own rules, including on the UN human rights track.
Russia has always openly opposed these approaches. Our priority with regard to human rights has always been a stronger constructive dialogue, the involvement of all interested parties in discussion and collective decision-making. This has been our focus as a member of the UN Human Rights Council. The loss of Russia's participation will undoubtedly undermine the UNHRC’s universality and efficacy, and will in fact give Western countries a free hand to exercise total control over the human rights sphere.
Maria Zakharova: It’s a wild statement. Since the very beginning, Southeast Asian countries showed their intention to deal with the situation independently, without the Ukrainian ambassador, and carefully listen to unbiased information. They have the data, the ability to correlate facts, and information materials to understand the reasons that prompted Russia to launch a special military operation.
Most countries in the region know what the information product promoted by the West and Kiev is worth. They have experienced this sort of thing over and over again. They did not succumb to unprecedented political pressure, they were not tempted by promises of all kinds (they were promised everything) for refusing to cooperate with Moscow. They have been through a lot in the recent past. The Southeast Asian countries know what the Western take on principles means. Today they are asked to abandon Russia and be friends with the United States, and tomorrow they will become the biggest enemies of the United States if they do something different from what Washington wants. We have been through this. These countries speak for international law, balance of interests, multipolarity, regional cooperation, equality, and non-interference in the affairs of non-regional players and sovereign countries. Despite the global anti-Russia hysteria, our partners are demonstrating their commitment to interact further and continue the dialogue on the entire range of practical issues.
Maria Zakharova: This is a highly unsavoury story. At the same time, it is the norm for the Kiev regime and those who follow its mainstream of twisting history. This time it was about Vietnam, which has come a long and difficult way fighting for independence and achieved significant socioeconomic success.
Speaking about the historical figure of Ho Chi Minh, he is a world-renowned leader of the national liberation movement, founder of the Communist Party of Vietnam, and the first President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. He visited our country a number of times and was a great friend to it. The example of the USSR was inspiring for him in many areas. Today Ho Chi Minh as a historical figure enjoys the endless love of his compatriots, and his authority is indisputable among the progressive part of the international community.
But even if we set aside his international reputation, he is a national hero. He is a person recognised by many generations and various strata of population in the country. The Kiev regime’s media should not poke their nose there with their modus operandi. Once again, the nationalist ideology is at play here, which has charged or infected the Kiev regime and everything connected with it. We can see the defamation of other countries’ past everywhere.
Maria Zakharova: The anti-Russia campaign in Europe is off the scale and has gone beyond all reasonable limits. Unfortunately, they have chosen the hunt for diplomats as another leverage on Russia. Problems are created that they themselves will have to face, but there will be no one to solve them.
This is extraordinary hypocrisy. On the one hand, we are told that diplomacy is the best way to settle all existing problems, and on the other, they are expelling diplomats en masse. They are making up stories about the “status of their activities.”
In every case we respond: we express our confusion, regret, or protest, depending on what is happening. This, of course, is an unacceptable measure of pressure on Russia.
We never initiated such diplomatic wars. If there were questions regarding specific individuals, we have always solved them bilaterally with the countries involved. These facts were only made public by mutual agreement. However, over the past ten years it has become a tool of information and political influence on our country chosen by the West. For centuries, diplomats in various countries have been declared personae non grata for various reasons. All this is the routine of diplomatic life. For the past ten years, this sphere has been given a completely different dimension. This is a completely new invention, when aggressive steps are demonstratively taken against our country using this tool - the expulsion of diplomats. It is not done just to "adjust" relations with the other side, but to demonstrate that it can be done and used as yet another option for aggressive influence on the state.
We see diplomacy as a permanent tool for interstate cooperation. In today’s conditions, its importance is only growing.
We will respond every time. The principle of reciprocity in international relations has not been cancelled. We will and are already deciding on specific solutions based on our own interests, considering the real circumstances and the “contribution” of certain countries to fanning anti-Russia hysteria. At the same time, we are not considering closing European embassies in Moscow.
Maria Zakharova: I have not seen such information.
I know that restrictions were imposed on his son-in-law, as they were on some other Russian nationals, diplomats, and yours truly.
The expulsion of our diplomats is actually sanctions as well, and not just an instruction to leave the country. They have closed off the possibility of working there. As for the EU, there is the ban on entry to all these countries for the next five years at least. At the same time, all other ways of entering these countries are banned as well, whether it be a private trip, research and cultural exchanges, or in another connection.
These restrictions against our diplomatic missions have been made for decades. Hundreds of Russian diplomats have come through them. Now this trend has reached a new level. Sanctions are imposed not only on diplomats who are working abroad, but also on those who work in Moscow, on Smolenskaya-Sennaya Square. And they are imposed on the head of our ministry. All of this defies logic.
Diplomats are the people who maintain contacts, explain a country’s position and approaches amid the deepest crises. What is going on now is beyond diplomatic practice, diplomacy as a profession. It is the destruction of the foundation of the current world order, one of its components at which the West is striking a blow.
I have not seen this news and I have commented on the overall situation. Our approach is well known.
Question: Can you comment on the incident at the Russian Embassy in Bucharest?
Maria Zakharova: It was a horrific incident. The Embassy has already commented on it.
Early in the morning of April 6, 2022, a driver rammed his car, which had a Romanian number plate, into the gate of the Russian Embassy in Bucharest. The car caught fire and the driver died. According to preliminary information, he was a Romanian citizen. I have not seen any official confirmation but experts told me that it was a person who had been charged with a criminal offence, and sentenced the day before. So this was a man who had suffered some hard knocks, mildly speaking.
There were no injured among the employees of the Russian diplomatic mission.
The leadership of the Embassy immediately called the Romanian law enforcement agencies and demanded a prompt and thorough investigation into this serious crime which posed a threat to the safety of Russian foreign missions. I want to say again that the driver also died. One should understand that the man fell prey to the blatant propaganda campaign that all media are stirring up daily. All this has been happening for many years now. People are not that mentally strong.
Let us remind you (not only in connection with this incident, but others as well) that, according to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961, the host state must take all the necessary measures to protect the premises of foreign missions from any intrusion or harm. We hope that the Romanian authorities will act in accordance with their international obligations.
We are waiting for the results of the investigation.
Maria Zakharova: I can say that the UK Foreign Office and its current head, just like many others before her, are experts on lies. We have published a lot of documents to prove this. Hardly any investigation in the UK produced a result when it came to Russia and accusations against our country.
It is regrettable that you have only just started paying attention to infringements against Russian media outlets in Britain, as if we had never raised this subject every week over the past five years. There hasn’t been a single month when we didn’t talk about the harassment of the Russian media in the United States, Great Britain, the EU and the Baltic countries. The reprisals ranged from fines and groundless accusations of bias to the denial of visas to Russian journalists, and the non-admission of Russian journalists and invited experts to freedom of the media events held in Britain, including those organised by the Foreign Office. There are many such facts, and we made all of them public. Do you want me to forward the list to you personally? Or should I provide a digest so that we can see that this problem did not appear yesterday or in connection with Ukraine? For many years, the UK has been pushing the Russian media out of its information space and waging a discrimination campaign against Russian information providers, journalists, reporters, networks and media outlets.
It did not begin yesterday. Over the past few weeks, measures have been taken to limit the broadcasting of Russian television networks in Britain, relevant statements have been made, and a number of media representatives have been added to the sanction lists. You will be aware that the West and the EU (Britain was a member state then) imposed sanctions on Russian journalists. They were quite effective. Personal sanctions prevented the operation of the media outlets affiliated with the agencies headed by the people who had been sanctioned by the EU. I am referring to Dmitry Kiselev, who has been sanctioned as the head of Rossiya Segodnya. Because of that, affiliated organisations, including those registered in EU countries, in particular the Baltics, have been outlawed and persecuted. These people have been arrested, interrogated and harassed just because of the sanctions on Dmitry Kiselev. Their broadcasting was limited, and campaigns were launched against them as well. Similar measures have been taken against Margarita Simonyan, to whom I would like to extend the best birthday wishes today. Margarita, Reuters is concerned about you and your media outlet. I should explain now that this should have been done before. Sanctions were imposed on you a long time ago. The war on RT was announced in the United States and the “collective European West” in 2017. So, there is nothing new in the current situation. The only achievement of Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is that symmetric response measures have been taken and more such measures will be taken against the British media outlets working in Russia.
Maria Zakharova: We are developing traditionally friendly and neighbourly relations with North Korea. Our countries have similar views on many current international issues, primarily when it comes to rejecting the unipolar word order based on Western rules. We appreciate the North Korean authorities’ support for our decision to conduct a special military operation in Ukraine. We hope to stimulate our multifaceted ties after the Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.
As for the possible easing of the sanctions imposed on Pyongyang, in late October 2021, Russia and China circulated in the UN Security Council a draft political and humanitarian resolution on North Korea, which provides for an easing of the international sanctions regime in the humanitarian sphere and in other civilian areas that are not connected with its nuclear missile programme in light of the situation that developed in the country and the region as a whole in connection with the Covid-19 pandemic.
We believe that providing assistance to the North Koreans amid the pandemic would be a timely and responsible decision by the international community. The adoption of this resolution could help build trust among the states involved and provide an impetus for relaunching political dialogue.
But there is always a “but.” The United States and its European allies are not ready to accept this logic. Their concern for human rights is limited to fine words and sympathy. In practice, they insist on continuing the policy of sanctions and pressure on North Korea, which has long been proved ineffective, and have not proposed any reciprocal constructive ideas. We believe that it is this policy of Washington, which runs counter to the principles of the Singapore Declaration signed by the North Korean and US leaders on June 12, 2018, that is the true reason behind the absence of progress in the Korean settlement.
Maria Zakharova: We intend to continue cooperating with all the parties involved in the Korean settlement, including the United States and its Western allies. That being said, our actions will, as before, be guided not by requests for assistance from individual countries seeking to achieve their own goals but solely by our own national interests, which are to find a system-wide and comprehensive security solution in Northeast Asia.
Maria Zakharova: You know our long-standing position on the JCPOA. First, we support the deal. Second, we support its continuation. Third, we support its immediate reset. We have stated and reaffirmed our position multiple times during the negotiations.
As concerns a potential cancelation of the JCPOA in 2024, who knows how Washington’s position will change tomorrow, tonight or in an hour? Today I have already used Venezuela as an example. Not only did they form a position on Venezuela, they also did not recognise the legitimate president of the country and made up an illegitimate president, Juan Guaido, whom they declared a self-proclaimed leader of that country. The White House actually received this impostor – a person who does not officially exist on the political arena. Washington prohibited its satellites from communicating with Venezuela’s legitimate government. Everything changed in an instant when they needed a non-conventional approach to the energy problem. They instantly forgot about human rights, legitimacy or illegitimacy that they made up themselves, and about Juan Guaido. All of this will come up again when necessary – and will be forgotten if need be. I want to say the same thing in response to your question.
When people do not adhere to international law, agreements or diplomacy, when they only seek serving their own immediate interests, you can expect anything at all from them. They become absolutely unpredictable.
Question: Will the amount of bloodshed in Ukraine ultimately impact Russian public opinion?
Maria Zakharova: What a curious way to phrase a question. How did the events in Ukraine impact public opinion? You forgot to put the media in between. The media always stands between events and public opinion. Magazines, newspapers, television, social media and journalism are what forms public opinion.
The public in the West has known nothing about the events in Ukraine and Donbass for eight years. Western media outlets were not interested. They were not instructed to be.
How is it possible that a major tragedy is happening in the middle of Europe and Western media forget to report it? It’s not possible. I asked many Western journalists how they choose what to cover and what not to cover. If the White House mentioned it, they will cover the story. And if the White House did not comment, reporting is not necessary. It’s that simple. So, it all starts with the topic being an event in and of itself. It receives a certain impetus from the state machine in the United States and the EU. Then media outlets form a public opinion. If people, as you say, are shown photographs without captions, there can be no public opinion without facts. But you absolutely clearly said that public opinion is formed because a certain scenario and perception of these photos have been imposed on people. Today the world has seen horrific deceit. We have spoken extensively about this during this briefing. The fact is there were no civilian casualties in Bucha during the Russian forces’ presence. The interview given by the city’s mayor after the Russian military left is the proof. The mayor was smiling, optimistic and focused on normalising the situation. He did not say a word about casualties.
Next. There were no witness accounts by ordinary people of any “murders,” “atrocities” or other unlawful activities against civilians during the presence of the Russian military. Everybody had mobile phones and internet access. One can always call and say something. There were no direct reports on social media nor messages to people who could report it. Reports started coming in days after the Ukrainian security forces entered the city.
The world has witnessed deceit on a massive scale. We have been through similar things before. I mentioned the incident in 1944 in the German town of Nemmersdorf. We saw similar staged scenes involving White Helmets. Remember how they “witnessed” the crimes of the Syrian regime that allegedly used chemical weapons against civilians? The White Helmets would rush in, start hosing people, rubbing chemicals off of them, giving pills or injections to “save” them. All of this was filmed and passed off as the White Helmets’ “humanitarian mission” to save people in Syria from the Syrian regime. Then the truth came out. In fact, Syrian officials were trying to save their population from the White Helmets’ provocation staged by London. London funded and essentially built that organisation. Former British intelligence agent James Le Mesurier managed the White Helmets. Once he was no longer needed, he was “removed” from the game. He “committed suicide” in circumstances that could not be determined. We have seen similar scenarios multiple times. What a heinous provocation, with horrific consequences, was staged in Srebrenica. Social media did not exist at the time and there was no opportunity to disavow planted fake reports. The provocation caused a chain of horrible and unlawful decisions by the international community. It turned out it was also a provocation.
Now all information is available. Everybody I know can discuss different opinions and politicians in every part of the world. They know what is being said in Paris, Washington, Moscow, Kiev, Beijing, New Delhi and Islamabad.
People form their opinion based on available materials. The difference between you and us is that in this country, people have alternative sources of information while in Western countries, there are no such sources because Russian media outlets are not accessible there. In the past few weeks, they have been simply cut off from the media scene. Russian sources of information get blocked while the people who are there, citizens of those countries, and trying to convey this alternative angle get bullied and cancelled.
Maria Zakharova: I believe that to a greater extent, the Russian audience is impacted by the number of retractions the White House Press Service makes after US President Joe Biden’s statements. It is what truly impacts the public opinion in our country.
Maria Zakharova: Let me tell you right away that we will have everything.
It is true that several decades ago we decided to become integrated into the international media space. This was the choice we made as a nation. We believed that this was the right thing to do, enabling us to communicate with the international community on equal terms. There was this sincere hope among us that by being open to the world and developing our information resources we could make our voices heard. However, as soon as we started to speak out in a louder voice, and when our media resources started reaching these audiences, this is when the problems started. That was when they sought to expel us from this media space.
We prioritised global platforms over national ones. This is not the right time to debate whether this decision was good or bad. This is how things stand. The last few years have made it clear that we should develop our national platforms. I have been talking about this at length in all my interviews. We have always said that we are predestined to witness the fragmentation of the internet, as unfortunate as this may be. I pointed this out as far back as four years ago. At the time people were separated by borders and needed passports and visas to cross them. Looking back, I am really amazed by the accuracy of the prediction I made at the time when I said that the same restrictions would emerge online. Why did I say this? I realised that the Western community was unable to tolerate any competition. They are simply unwilling to accept it. What they want is to dominate and to feel exceptional. They do not need anything for that. They do not need any competitors.
We will use all platforms to get our word out, just give us some time. We will be ready soon. You can already watch our streams on Telegram, RuTube, and VK in Russian. We will seek to expand our footprint across the board.
Maria Zakharova: It would be premature to talk about recognising the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. However, I must note that the regime change in Kabul has not signalled any pause in the diplomatic contacts between our countries. We had contacts with the Taliban movement even before it came to power.
It is business as usual for the Russian Embassy in Afghanistan, while the members of the Afghan diplomatic mission in Moscow were appointed by the previous government.
The first Afghan diplomat sent by the Taliban Government, Jamal Garwal, arrived in Moscow in February 2022. In March, the Foreign Ministry accredited him, and in late March, the Afghan Foreign Ministry informed us that Afghanistan’s Ambassador Said Jawad had completed his mission, while Jamal Garwal was appointed Afghanistan’s charge d’affaires in Moscow. Let me reiterate that he was the first diplomat representing the Taliban government to be accredited in Russia.
Today, April 6, the Foreign Ministry sent a note to the Government of Afghanistan officially recognising Jamal Garwal as Afghanistan’s charge d’affaires in Moscow. We view this as a step towards resuming full bilateral diplomatic contacts.
Maria Zakharova: I would like to draw your attention to the relevant comment we posted on the Foreign Ministry’s website just two days ago.
Regarding the developments in Pakistan, let me reiterate that this is yet another shameless attempt by the United States, guided as it is by its narrow-minded interests, to interfere in the domestic affairs of an independent state.
The prime minister of Pakistan was subjected to brutal pressure to cancel and then shorten his trip to Moscow. When he refused to comply with these requests, the United States decided to punish “naughty” Imran Khan: suddenly, a group of parliamentarians from the prime minister’s party joined the opposition and the parliament scheduled a no confidence vote against the government. Pakistan’s prime minister said many times that the conspiracy against him was being inspired and financed from abroad. We hope that voters in Pakistan will be familiar with these circumstances by the time they cast their ballots. The election must take place within 90 days of the dissolution of the National Assembly.
As far as Russia is concerned, we are ready to continue working with Pakistan on an equal footing and taking into consideration each other’s interests.
Maria Zakharova: I have talked a lot about “cancel culture” today.
We have responded to the expulsion of Russian diplomats and to sanctions, and will continue to do so. But there can be no response to self-destructive madness.
They are cancelling the study of Russian classics. We believe that studying cultural heritage enriches a person, makes them better. An interest in and respect for the culture and history of other countries and peoples is one of the most important hallmarks of the Russian people and of our country, where different cultures, opinions, views, traditions, and features coexist. We've been there before. We know how to forgive and look towards the future, see other people's mistakes and even our own, draw appropriate conclusions and move on. The most important thing I would like to say, something that I think is an important characteristic of Russians (it is my personal opinion), is that bullying has never been part of our culture or character. Russians are always ready to have a good laugh, to criticise and punish, or, on the contrary, to comfort, but never to bully anyone. Even if someone is wrong, and even more so if they are right or offended undeservedly, never ever should they be bullied or harassed.
At the same time, as we can see, bullying has actually become the hallmark of the Western community. As soon as something is not to their liking, they command “bite!” and that is it. This is flawed psychology – to force others, who might not even agree, to turn away from the one being banished. Something like this is described in the New Testament. The psychology of betrayal involves giving up something you have been loyal to only recently. This is what cancel culture is —betrayal, rejection and bullying all rolled into one.
Maria Zakharova: The measures taken by a number of unfriendly EU member states to reduce the Russian diplomatic presence in these countries will indeed have a negative impact on the availability of state services for processing and issuing passports at our overseas institutions.
We will do everything possible to issue Russian external passports and certificates to our citizens on time. However, no one can guarantee that this will be done expeditiously. You can see from the number of diplomats expelled that certain countries have banished an entire Russian embassy; others, half of the staff. We will do our best.
We recommend that those whose passports are about to expire make an appointment at the consulate in advance, and if the worst happens, consider the possibility of using the territorial bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Russia, in the region of their registered residence or actual stay on the territory of the Russian Federation.
Please take into account that Russian laws do not provide for the possibility of an automatic renewal of people’s external passports.
There are always humanitarian cases, and again, you need to contact our embassies. This can be done by telephone, email, fax or letter. We always, as you know, promptly respond to such human stories.
What can you say, personally, about the following approach?
Maria Zakharova: Who in the West are you talking about? About the political establishment, those who have power to do what they are doing – supplying weapons, imposing sanctions, and making statements? They are lying deliberately and carrying out provocations, distorting reality.
If you are talking about the expert community, things can be different. Some of them have been recruited to the propaganda force, while others can be sincerely mistaken.
Take your neighbouring country, the Czech Republic, where the Russian-speaking segment of the internet is blocked, and it is physically impossible to get access to information there. Using Russian-language media is prohibited at the legislative level and is punishable with a fine.
If we take the general public, there are people who are genuinely concerned, but they have taken this stance due to family and other ties. Some people are victims of propaganda. There are people who are outside the current agenda.
So many men, so many minds.
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