Briefing by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Moscow, February 14, 2025
Table of Contents
- Sergey Lavrov’s upcoming talks with Foreign Minister of Serbia Marko Djuric
- Award ceremony to present Foreign Ministry’s decorations to regional officials, Russian civil society leaders and heads of the Foreign Ministry’s regional offices for their contribution to Russia’s BRICS Chairmanship in 2024
- Sergey Lavrov to take part in the Government Hour session at the State Duma of the Russian Federation’s Federal Assembly
- Sergey Lavrov to take part in the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting
- Ukrainian crisis update
- Anti-Russian documentary aired by Australian TV
- USAID’s financing of biological research in the post-Soviet space
- Paying pensions to military pensioners in the Baltic States
- Russophobic remarks by Italian President Sergio Mattarella
- History of Russophobia in Finland and Sweden
- USAID financing Albanian government agencies and NGO’s
- The investigation in Slovakia
- The 80th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden by Anglo-American air forces on February 13, 1945
- The 80th anniversary of the liberation of Budapest from Nazi invaders by the Soviet army on February 13, 1945
- Fourth open creative competition the Architecture of Diplomacy
- Russian Foreign Ministry representatives’ participation in the Munich Security Conference
- The Kiev regime staging a strike on the Chernobyl NPP
- Events in Japan marking Northern Territories Day
- Delayed acceptance of the original credentials from the Russian Ambassador in Moldova
- The Russian Ambassador being summoned to the Moldovan Foreign Ministry
- Russian journalists rejected visas in France
- US sanctions against NIS
- Armenia’s European integration prospects
- Statements by former President of Finland
- The United States’ interest in obtaining Ukrainian natural resources
- Forming a multipolar world
- Russian representatives’ presence in Munich
- Talks on settling the Ukraine crisis
- Russia-Syria contacts
- The situation with Russian ships in the Baltic Sea
- Talks between Israel and Hamas
- Russia’s involvement in settling the humanitarian crisis in Gaza Strip
- A “multi-polarised” world
- Sabotaged rotation at the Zaporozhskaya NPP
- The United States realising the actual balance of forces in the Ukraine conflict
- The double games of the collective West
- Russia’s approaches to settling the Ukraine crisis
- Steve Witkoff’s possible meetings with representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry
- Ukraine’s NATO membership
- Turkish politicians’ statements
- Donald Trump’s plans to deport Gaza Strip residents
- Invitation for Donald Trump to the events commemorating the 80th anniversary of Victory in Moscow
- Armenia’s plans to exit the EAEU
- Unblocking transport communications in the South Caucasus
- The exercise by the armed forces of Türkiye, Azerbaijan and the United States at the Armenian border
- Russia-Azerbaijan links
- Russia’s response to NATO building up presence in the Baltic Sea
- Donald Trump introducing sanctions against the International Criminal Court
- Legalisation of piracy in the Baltic Sea
- Russia’s aid to African countries
- USAID operations in Russia
- The root causes of the Ukraine conflict
- Potential changes in the United States’ attitude towards Russia
- A Nazi salute on live television
- The damaging activities by USAID in Russia
- The West’s response to the telephone conversation between the presidents of Russia and the United States
Sergey Lavrov’s upcoming talks with Foreign Minister of Serbia Marko Djuric
On February 17, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will hold talks with Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia Marko Djuric.
The agenda includes a detailed conversation on Russia’s multifaceted ties with Serbia, developments in Kosovo and the Balkans in general, as well as an exchange of opinions on a wide range of international matters.
On February 17, Sergey Lavrov will take part in an award ceremony to present the Foreign Ministry’s decorations to regional officials, Russian civil society leaders and heads of the Foreign Ministry’s regional offices in Yekaterinburg, Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod for their meaningful contribution to building a track record of success and accomplishment for the Russian Federation in promoting cooperation within BRICS in its various aspects and helping organise major events.
On February 19, Sergey Lavrov will take the floor during the Government Hour session as part of the State Duma’s plenary meeting. He will talk on Russia’s foreign policy priorities and answer questions from deputies.
Holding these annual meetings between the Foreign Minister and members of parliament enables us to touch base on the key matters on the international agenda, build stronger ties between the executive and legislative branches of government in terms of promoting our national interests on the world stage, while also strengthening our partnership ties with the countries of the Global Majority, creating a favourable environment for Russia’s social and economic development, as well as protecting the rights of Russian citizens and compatriots living abroad.
Sergey Lavrov to take part in the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting
This year’s opening meeting of the G20 Foreign Ministers as part of the debut presidency of South Africa – a friendly country whose stance is in accord with Russia’s – will take place in Johannesburg on February 20-21, a landmark event not only for Pretoria, but also for the entire African continent, which will host G20 events for the first time.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov plans to lead the Russian delegation. It is expected that most of the members of this major economic forum, as well as a wide range of invited states and international organisations, will be represented at a similar level.
The meeting will open with an address by President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa, which will set the general tone for discussing global challenges and threats. The discussion will particularly focus on the international situation, which is alarmingly deteriorating under the impact of the confrontational policy by the neoliberal Western elites.
The participants will consider the current integrity and effective functioning of the global economic system. The priorities stated by the South African presidency are designed to encourage economic growth, reduce inequality and imbalances, and ensure equitable access to financing for countries in the Global South.
The South African presidency theme highlighting “solidarity, equality and sustainability” will provide solid framework for the consultations, essentially continuing in the same vein as its predecessors in 2022-2024 – Indonesia, India and Brazil, all of them Global Majority countries. In particular, this refers to the G20’s significant contribution during this period to strengthening the foundations of the multipolar world and making global economic institutions more democratic in the interests of new non-Western centres of influence, primarily the expanded BRICS group.
The upcoming anniversaries, such as the 80th anniversary of Victory in World War II and the foundation of the UN, as well as the 65th anniversary of the Russia-sponsored Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples adopted by the UN General Assembly to ensure Africa’s independence, should be seen as key benchmarks for the exchange of views.
In his remarks, the Minister will provide a detailed analysis of the international situation underscoring the root causes of the current crisis, and outline specific steps to overcome the destructive phenomena. The Russian side will reaffirm its stance in favour of preserving the United Nations’ central role in global affairs. We will speak in support of strict compliance with the principles of the UN Charter in their entirety and interconnection.
We will insist that there is no alternative to respectful interstate cooperation and ensuring equal and indivisible security for all. We will call for keeping the global economy open, rejecting trade wars, illegitimate sanctions and other unfair competition practices. We will cite examples of supranational associations that practice honest and productive cooperation without diktat or blackmail, such as the EAEU, the SCO and BRICS. We will share the details of implementing the Russia-sponsored Greater Eurasian Partnership initiative.
The Minister is expected to meet with several counterparts on the sidelines of the meeting.
The militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) continue their terror against peaceful residents and civilian infrastructure within Russian regions.
On February 6, as a result of an unmanned aerial vehicle raid on a passenger car in the Valuysky urban district of the Belgorod Region, a man and two girls, aged 18 and 14 years, lost their lives.
On February 8, the AFU executed an inhumane artillery strike on a densely populated area of Makeyevka (DPR), resulting in tragic consequences. A woman perished, while her minor daughter sustained severe injuries. Ten other individuals, including one child, were wounded.
On February 10, the Banderites launched several dozen various munitions and deployed drones against 26 settlements in the Belgorod Region. Two men were wounded, and infrastructure facilities, along with technological equipment, sustained damage.
On the same day, as a result of a deliberate drone attack on the Mikhailovka-Vasilyevka motorway in the Zaporozhye Region, an elderly couple travelling with their five-year-old grandson were wounded. Fortunately, the boy remained unharmed.
A resident of the liberated town of Novogrodovka (DPR) recounted to journalists how AFU militants cynically exploited him to verify the presence of mines in residential premises. He was intended to become, as the Banderites had planned, a “living detector” to determine if an area was safe to pass or if it was mined. Just as the Nazis acted in the 20th century, so now do the neo-Nazis in the 21st century.
As the Kursk Region is being liberated, new atrocities by the Ukrainian Nazis are being uncovered. In one of the houses in the Sudzha district, the body of a tortured and murdered veteran of the Great Patriotic War was discovered. He survived the Nazis but did not survive the neo-Nazis. Retribution will follow for this.
Testimonies have been obtained from soldiers of the 83rd Separate Guards Air Assault Brigade, who liberated the village of Nikolayevo-Daryino in the same Sudzha district of the Kursk Region in late January this year. Its residents were used by the Ukrainian nationalists as a living shield, deprived of assistance, and subjected to abuses. Ultimately, the AFU fiends murdered almost all the men. Only one man miraculously survived. He, along with several women from this village evacuated by our fighters, provided details of these horrific crimes.
The world believed that the Belarusian village of Khatyn (that tocsin and those bells) should not allow humanity to forget the depths to which the population of planet Earth can sink under these nationalist, Nazi slogans. It has become clear that the sound of that tocsin and Khatyn’s bells did not reach everyone. The abuses and atrocities committed by the neo-Nazis of the Kiev regime against peaceful residents of the Kursk Region are crimes without statute of limitations. These acts, on the one hand, bear all the hallmarks of genocide on nationalist grounds, and on the other, qualify as deeds perpetrated by adherents of terrorism. Punishment will inevitably follow for these and other crimes of the neo-Nazis.
Russian courts continue to sentence Ukrainian neo-Nazis and mercenaries for committing war crimes.
Nikolai Dzyaman, Commander of the 138th Air Defence Brigade, Air Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, was sentenced to life in absentia for ordering a missile strike on the Trudovaya Armenia farmstead in the Krasnodar Territory on February 23, 2024. That terrorist attack killed ten people.
Georgian mercenaries Tornike Okropilashvili, Gvantsa Gelashvili and Valiko Izoria were sentenced to 13.5, 14 and 14.5 years in absentia. Law enforcement agencies found the flag belonging to these “soldiers of fortune” from Georgia in a basement with the bodies of brutally murdered residents of the village of Russkoye Porechnoye in the Kursk Region. We discussed this crime of the Kiev regime at our briefing on January 31, 2025.
Latvian and Lithuanian “legionaries” Zigmas Ronis and Albertas Glazauskas who fought with the Carpathian Sech Battalion and the Kastus Kalinovsky Regiment were sentenced to 13 years and nine months and 14 years.
International arrest warrants have been issued for the militants. Russian law enforcement agencies continue to bring to account Ukrainian Nazis and foreign mercenaries for committing war and other crimes.
The above-mentioned statements (by the way, we talk about Ukrainian pro-Bandera henchmen who have been sentenced at every briefing) clearly show that Western leaders rubberstamping decisions to provide Ukrainian Nazis with weapons and money encourage crimes against humanity. They will not avoid responsibility for their deeds.
On Wednesday, February 12, 2025, Brussels hosted a regular meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in the Ra
mstein format. The British Defence Secretary chaired the meeting in place of the US Defence Secretary for the first time. He therefore expressed a readiness to orchestrate the West’s war against Russia with the help of the Ukrainians. This rotation should be seen as an element of a chess combination alone. On February 6, 2025, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence (DASD) for European and NATO Policy, James Townsend, told Politico that the United Kingdom could coordinate the provision of assistance to Ukraine, but that no money and assistance would be forthcoming without the United States.
By the way, rumours are circulating on the sidelines of the February 12 Ramstein format meeting that it has spelled the worst implications for Ukraine. I do not know what could be worse – not to supply the required amount of assistance for the Kiev regime, as Vladimir Zelensky insists, or to supply. The West believes that it would be worse not to supply.
If anyone in the West has even a shred of compassion for Ukraine as a nation and its people, its residents and citizens, they would likely show restraint rather than contribute to its destruction. However, this appears to be precisely the goal of Vladimir Zelensky and the Western funding supporting him.
Only the British have pledged financial aid within the framework of Ramstein, promising $186 million. For Kiev, which wages war against its own citizens, this is merely a drop in the ocean, as it spends over $3 billion per month just to maintain the front line, amounting to more than $30 billion annually. How many factories, plants, schools, or hospitals could have been built for the Ukrainian people with that money? How much could have been invested in new technologies or solutions to the country’s pressing issues? How many roads, bridges, and airports could have been constructed? But no, according to the West, Ukraine was destined for a different fate.
In an attempt to solidify London’s new leadership role, British Foreign Minister David Lammy embarrassed himself during his visit to Kiev on February 5. Eager to showcase his erudition, he went so far as to make absurd claims about a supposed centuries-old – then even thousand-year-old – history of partnership between the English and the “ancient Ukrainians.” With a straight face, he stated, Kievan princesses married British princes a thousand years ago.
Professional historians quickly stepped in to correct the misconceptions of the British Foreign Minister and other London storytellers, pointing out that a thousand years ago, Ukraine did not exist. Instead, there was the ancient Rus’ state, which maintained relations with various foreign powers – but not through the so-called ancient Ukrainians. To strengthen its international standing, Rus’ engaged in dynastic marriages, but it was Russian princesses, not Ukrainian ones, as believed in foggy Albion, who entered these unions. Moreover, they never married Anglo-Saxons. Historical records document an opposite example: in the 11th century, the Rus’ prince Vladimir Monomakh wed Gytha of Wessex, the daughter of England’s King Harold II, who was killed by the Normans at the Battle of Hastings.
It is evident that the British, consumed by imperial ambitions, have mastered the art of grand rhetoric, speaking eloquently about the “ancient” traditions of cooperation with their vassals, even without historical facts to support their claims. And their audience is more than willing to listen. However, behind this pseudo-historical flattery lies a simple reality: a cynical geopolitical agenda aimed at provoking Vladimir Zelensky’s regime to persist in its military actions against Russia.
Ukrainians have been so tormented and brainwashed by Westerners through the hands of the Kiev regime that they may even believe these words of the British Foreign Secretary, in the historical foundation of that bright future for which they are given multi-billion dollar loans.
On February 2, the Ukrainian and Canadian foreign ministries made a pompous statement on the first anniversary since the establishment of an international coalition to return Ukrainian children. Over the recent years, the Kiev regime and its Western masters have launched so many empty anti-Russia associations that do nothing but repeat absurd and false Russophobic statements that it is surprising that they do not get them mixed up and manage to celebrate all the “memorable dates” and “anniversaries” on time.
For example, according to the coalition’s founders, it helped return 600 children to Ukraine in 2024. It is completely unclear where these unproven numbers come from.
For the general understanding, let me remind you that families separated by hostilities during the special military operation are reunited according to a clear and long-established algorithm by Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova jointly with the Ukrainian side and foreign mediators: Qatar, the Vatican and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
In the course of this work, 87 children from 69 families were reunited with their relatives in Ukraine and third countries, and 15 children from 10 families returned to their relatives in Russia. This is not hundreds of children. Even if there were other minors on the lists received from the Ukrainian side, it was found out upon examination that they had never been separated from their relatives, had entered Russia with their families, and in some cases, had not even moved anywhere: the Zelensky regime just considers them deported, since they live in territories that were reunited with Russia following the referendums in September 2022. Of course, neither these children nor these territories have any relation to Ukraine anymore.
As for the abovementioned 600 minors that “returned home,” we can only assume that this means children taken from Ukrainian families in Western European countries. In August 2024, the National Social Service of Ukraine reported that there were 430 such children. There is reason to believe that, in fact, there are many more cases like this. This is how it should be phrased: these hundreds of children separated from their families have nothing to do with Russia. They are scattered across Western countries. We hope that all these children have really been or will be returned to their parents. But this question must be addressed not to Russia.
Let Brussels do this. Let it inform the world community about why there are minors who are separated from their parents on its territory and how it happened. Maybe it would make sense to address this issue to the International Criminal Court (since the Kiev regime and its Western curators constantly refer to it).
More details have transpired about what the USAID was actually doing in Ukraine. Agencies like USAID are supposed to engage in advancing humanitarian projects, promoting educational projects and economic growth, fighting poverty and famine, and addressing security problems. According to the US State Department, in 2021-2024, Ukraine was the Agency’s top priority with $30.6 billion, or 21 percent of the total amount of its “international aid,” going to Ukraine.
In coordination with the World Bank, the bulk of the funds ($24.1bn) have been earmarked to bolster macroeconomic stability. However, with the real budget deficit standing at 40 percent (about $144 billion), USAID covered only about 21 percent of actual needs. Considering this, the effectiveness of this aid raised questions even in Kiev.
Now, I have a question. If Washington allocated these funds knowing full well that this money will not do much to alleviate Ukraine’s economic problems, why did it do it in the first place? Why didn’t they use this money for a cause that would truly make a difference? The answer is simple: it’s a corruption scheme.
However, the Agency had enough time and energy to pursue other initiatives, such as helping the Ukrainian authorities mop up the Ukrainian media landscape and wipe out each and every news medium that offered an alternative viewpoint. According to WikiLeaks, more than 6,200 journalists from 707 media outlets and 279 non-governmental organisations were on USAID’s payroll.
Financial injections were made into the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, local authorities, and other entities engaged in harassing the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In particular, the US-subsidised Razumkov Centre for Economic and Political Studies routinely concocted opinion surveys with phony numbers to show public support for the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine. It became clear then where the schism, or rather the annihilation of Orthodoxy, was coming from. The USAID was part of it, among others.
As it turned out later, the Agency had been reshaping Ukraine’s judicial system for 15 long years via Head of New Justice Programme D.M. Bohn, who had no formal training in legal matters whatsoever.
Other fraudulent schemes pulled by this entity include fake accounting for the weapons supplied to Ukraine and attempts to gain access to frozen Russian assets.
According to information posted on social media, the Agency sponsored Hollywood star “tours” to Ukraine after the special military operation had got underway. The goal was to draw the Western audiences’ attention to “democratic” changes in Ukraine and to “aggrandise” the figure of Vladimir Zelensky. Remember those paid-for propaganda tours by Angelina Jolie, Orlando Bloom, Sean Penn, Ben Stiller, and Jean-Claude Van Damme, which set Washington back $38.5 million?
How was it portrayed back then? “Inspired by democratic changes” in Ukraine, and empathising with the Ukrainian people, US public figures decided to sustain them by their visits and tours, Q&As and communication. They tried to paint a picture of selfless efforts. They cooked up, before the eyes of the entire international community, a picture of piety and out-of-this-world tolerance, which the above American “stars” felt and embodied amid the Ukrainian people’s misfortune. The snag is they didn’t really see what was going on. They did not care to find out that the Kiev regime has, for many years, been using the Western money to go on a lawless rampage in Ukraine that included killing civilians, destroying statehood, going against its own laws, harassing people on grounds of ethnicity, discouraging them from speaking their native language, and rewriting its own history. They did not see any of that. What they saw were things that the USAID paid millions of dollars to see. You know what they call those who give love in exchange for money.
According to media reports, the United States continues to provide Ukraine with aid approved by the previous administration. In an attempt to talk his overseas suzerain into resuming military shipments, Zelensky emphasised that terminating them coupled with the risk that the EU may follow in the US footsteps could lead to Ukraine losing even more territory. It’s as if he does not realise that he has already lost everything, including territory, country, and the people. Why? Because before losing all of the above, Zelensky lost conscience.
Meanwhile, Kiev is trying to adopt the tactics of Israel’s special services and ramp up its terrorist activities against Russian servicemen. As you may recall, in September 2024, pagers exploded all over Lebanon, including in southern suburbs of Beirut. The exploding communication devices were owned by members of the Hezbollah Shiite militia. Several hundred people were injured. Later, Tel Aviv let everyone know that it was a pre-planned operation to neutralise supporters of that movement.
Since recently our servicemen started noticing mine planting by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the furniture of residential houses (wardrobes, bedside tables, etc.) in the abandoned populated centres of Donbas using explosive devices with loudspeakers for making sounds to attract attention, that evoke mercy and compassion. For example, the meowing of kittens. The plan is simple. People who are kind-hearted won't get past the trouble. But when someone tries to open such a cupboard, an explosion will inevitably occur. There are many instances of that tactic being used by terrorists. Now it has just been mass-used by Ukrainian troops. Inhumans, in short.
We regard in the same vein the reports of supplying mined Skyzone Cobra FPV Goggles, where improvised explosive devices with a capacity of 10-15 grams of plastic explosive were found. There is reason to believe that this is the work of Ukrainian special services, which use volunteers underhandedly to plant booby-trapped equipment without their knowledge when buying aid for the frontline. This is just another proof of the terrorist nature of the Kiev regime and thereby Ukrainian Armed Forced under its control.
On February 5, Ukrainian Nazis demolished in Kharkov the monument to the young underground fighter Galina Nikitina, who was shot by Gestapo in February 1942. We have noticed the cynical pretext for that action: allegedly, the monument symbolized the repressive regime that attempted to destroy the Ukrainian identity and culture. It is exactly such false propaganda nonsense that the Nazis have always used to justify their atrocities and lawlessness. They have only one identity – hatred, a false sense of their own exceptionalism and the destruction of everything that does not fit into this concept.
The aforementioned facts prove once again the timeliness of the special military operation intended to de-Nazify and demilitarize Ukraine and remove the threats emanating from its territory. All the objectives of the operation will certainly be accomplished.
Anti-Russian documentary aired by Australian TV
A film with a pretty name Endurance by a correspondent of the Australian ABC media corporation has been released. It was aired in prime time on February 10 in the Four Corners programme dedicated to the special military operation in Ukraine.
I would like to say that it is an ugly product of Australian documentary film-making which testifies to the level, or rather the lower depths of ABC’s propaganda journalism. Correspondent Mark Willacy, who was reporting from an AFU bunker, invited viewers to watch details of a distant killing of a Russian soldier by kamikaze drones. The words ‘kill Russians’ were repeated in the film as a haunting refrain, sometimes accompanied by mocking laughter.
George W. Bush also spoke about this in the video broadcast, thinking that he was communicating with representatives of the Kiev regime. He emphasised that the main task of today’s Ukraine is to kill as many Russian people as possible.
The ABC Corporation is well known for relentlessly brainwashing its audience by demonising Russia and obscuring in every possible way the responsibility of the West and its Kiev puppets for the crimes in Ukraine.
Let us call things what they are – this Australian media outlet openly promotes hatred on ethnic grounds and spreads outright lies.
The prejudiced hostility of the Australian mainstream media towards Russia is nothing new but the ABC has taken it to the point of real Russophobia and Nazism. Only a few days ago Australia’s Federal Parliament passed a law increasing the penalties for hate crimes. Or did it? Is this national hatred segregated, too? There are nationalities against whom one cannot feel hatred and express it, while there are those who must feel hatred against them. We see the Australian media propagate this hatred, at least in relation to our people.
USAID’s financing of biological research in the post-Soviet space
A few words about USAID. It is my belief that books will eventually be written, compilations assembled, and perhaps even comprehensive documentary films produced, detailing how, for years, the American USAID hoodwinked individuals and induced people with financial incentives to serve as conduits for disinformation and falsehoods. They committed acts against conscience.
We have just discussed how USAID engaged in propaganda activities in Ukraine, acquiring the services of individuals and journalists, directing funds to media outlets, non-governmental organisations, and governmental structures, and conducting judicial reforms. However, this may not represent the most egregious activity undertaken by USAID. I will provide several examples that stand out in terms of their criminal severity.
This concerns the United States’ military-biological activities beyond its national borders, implemented under the pretext of assisting states in developing national systems for sanitary-epidemiological oversight and countering biological terrorism threats. Such perilous operations were conducted across numerous countries worldwide, including several states of the former Soviet Union.
An egregious example of US military activity emerged through evidence uncovered during the special military operation concerning the Pentagon’s implementation of military-biological programmes on Ukrainian territory, in violation of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction. Washington’s activities in this sphere were detailed in briefings by the Russian Defence Ministry, expertly delivered by Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, Chief of the Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops of the Russian Armed Forces.
A fundamental contribution to exposing the unlawful actions of the United States was made by the parliamentary commission to investigate circumstances related to the creation of biological laboratories on Ukrainian territory by American specialists. Following its work, an extensive report was published, prepared using all available sources, including documents seized during the special military operation as well as testimonies from numerous witnesses possessing information about the Pentagon’s activities and its affiliated structures in Ukrainian bio labs.
The aforementioned documents indicate USAID’s involvement in advancing US military-biological activities. This was executed through a programme on antibiotic-resistant forms of tuberculosis. It is unimaginable. We are talking about an agency ostensibly tasked with directing funds towards international development. Under the guise of these studies, a protocol was developed to analyse resistance to anti-tuberculosis medications. Simultaneously, work was conducted to identify new potential pathways for infection with highly resistant tuberculosis strains.
It is impossible to believe, yet one must, as this is substantiated by documents. This constitutes sabotage in its most unadulterated form. This is subversive activity orchestrated by USAID on Ukrainian territory. To elucidate all aspects of US military-biological activities in Ukraine, Russia has persistently pursued comprehensive efforts on the international stage. Our country initiated a consultative meeting under Article 5 of the BTWC (Geneva, September 5–9, 2022) and raised this issue at the UN Security Council on October 27 and November 2, 2022. During the Ninth Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention (Geneva, November 28–December 16, 2022), we received no substantive responses to our well-reasoned inquiries from the American side. Instead, we witnessed their attempts to accuse us of disinformation, propaganda, and so forth.
Today, the US authorities concede that Russian assertions regarding the dangers posed by US military-biological activities have proven entirely accurate. Recent comments from Washington confirming USAID’s involvement in funding biological weapons development only validate the legitimacy of our concerns over US military-biological operations near our national borders. We expect this information will compel the United States – a depository state of the BTWC – to provide proper answers to our questions, resolve this unseemly situation, and ensure Washington’s compliance with the Convention’s provisions.
What is now being revealed by American officials, politicians, and public figures horrifies, above all, the American people. Yes, this is the moment of truth, the very reality Americans are finally discovering about themselves: the schemes into which they were drawn by ultra-liberal regimes, the purposes for which their taxes were collected, and where the money was channelled. Such destruction and appalling mockery of American principles and slogans were executed under the pretext of human rights, a new normality, tolerance, and democracy.
Paying pensions to military pensioners in the Baltic States
Military pensioners are being mistreated in the Baltic States. We have discussed this more than once, and media have covered it as well. We continue to undertake vigorous efforts to overcome the crisis created by the Western financial community and the Baltic States’ authorities regarding military pensions in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
The Russian Federation’s principled position on this issue has been conveyed to foreign ministries of the Baltic States, including during discussions with the chargés d’affaires ad interim of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in Moscow. The notes were handed over, which confirm Russia’s commitment to its international obligations under the 1993-1994 intergovernmental agreements with Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn on social guarantees and protection for military pensioners of the Russian Federation permanently residing in the Baltic States.
I would like to point out that Western financial institutions, in particular Swedbank, which refuse to take payments from Russian financial institutions that have come under illegal sanctions are to blame for the artificially created crisis with paying military pensions. We insist that the official authorities of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia take immediate action to resolve this acute issue.
Russian diplomatic missions in the three Baltic States are in contact with military pensioners and inform them about the underlying reasons for temporary difficulties with funding their payments.
We will continue to do our best to resume transferring military pensions.
Russophobic remarks by Italian President Sergio Mattarella
During his February 5 lecture at the University of Marseille, the President of the Italian Republic made several insulting remarks about our country. He drew outrageous and blatantly false historical parallels between the Russian Federation and Nazi Germany, and called everyone to be mindful of the failure of the Western policy of “appeasement of the aggressor” in the late 1930s when addressing the settlement of the ongoing Ukraine crisis. President Mattarella said that Russia’s actions in Ukraine are allegedly reminiscent of the Third Reich project in Europe.
It is strange and absurd to hear such blasphemous fabrications coming from the President of Italy, a country that knows firsthand what fascism is all about. Our country, though, knows fascism from a different perspective. Soviet citizens came under a murderous attack by Nazi Germany. Our country not only drove the enemy out from its territory and fully defeated the Nazi army, but it also liberated Europe from Nazism and fascism, and then helped the countries of Europe recover. Even though our country was in dire need of help, we helped other countries generously.
Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime was a loyal ally of Nazi Germany under the Pact of Steel, the Anti-Comintern Pact, and the Berlin Pact, and made its 235,000-strong expeditionary corps available to the Third Reich when the latter launched an aggression against the Soviet Union in 1941. Why didn’t the Italian President mention this in his February 5 lecture at the University of Marseille? Is it because he wasn’t aware of it? Is it because he doesn’t know the history of his country well? I don’t think so. Mussolini’s regime is responsible, just like the Nazis are, for the war crimes and genocide of the Soviet people during the Great Patriotic War.
The President of Italy should also keep in mind the fact that Italy and other NATO countries are flooding the terrorist neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine with modern lethal weapons, thereby providing their full support to the criminal regime in Ukraine. Zelensky’s regime relies on the same anti-human ideas, which it implements in a different form, though, including with NATO’s help. However, it is driven by the same idea of segregating people on ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic grounds. The same approach was pushed by Adolf Hitler and his henchmen - official allies or just collaborators - in all forms.
But we know a different Italy. We know the Italians who organised the partisan movement during World War II which included Soviet POWs and deported Soviet civilians who fought alongside their Italian comrades against fascism. They laid down their lives for the freedom of Italy and freedom of their Motherland. According to various estimates, of the 12,000 foreign participants in the Italian resistance movement, almost half were Soviet citizens. Of these, 13 heroes received Italian state decorations. It’s a shame that the President of the Italian Republic does not know the history of his country. Mattarella’s remarks offend not only their memory, but also the memory of all Italian anti-fascists, their descendants both in Russia and in Italy, and everyone who knows history and does not accept these inappropriate, unacceptable, and criminal analogies.
However, not everyone in Italy shares such odious assessments. On February 4, the Ryazan city administration, in conjunction with the Consulate General of Russia in Genoa, held the 5th international conference “Peoples of the USSR and European Countries Fighting Fascism during World War II.” It was attended by Italian representatives who know history well, and not just appreciate it, but are fully prepared to uphold the historical truth about those events. Both Russia and Italy cherish the memory of the Soviet and Italian partisan and resistance heroes who gave their lives in fighting the “plague of the 20th century”.
History of Russophobia in Finland and Sweden
We regularly report on Russian Foreign Ministry’s cooperation with patriotic structures, in particular, the Russian Military Historical Society (RMHS). Recently they have presented The Black Book: History of Swedish and Finnish Russophobia. It is the fourth compilation created by the RMHS. The book covers the history of Russophobia in Finland and Sweden from the Middle Ages up to the present, and serves as a continuation of RMHS’s exhibits displayed in 2023-2024 near the embassies of Finland and Sweden.
I cannot deny that I am pleased to see topics we raise at our briefings taking on an academic form and getting published as books. Let me remind you that three years ago we told you about large supplies of iron ore and other resources from Sweden to the Third Reich, the reason being the boycott Swedish port workers declared to ships from St Petersburg. The parallels with World War II were self-explanatory. Now, due to the RMHS’s book, which is also available on our website in the Historical Materials section, readers can learn about the roots of Russophobia which encouraged Swedish elites to maintain Hitler-friendly ‘neutrality’ until at least 1944, and the Finnish leadership to repeatedly try to implement the idea of building ‘Suur-Suomi’ (Greater Finland) by extending the borders of their state to the east.
We believe that the facts about the war crimes of the Finnish army and authorities in the occupied Soviet territories will come as a shocking revelation for many people. Deliberate acts of genocide were carried out against peoples not related to the Finns. More than half of the Slavic population (almost one third of all local inhabitants) was placed in concentration, resettlement and labour camps established in the occupied territory of the Karelian-Finnish SSR. The death rate at those camps, according to historians’ estimates, was higher than in the Nazi ones. And we have not forgotten that Finnish troops participated in the siege of Leningrad from the north and bear equal responsibility with the Germans for the genocide of the Leningrad residents.
In 1941, the book Finnlands Lebensraum (Finnish Living Space) was published in Berlin at the request of Finnish President Risto Ryti and the State Department of Propaganda and Information. The nationalist ‘masterpiece’ was written by historian Eino Jutikkala, geographer Väinö Auer, and ethnographer Kustaa Vilkuna, and edited by the renowned Finnish anthropologist Yrjö von Grönhagen. They ‘scientifically’ – with the help of pseudo-history and pseudo-ethnography – justified Finland’s territorial claims to north-west Russia. The Finnish and Swedish SS members went further, with their bloody trail stretching across Ukraine to North Caucasus.
All of this makes us take a fresh look at the vigorous support provided by Helsinki and Stockholm to the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev and see in it primordial Russophobic traits from past centuries. The accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO has ‘killed’ the North European neutrality as well as the mutual understanding our countries achieved after the war. We hope that this book will soon be translated into English to make it available to a global readership.
There is already good experience of this kind. ‘The Black Book: Massacres of Banderites in 1941-1945’, published in 2022 and translated into English, is posted on the website of the Russian Military Historical Society, and now on our website in the Historical Materials section as well. You can also find there (so far in Russian only) earlier editions of ‘The Black Book: Atrocities of Today’s Banderites - Ukrainian neo-Nazis in 2014-2023’ (2023), and ‘The Black Book. Ukraine is not Russia? Ukrainian School Textbooks of the 21st Century: Methods and Mechanisms to Falsify History’ (2024).
The latter book analyses the content and methods of modern school history textbooks published in Ukraine. Numerous examples clearly show that the textbooks are used to instill ideological - in fact, neo-Banderite - attitudes in Ukrainian schoolchildren required by the authorities, the main one of excluding all positive pages related to Russia from the history of Ukraine, and to educate entire generations of young people in dislike and hatred. Tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in grants were allocated for this very task by such structures as USAID and Soros Foundation. There is reason to think that their ‘black business’ will continue, and these are not the last black books.
USAID financing Albanian government agencies and NGO’s
Some recently published figures show how much money USAID was spending for the upkeep of its agents of influence in the Balkan states. Let me stress once again that I am referring to officially published figures. Over the past four years alone, it allocated almost $200 million to create a pro-American stratum in government and public organisations in Tirana, Albania. These data were divulged by Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions Richard Grenell. Almost $2 billion was spent on the Western Balkans alone.
Horrible corruption schemes are being exposed, where Albania figured as a “transshipment point” and a “laundering haven” for huge sums that were siphoned through USAID. On studying the publications, local investigative journalists came to the conclusion that the funds ostensibly earmarked for humanitarian projects were remitted to a number of figureheads and then to organisations run by George Soros or other NGO’s.
Judging by the documents, part of the money went directly to Albania’s government agencies, including the Defence Ministry and the Foreign Ministry, as well as to the courts of law. The most amazing thing is that they paid directly to the Anti-Corruption Agency of Albania to preclude its investigation into multi-million-dollar flows handled by the unscrupulous overseas grant makers.
After that, how do you think will a regime in this or that country formulate its position? There is no doubt that they will do that, including with regard to selfsame Ukraine, based on realities, facts and interests other than those of their own nation. They will formulate their country’s position based on the interests of those providing the multi-million grants. Their sponsors, including USAID, would add “guidelines” to cash in the envelope, with the regimes in question obediently doing their bidding. Their statements, therefore, are the carbon copy of each other. I am referring to all NATO “countries,” self-styled NGO’s, the Western media and journalists. It was all bought and paid for. The obverse side features a text in support of Ukraine, with a US dollar siphoned through USAID pasted on its reverse side.
All of this came to the surface during the last ten days or so. But there is no doubt that similar schemes were practiced in many countries and regions for decades, schemes that have nothing to do with law, support for democracy, or humanitarian activity.
This is the money of US taxpayers, who had no idea whatsoever how it was spent.
Let me give you another example. Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia has repeatedly stated in public that external forces are directly interfering in his country’s internal political life in an attempt to depose the current coalition government. Why so? Because, according to Mr Fico, the West is not ready to put up with Slovakia’s sovereign policy, including with regard to the Ukraine situation and its relations with Russia. We know from the Slovak media that Robert Fico’s statements are based on information supplied by the local secret services.
Bratislava is seriously concerned over the degree of foreign involvement and influence on the internal processes in the country. Much of this influence comes from USAID. (In 2018, the Foreign Ministry of Slovakia signed a Memorandum of Understanding with USAID, which was extended for another three years in 2022.)
In this connection, Robert Fico published an open letter to the new US administration, which welcomed its decision to abolish USAID whose resources, among other things, “were used in Slovakia for political purposes, with the aim of distorting the political system and favouring certain political parties.” Subsidies and grants totaling several million dollars, he went on, were provided to NGO’s, media outlets and individual journalists that operated in Slovakia on the principle of political expediency, selectivity and segregation, rather than that of equal access.
Currently, the Slovak law enforcement agencies are investigating this issue. It transpires that the former Slovak Government provided financial aid to Georgian NGO’s. Bratislava does not rule out that the funds allocated for USAID’s “humanitarian” projects were used to bankroll the recent anti-government protests that swept Slovakia.
The 80th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden by Anglo-American air forces on February 13, 1945
At that time, one of the most horrendous WWII atrocities was perpetrated. It appears that Russia is in no position to say that no crimes can be more terrible than those committed on Soviet territory. You remember how villages and towns were burned and cities destroyed, and how children and women were killed and buried alive in pits, burned and tortured.
However, indiscriminate US-British air strikes against Dresden will forever go down in history. For three days, about 800 heavy bombers dropped high explosive and incendiary bombs on the city. An ensuing firestorm killed an estimated 25,000 people and injured 60,000 more. About 12,000 buildings, including the famous Dresden Picture Gallery, were destroyed. I always discuss this issue, I will continue to do this, and I advise you to remind everyone about it. Soviet specialists restored masterpieces from the Dresden Picture Gallery at their museums on Soviet territory. Step by step, they brought the masterpieces back to life in order to return them to the people of Germany who are now thanking us for this with their supplies.
Unlike the Soviet high command that spared, whenever possible, the German civilian population on liberated German territory, US and British military adhered to an entirely different ideology at that time. Consequently, Dresden that had no military significance (everyone knew this) was virtually razed to the ground. The attack on Dresden became a shameful act of aerial terrorism and the mass annihilation of civilians. This barbaric act that can be compared with Nazi atrocities Washington and London tried to justify by a desire to avenge Nazi crimes. However, many prominent historians believe that the real purpose of the Anglo-Saxon air strikes was to show approaching Soviet forces who ruled the skies and to intimidate the Soviet leadership. Our “allies” back then devised plans to confront the USSR. Six months later, the very same logic resulted in the destruction of Tokyo and later Hiroshima and Nagasaki, using nuclear weapons.
Even today, NATO countries care nothing about civilian casualties. Let us recall Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Ukraine has also fallen prey to the destructive NATO mentality. Western weapons were used and are used to kill the people of Donbass and Novorossiya, with financial and military assistance from the West.
Modern German historiography prefers to literally hush up the tragic events of February 1945. They are bashfully hushing them up for timeserving political considerations and avoiding mentioning whose aircraft bombed Dresden, and on whose orders. And we will recall historical truth, no matter how hard someone may try to conceal and rewrite it.
Eighty years ago, on February 13, 1945, the city of Budapest was liberated from Nazi occupation forces during the Budapest strategic offensive operation.
Intensive street fighting raged in Budapest for 108 days and nights; in this respect, the battle for liberating the Hungarian capital went down in the history of the Great Patriotic War as one of the most difficult combat operations of Soviet forces. The Budapest operation involved units of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, elements of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, as well as the Danube Naval Flotilla. The Red Army was supported by Hungarian military units, including the Volunteer Regiment of Buda and a railway construction unit. In all, 188,000 German troops were holding the city.
The operation commenced on October 28, 1944. It took the Red Army less than one month to cross the Danube River and to encircle Budapest. On December 29, 1944, aiming to avoid additional casualties and to save the city from destruction, the Soviet high command presented an ultimatum to the German garrison. However, Soviet truce envoys were mercilessly killed. The group of Captain Ilya Ostapenko who presented the ultimatum was subjected to a mortar attack. The car of Captain Nikolai Steinmetz flying the white flag and driving towards Pest with a similar ultimatum was machine gunned. The leadership of the Third Reich deployed substantial forces in the city and tried hard to break through the blockade, hoping to retain its last European ally.
During bloody fighting, Red Army soldiers liberated the flatland Pest section on January 18, 1945, followed by the Buda citadel on February 13. The city sustained major damage, and all bridges across the Danube River were blown up.
The successful completion of the Budapest operation drastically altered the strategic situation in the southern sector of the Soviet-German Front and facilitated the Soviet advance on Berlin.
Western historiography is meticulously hushing up the fact that the Red Army’s powerful onslaught on the Eastern Front largely helped repel the December 1944 German offensive in the Ardennes that took the forces of Western Allies by surprise. The Soviet onslaught was also part of the Budapest offensive operation. In fact, fighting for the Hungarian capital got underway almost simultaneously with the Wehrmacht’s Ardennes operation.
To extricate the German-Hungarian formation, the Wehrmacht’s high command was forced to redeploy units from the Western Front. On December 27, 1944, the redeployment of four most combat-worthy divisions from the west to the east was ordered, and over 400 warplanes were redeployed starting January 5, 1945. These redeployments commenced at a time when the Nazis were hard-pressed for reserves during their offensive in the Ardennes that ultimately failed completely after Soviet forces launched ap large-scale Vistula-Oder operation.
In all, 362,000 people received the Medal for the Capture of Budapest. The highly popular poem by Mikhail Isakovsky The Enemies Burnt the Dear House Down lauded the heroic feats of Soviet soldiers during the battle for Budapest.
Fourth open creative competition the Architecture of Diplomacy
February 10 is the professional holiday of the Russian diplomats – the Diplomatic Worker’s Day. The Main Administration for Service to the Diplomatic Corps under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (GlavUpDK) announced the 4th open creative competition the Architecture of Diplomacy.
Although it will be held not for the first time, there are some changes: this is the first time it will be held in an international format. Young artists between 12 and 35 years from around the world, including professional artists and amateurs, students of universities, colleges, creative courses and schools, i.e. everybody is invited to participate.
This year’s theme of the competition is Diplomacy Through Centuries. Participants will have to present their own vision of the activities of the foreign policy department using picturesque ways and means. Especially for participants and all those interested in the history of diplomacy, the faculty of the Diplomatic Academy of the Foreign Ministry will hold a series of online meetings in March. Their schedule and topics will be announced additionally.
In the year of the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, participants are encouraged to use the following as sources of creative exploration:
- events of the Great Patriotic War and the role of diplomacy in the post-war arrangement of Europe and the world;
- artistic and other symbols associated with diplomacy and foreign policy;
- other competition-related themes you might choose to use.
Of course, everyone is free to unlock their creative potential.
The competition winners will be determined in two categories: Little Artists (12 to 18 years old) and Young Artists (18 to 35 years old). The jury will select five best projects in the Little Artists category and 15 top projects in the Young Artists category. The winners will be awarded gifts from GlavUpDK.
I want to note that entries will be accepted until May 12.
Everybody, including participants and members of the media, are invited to cover the event.
Question: The Munich Security Conference is starting its work today. My question is: Will some representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry be present in Munich and take part in Russian-US talks announced by the Americans?
Maria Zaharova: I would like to tell you that Russian officials are not invited to the Munich Security Conference. A decision to this effect was taken several years ago. This is a political decision, an odd decision.
Accordingly, there will be no representatives of the Foreign Ministry or other official agencies at the conference. I can say this with much certainty. Russia has not been invited to this event for several years after the start of the special military operation. Obviously, the organisers are putting their stakes on the Kiev regime, not security policy. In my view, this is a huge mistake on the part of the format itself that has given up its public, political, observational and analytical agenda in favour of implementing a policy that is absolutely damaging for European security. It’s a fantastic tale of a snake that not only has bitten its own tail but also started devouring itself. This is what has happened to the conference. If they needed a venue for scolding Russia, they could find something less costly. But if this is regarded as an opportunity and attempt to address the declared security issues, then they should talk in a serious and mutually respectful manner. The most important thing, however, is that their narrative should be based on science rather than anti-science. And it should avoid any disregard for present-day realities.
Once upon a time, the Munich Security Conference discussed serious issues of international politics and enabled a candid dialogue. Monologues were out of the question as was harassment. It was possible to discuss vital issues and problems facing the European continent, including security matters. It was a frank, open and sincere discussion. Most importantly, the participants focused on facts as distinct from what the case is today, when Western delegations read out instructions and play roles assigned by Brussels. Yet another mistake of this format is their deliberate disdain for multipolarity. All these years, they have lauded their rules-based international order without giving even a second’s thought to its potential consequences.
Other things must be and are on the agenda. But they are of interest to few people at the Munich Conference, where they are mostly concerned with how to find a higher stool for Baby Zelensky so that he finds it more comfortable to recite his nursery rhymes once again. Normal people discuss multipolarity, the existence of different economic development centres, global economic, scientific and technological advances, new civilisational impulses…
Debates about trans-Atlantic relations are of interest to almost no one aside from narrow specialists. Neither is it interesting to know how the Western liberal elite is going to survive in a multipolar world, something that the conference report treats in a rather hectic and propagandistic manner lacking any conceptual elegance.
To reiterate: it is totally different issues and a different visual angle that need to be profoundly rationalised today. The focus is on Eurasian security, efforts to do away with modern neo-colonial practices, ways of democratising international relations, construction of a more stable and just international system based on coexistence of several centres of power in different world regions, creation of a new architecture of international organisations, etc. It is this agenda that is of interest and in high demand.
It is a priority for our country, for many our partners in the Global South and East, and for the Global Majority. Therefore, the leading role in international expert discussions is played by venues other than the Munich Conference.
If they want to focus solely on themselves, displaying their usual egocentricity, why not discuss the problem of USAID? The United States International Development Agency has become an “automatic cash dispenser” for regime change, interference in internal affairs, and destabilisation. There are other venues, such as the Valdai Forum in Russia, the Minsk International Conference on Eurasian Security, the Raisina Dialogue in India, the Sir Bani Yas Forum in the Emirates, the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Türkiye, the Doha Forum in Qatar, and others. There are no cat cries from the floor over there, when important things are said that clash with the point of view of a certain group of countries. There are no claques that start banging the doors, or shouting, or staging some other performances, when speakers urging more focus on the real agenda and developments mount the rostrum. They have culture borrowed, by the way, from the selfsame Munich Conference. But this culture has been preserved by these venues, not Munich, venues that cultivate dialogue culture, culture of respect, and culture of discussing real rather than imagined problems. They are the real political science platforms.
Question: You have just said the Munich conference is used, in particular, to give Zelensky the floor to let him say something. He has taken this advantage because he began his visit with presenting the world with new Russian “crimes.” I mean the alleged drone strike against the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. We remember Bucha perfectly well and other such put-up jobs. Do you think they have decided to do another such trick now?
Maria Zakharova: There is even no doubt that Zelensky would not have come to the Munich Conference with empty hands. The Kiev regime's hands are not only covered with blood, they must be busy with some “rattles” all the time using them to distract the attention of participants in international conferences.
The Munich conference remembers many such “rattles.” Poroshenko travelled with them, who is now being sanctioned in some way by Zelensky. Shall I remind you what Poroshenko carried there? It is etched in my memory. He travelled with a piece of either a bus or a trolleybus. Then he travelled with a bunch of passports. Now Zelensky goes there, only he doesn't carry artefacts any more. He raised the stakes, but in fact, he stooped to a whole new low. Now Zelensky is travelling with “performances,” which are backed up by provocations. I will remind you, in 2024 there was a provocation in the form of a strike at a children's hospital in Kiev.
We have talked about this on many occasions, that the Kiev regime will attack nuclear facilities because it regards the civil nuclear infrastructure just as a “dirty” nuclear weapon and professes nuclear terrorism. This time they have prepared such a provocation for him. Does anyone have any doubts that this is not a provocation planned by the Kiev regime? There are no doubts. There can't be any. Because every time in order to lobby, to promote the next supply of weapons, and first of all money (the Kiev regime is all about money with its Western masters) in order to lobby, to support and to attract the attention of the world community, to convince it and to give the Western media an opportunity to conduct all these information campaigns and events, it used to require some kind of artefact, but now it is a terrible, bloody performance. Most terrible (it is very dangerous) is that there is nothing stopping the Kiev regime from committing such terrorist acts. They perform them persistently, regularly. Recall how just recently the rotation of IAEA staff to the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant was disrupted. What for? Again, to deliver strikes against it and develop this issue in the practical vein. It is clear and obvious to everyone.
This is why we constantly draw attention to this issue and present facts. We understand that as far as the Kiev regime has the relevant weapons, they will make use of the nuclear issue, the issue of nuclear facilities and power stations, as a tool to blackmail the world community. And that should be the topic for discussion at the Munich conference, given that it is, after all, dealing with security issues in Europe.
Question: If I may, I’d like to ask a question about a different part of the world. On February 7, Tokyo hosted events related to the Northern Territories, as Japan refers to the Kuril Islands. How would you comment on these events?
Maria Zakharova: We saw nothing new in the events of February 7. It was the same ritual as always – dull and senseless speeches from Japanese officials at what they call a “national rally.” Of course, there was also the usual “car show”. Those who didn’t witness it firsthand might not fully grasp what I mean, but I did see it. It’s like something out of a horror movie – old trucks and buses, painted in odd colours, outfitted with megaphones, speakers, and flags, blaring nationalistic slogans at deafening volumes around the clock. These retro vehicles are deliberately stationed outside Russian diplomatic buildings, blasting their messages from morning until night as a form of psychological pressure. We witnessed these spectacles during our visits to Tokyo.
You know what surprises me? They can’t confine the noise to just the Russian diplomats; it spreads throughout the entire neighbourhood. The first to suffer aren’t the diplomats but the local residents, office workers, passersby, and anyone nearby who has no choice but to endure it.
It’s completely baffling – these Japanese nationalists claim to care about their country, yet they show no regard for their own citizens. They pay no attention to the people actually affected by their actions. But from what I understand, this has become a tradition of sorts. And I’m not just guessing, I know for a fact that these demonstrations are funded. The individuals sitting in those buses, pressing buttons, and blasting slogans through loudspeakers are all being paid for what they do. By the way, I noticed someone from another continent sitting in one of those buses. These foreigners have no connection to Japan’s territories or islands, they’re just there to make money. That much is obvious. But that’s not all they do. They also flood our embassy’s mailboxes with petitions, repetitive, copy-paste claims that all look the same. Honestly, it’s nothing more than a display of ignorance and a kind of senseless barbarity.
In response, we can only once again remind the Japanese government of the necessity to fully acknowledge the results of World War II, which are clearly established in the UN Charter. According to these provisions, the southern Kuril Islands are an inseparable part of our country. As for the ongoing calls from Tokyo to resume negotiations on a peace treaty, Russia’s firm stance was clearly and comprehensively outlined in the statement by the Foreign Ministry of March 21, 2022. We see no prospects for dialogue on a fundamental agreement that would establish the basis for long-term neighbourly relations as long as Tokyo continues its unfriendly policy. No amount of drumming or loudspeakers blaring from retro buses will intimidate anyone. Constructive engagement with Japan can only happen once Tokyo permanently abandons its hostile course. In my view, it’s that simple.
Question: How can you comment on Moldovan President Maria Sandu’s explanations, as regards the delayed acceptance of original credentials from the new Russian Ambassador, by the fact that Moscow allegedly voices disrespectful statements concerning Chisinau?
Maria Zakharova: Maria Sandu is treading on “thin ice.” If she is linking the activity of the Russian Ambassador in Chisinau with Moscow’s statement on Moldova, then we should also link the activity of the Moldovan Ambassador to Russia and his functions with statements emanating from Chisinau. If she wants parity, we have such parity. She should only make this clear.
We are stating that the Russian Ambassador and Embassy in Chisinau are facing a discriminatory attitude from Moldovan authorities. We should openly say that this is discrimination. It is impossible to explain this by any “disrespectful statements” (as they are trying to do) due to numerous reasons.
First, Moldovan officials regularly lash out and insult our country. We merely respond and reply.
I suggest that Maia Sandu conduct an experiment. She should spend the next two weeks in a quiet atmosphere without any insults, humiliations and fakes, as regards Russia. If she is unable to control herself, she should say nothing about Russia at all. Consequently, she will not hear any commentary disavowing her statements because we have to somehow explain the difference between fakes and the truth. Let her conduct this experiment, and she will realise that this rhetoric is solely motivated by answers to disdainful statements with regard to Russia and essentially fake statements by her and other officials.
Second, although we hear monstrous, false and insulting statements regarding Russia and historical truth, no one has until now hampered the work of the Moldovan Ambassador and Embassy in Moscow.
I would like to note once again that, if they have mentioned the issue of parity, they should elaborate on it still further.
I would like to recall that the Ambassador of Russia arrived in Moldova in October 2024, was received at the republican Foreign Ministry and presented the copies of credentials only three weeks later. The presentation of original credentials to the President of Moldova has been delayed for over four months, although two collective meetings with ambassadors took place in December 2024 and January 2025.
Speaking of the parity issue, the incumbent Moldovan Ambassador arrived in Moscow on March 1, 2022 and presented the copies of credentials to the Russian Foreign Ministry the very next day. The Ambassador presented their originals to President Vladimir Putin in September 2022 during the first meeting with the new ambassadors of foreign countries.
We are expecting the Moldovan leadership to display a civilised approach and to revise its discriminatory attitude towards the Russian Ambassador and our entire Embassy in accordance with the diplomatic reciprocity principle.
Question: Yesterday, the Russian Ambassador was summoned to the Moldovan Foreign Ministry in connection with what is allegedly the wreckage of Russian drones discovered on Moldovan territory. What can you say about this? Can you share the actual state of affairs with us?
Maria Zakharova: We firmly reject these accusations and believe they have no basis in reality. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation use combat drones exclusively against military targets and related infrastructure in Ukraine. The discovery of the above wreckage in Moldavia can be accounted for by two factors.
First, the debris could have been picked up on the line of contact and planted on Moldovan territory, meaning that we have here is a provocation by the Kiev regime. They live and breathe provocations. They do not hesitate to attack nuclear sites. Picking up wreckage and taking it to another place is an easy feat for them. We bring up instances like that regularly.
Second, the wreckage could have made it to Moldavia as a result of indiscriminate use by the Ukrainians of their air defence and electronic warfare systems against Russian drones targeting Ukrainian military infrastructure.
To reiterate, the Russian side respects the sovereignty of the Republic of Moldova and the security of its citizens. Our Ambassador regularly conveys this message to the official authorities of that country.
Question: Some time ago, Paris withheld a visa to a journalist from Komsomolskaya Pravda. Moscow imposed retaliatory measures on a correspondent from a French newspaper. What is the current status of Russian reporters in France?
Maria Zakharova: Your description of the course of events is absolutely accurate. The French authorities have taken unfriendly steps with regard to the Russian journalist from Komsomolskaya Pravda by withholding a work visa.
This may and does happen anywhere, since any state is within its right to issue or withhold a visa. However, no clarification was provided as to why the journalist was denied entry even though he had never done anything wrong to France, never even worked there, and never worked outside of Russia to begin with. Since no clarifications were provided and, among other things, we have been witnessing discrimination against our journalists for many years now - Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov regularly brought this matter up - we are entitled to retaliation.
Indeed, we chose not to fire back at French journalists for a long time, but the cup of our patience is running over. Their measures have become defiant on top of being openly unfriendly and systematic. After all, the Russian side has repeatedly addressed French diplomats in Moscow and Paris with a suggestion to settle this situation. I will not go into details now, but we put a number of options on the table. They were rejected, all of them.
This is when we retaliated. The next French journalist who applied for a visa was denied one, but unlike the Russian journalist, who had never worked in France and never had a chance to even get there as a journalist, the French journalist from Le Monde had worked in Russia before. He faced a different experience, but not once had the journalist from France been discriminated against. He just faced retaliatory measures. We let him know that this decision had nothing to do with his work or him as a person. On top of it, we emphasised on several occasions that should the French side issue a visa to the Russian journalist we will do the same and issue a visa to the French journalist.
We regularly receive requests from French journalists to issue short-term journalist visas, and the like. If the French government and French media decide to follow the path of an information, or rather disinformation, campaign to blame us for their mistakes, they will keep living in a surreal world unhinged from reality. We will share updates with you.
To reiterate, if the French authorities - we have heard French officials mutter such ideas under their breath – continue to worsen the working conditions of Russian journalists, we will respond. This is not what we really want to do, though. We have never used such measures proactively, only in response.
This hideous information campaign has come to our attention. We have posted an anti-fake article on our website and will post more, because Russian journalists are facing absurd accusations, and not only the events are painted in distorted colours, but the French authorities are also planting unconscionable falsehoods.
This is important. I hope that someone from among the French journalists will write about it. The French Embassy in Russia has refused twice to issue a work visa to a journalist covering international news from Komsomolskaya Pravda. Even after that, the Russian side offered its own solutions and ways to overcome this situation. We sent notes to that effect. We suggested finding mutually acceptable solutions. After all of that was rejected, retaliation ensued.
Question: The new administration in Washington has not lifted sanctions against Naftna Industrija Srbije (Petroleum Industry of Serbia, NIS), which belongs to Gazprom. What is the current status of the negotiations with NIS in light of the US sanctions and approaching deadlines? Does Russia have any red lines on this issue?
Maria Zakharova: The problem with the US sanctions imposed on NIS does exist. The talks about ways to solve it are underway between specialised agencies. I have nothing to add so far.
Question: The Armenian parliament has adopted the draft law on the process of joining the European Union in the first reading. What are the prospects of the country’s European integration process? Have this step affected the relations between Moscow and Yerevan in the EAEU context?
Maria Zakharova: Everyone has spoken about this on numerous occasions, including the Foreign Ministry and the Presidential Executive Office. Once again, this is not about political preferences but about the fact that all the legal frameworks and tariff systems that the interaction within the EU and the EAEU is based on are mutually exclusive. The attempts to avoid or hush this problem or ignore this important nuance mean being in denial of reality and, to some extent, misinforming those asked to make the appropriate decision. This is Armenia’s sovereign choice. We do not deny this. However, major responsibility for explaining all the consequences of the planned steps to the people lies on the current Armenian authorities, and not on Russia or the EAEU. This must be clearly understood.
When a country or its part makes such a crucial decision, and the current Yerevan authorities greatly admire the West’s experience, it is vital to see [the opinion] (through public opinion polls and referendums) following the preparatory work and explanation of all the nuances. You have to be honest. This must be done by those inside the country who calls for such decisions, and not by some outsider. Explaining things like this is not the responsibility of Russia, the EAEU, and even the EU.
It is crucial to explain the specifics of events that will happen, but that is not all there is to it. To give the complete picture, it is also necessary to speak about other nations’ experiences, providing specific examples from the recent history.
Question: How would you comment on the drastic shift in former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö’s stance toward Russia, particularly in light of the analytical report he presented in October 2024, Safer Together: Strengthening Europe’s Civilian and Military Preparedness and Readiness? In this report, he makes radical claims about
Maria Zakharova: First of all, the very notion of Russian aggression is simply absurd. Even the
Secondly, it’s worth recalling all of our arguments on this matter: the many hours of interviews and new conferences given by the President of Russia, as well as the explanations provided by our departments as well as the expert community regarding the origins of the crisis. It is no longer possible to discuss
The third point: if there is such a drastic transformation, such a complete reversal – this 180-degree shift in the position of a particular person – then the question needs to be asked: when did he lie? Was it when he was president, or when he stopped being one? While he was president, he said different things. Now, suddenly, he has changed his perspective. If he lied during his time as president of
If he is making these statements now and lying, then it is important to ask why he is doing this. This is not a question for us, but for him to answer.
Question: Last week,
Maria Zakharova: Everyone knows, and the current
This is a commercial proposal, and it is best to address him directly for the specifics. However, I would like to comment more thoroughly on the statement made by Vladimir Zelensky.
He immediately stated that he promised to review the project promptly, and almost suggested that everyone was ready to shake hands and that everything would be settled.
I would recommend that Vladimir Zelensky read the Constitution of Ukraine, as it contains an interesting point in Article 13. Perhaps it is not the most fortunate number for this topic, but you cannot ignore what is written in the Constitution. Article 13 states: “The land, its subsoil, atmospheric air, water, and other natural resources within the
Perhaps in the phrase “every citizen has the right to use natural resources,” the word “
Before once again squandering what Vladimir Zelensky did not create, it would be better to review his own laws – although, obviously, they distort them daily. But let me remind you, for now, this remains a valid article of the Constitution of Ukraine.
Question: Before the 61st Munich Security Conference opened, its organisers had released the Munich Security Report 2025 that covers multipolarity issues. It says that the global trend towards multipolarity is undeniable. Also, the Munich Security Index which was published concurrently with this year’s report revealed that people in emerging economies believe that a multipolar world will be more just and peaceful. However, some Western countries are artificially dividing the world into blocs, forming “small coteries,” building “small inner walls,” and promoting “disengagement,” which leads to an even more fragmented world. What’s your take on the opportunities and challenges offered by the multipolar world?
Maria Zakharova: I will give you an example. Only now, using obscure language riddled with nuances, the people who compiled the report in question have noticed that the formation of a polycentric world is underway. Many years before that, they spoke about a rules-based order and the term “multipolarity” or related phrases were never used in the political science. They were fixated on the narratives planted by Brussels.
When do you think Russia and China first mentioned a multipolar world? Some would say five years ago, others would say ten. Let’s run the numbers together.
Russia and China stated back in 1997 that the world was on track to become multipolar, which fact I can back up. It was more than just a bag of theses articulated by analysts. It was a Russian-Chinese joint declaration of the same name, “On a Multipolar World and the Establishment of a New International Order.” Nearly 30 years have passed since then.
For three decades, our two countries, two nuclear powers, UN Security Council members of high standing, have lived up to what they openly declared. We have been carrying out our foreign policy based on the clearly emerging multipolarity-related trends. Everything our two countries were doing promoted a philosophy that they generously shared with the world. What were these Munich analysts busy doing all these 30 years? They kept talking about the exceptionalism of some, the hegemonism of others, and the rule-based order promoted by still others. It remains unclear, though, who were the people who came up with these rules. They talked about everything except multipolarity. There was not even a venue to seriously discuss this matter. Here is your answer to the question of who is acting honestly and who is spreading falsehoods. I can back up all of that with facts.
Over the past almost three decades, the number of countries that share this viewpoint has increased significantly. This is precisely how they see the development paradigm of the 21st century.
The first quarter of the 21st century is about to end, and the Munich Security Conference has not yet figured out the direction the planet is headed in the 21st century. One-fourth of the century has gone right before the eyes of the same core group of participants. And they just woke up to reality, because they denied reality, refused to see the facts, and were busy rewriting history and doing other things, such as creating (including through these platforms) rationale for changing international law and replacing it with a single “rule” where might makes right. This failed to materialise, because it is a fallacious, antiscientific, and groundless premise.
Now, they are scrambling to cobble up reports covering multipolarity. Lo and behold, the newly elected US president says they are not going to rule the planet and the rest of the Universe from one centre of power. Because of these “new words” now in place, they began to urgently rewrite and reshape their narratives, theses, and concepts. They wasted 30 years inventing things that don’t exist.
The multipolarity concept was adopted as a consolidated position by a number of international associations, such as the CIS, the SCO and BRICS. NATO-centric entities were reluctant to even deal with these associations and refused to build a dialogue with them. They did all they could to curtail the ability of these entities to engage in meaningful activities on other universal international platforms as well. Why? They were busy advancing their ultra-liberal agenda and the chimeras of ultra-liberalism, which, they believed, will eventually spread across the world.
It should be noted (there’s no way to take a word out of a song) that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres repeatedly spoke about the “world community moving towards a multipolar world” in his keynote speeches at the 78th and 79th UNGA sessions.
In our understanding, the polycentric world does not imply confrontation or fragmentation of the international community. A multipolar world order is a single interconnected world in which, due to the absence of hegemony and the availability of multiple development models, the number of opportunities for mutually beneficial and equitable cooperation greatly expands. To reiterate, this applies to all its participants, not just select groups.
In a world like that, the pursuit by certain countries of a bloc policy leads not to the isolation of those they wish to segregate, but to their own self-isolation, lost opportunities and underdevelopment. However, this is their sovereign right. If that’s what they want to do, they can suit themselves.
The way international relations should be organised in a multipolar era is the key question now. Russia advocates a serious discussion on ways to adapt the existing international architecture in order for it to better reflect the emerging multipolar realities and to ensure a fair and sustainable world order. In this context, everyone will benefit from closely studying the Russian President’s policy statements, in particular the ones he made at plenary sessions of the Valdai International Discussion Club in 2023 and 2024.
Russia and China, as two sovereign civilisation states with millennial history, have a special role to play, as do India, Iran, Brazil, Türkiye and other independent participants in international communication. They have a contribution of their own to make, and they have their own vision of a multipolar world.
Question: First, I would like ask you to clarify your answer to the Munich Conference question made by my colleague from Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn (International Affairs). You said that neither Foreign Ministry representatives nor other Russian officials are taking part in the conference. But perhaps a Russian delegation has arrived in Munich to take part in today’s talks announced by US President Donald Trump. If so, could you name its members?
Maria Zakharova: I do not understand your question. If you are talking about the Munich Security Conference, I have already answered this question. Russia was not invited; we do not attend it without being invited. I did not say anything new. This is the obvious answer following the Munich conference’s stance, just a statement of fact. Since there was no invitation, it is impossible to either accept or refuse it. No one can be present there.
But if you are asking if there are Russian citizens in Munich at all, this is not serious. It is impossible to carry on a conversation like this. Are there official Russian representatives in Germany? There are. Our embassy is open. What are you talking about? What would you like to ask?
Question: Could you confirm or deny, if possible, Donald Trump’s statement that talks on the Ukrainian settlement between the United States and Russia will take place in Munich today.
Maria Zakharova: In order to confirm or deny something that US President said, you have to ask the US embassy if you are in Moscow, and the US representative offices if you are not.
Secondly, the Presidential Executive Office has repeatedly explained that the work of negotiating groups is underway. The corresponding explanations have already been provided. I do not think I need to repeat it.
Let me stress once again that this is the prerogative of President of Russia Vladimir Putin to make decisions like this. Therefore, the public will be informed about them by the Presidential Executive Office, or by the competent agencies if they are instructed to do so.
Once again, please see the statements made by the Presidential Executive Office. They provide comprehensive clarification; I have all the quotes. I can see how skillfully my colleagues answer the same question all over again. The essence remains the same. Decisions are made by the President of Russia, and the public will be notified as soon as they are made.
Question: What is the current status of
Maria Zakharova: We have repeatedly stated our commitment to the consistent and active development of Russian-Syrian relations across various sectors. Our contacts with the Syrian side are focused on identifying the opportunities for bilateral cooperation at this stage. The issue of maintaining
At this point, I believe it is best to refrain from providing detailed public comments while this work is ongoing.
Question: What will be the response to the seizure of ships allegedly belonging to
Maria Zakharova: We have addressed this topic many times before.
To be clear, if we are talking about Russian courts or Russian citizens, then, as in previous years, we have a set of measures in place based on relevant doctrinal documents, to protect them from business operators and safeguard the rights of Russian citizens and our compatriots.
This is not the first time in history that we have faced this issue. Therefore, it is important to address each specific situation, not just speak in general terms, because our position remains unchanged. We have the relevant responsibilities. If you have a question about a particular situation, we will provide a comment.
Question: What is
Maria Zakharova: I can reiterate our fundamental position. We believe that the strict adherence to these principles is a crucial factor in the context of prospects for normalising the situation in the Gaza Strip and in the broader Palestinian-Israeli conflict zone.
I will refrain from offering any definitive assessments regarding the results of implementing the first stage of the agreement, which ends on March 2. There are still some issues and mutual accusations, but it has not been declared terminated. According to available information, new indirect contacts between Hamas and Israeli delegations took place in
Question: Moscow has expressed its concern over the humanitarian situation in Gaza on many occasions. What does Russia think about this issue and what steps does it make to settle the humanitarian crisis? Has Russia provided or is planning to provide any assistance to Gaza? If so, in what format?
Maria Zakharova: We have always said that the situation in Gaza is a humanitarian catastrophe of unprecedented scale and consequences. The number of killed, wounded and missing Gaza residents has exceeded 160,000. More than 1.9 million people, or roughly 90 percent of the population, are now displaced.
The civil infrastructure in the Gaza Strip has been almost completely destroyed during the hostilities. Experts estimate that most of this territory will remain uninhabitable for many years to come, even at a minimally acceptable level. I think you are familiar with these assessments by scientists and experts.
Notwithstanding the current ceasefire, there are serious breakdowns in the humanitarian aid supply to Gaza as before. As a result, those who remain there are suffering from malnutrition, lack of access to basic household and medical services, and spread of diseases.
Russia is among the countries that promptly responded to the distress of the Gaza Strip residents. Since October 2023, more than 800 tonnes of cargo of various purposes have been delivered by Russian Emergencies Ministry aircraft to Egypt for onward shipment to the besieged Palestinian enclave through the Egyptian Red Crescent Society. I should particularly like to note that, along with government agencies, numerous Russian non-governmental and public organisations, as well as individuals, have been actively involved in the efforts to collect humanitarian aid for the Palestinians in need. Such work is underway and will continue.
Question: Just before the Munich Conference, its organisers admitted that the United States was abandoning its role of a global hegemon. They believe that what is emerging instead is a multipolarised world. Why do you think a new word has been invented instead of using the existing term, multipolar world? Is there any special meaning behind this?
Maria Zakharova: Looking at Boris Johnson, one would think that the world would become electrified with them looking only at themselves in the mirror and talking to their reflection. I think it has been long since they approached a mirror; they have replaced them with their own ceremonial portraits. And this dialogue fits them. They fail to see what is going on outside their window, or their own reflection; they do not understand what they look like. The Westerners can no longer comprehend criticism, argumentation, and reality itself.
I will use this example once again: if these are the very people that were talking about some “new normal” or “multi-crazy genders” for years, what do you want to hear when they assess something less obvious? They have blocked themselves from the inside so that the new reality could not reach them. They are swayed by the outcomes of their own conclusions that are not backed by real facts. They exist in this soup, stewing in their own juice. Right now, when the big brother from the inside put forward the idea that the world is not going to be ruled by a single centre [of power], they have to align and regroup in some new form. But just in case, if something happens, they began to play with words, coming up with some new expressions.
On top of everything else, they cannot accept that back in 1997, Russia and China adopted a joint declaration that the participants of the Munich Conference, the Western countries, did not pay due attention to. And now it appears that they were in the dark for 30 years. It turns out that the taxpayers who have provided for this “creative chaos” sent their leaders and ministers there in vain; those returned from there seemingly directed by something philosophical, while in fact they looked like an assembly of kings that have no clothes.
This is why now they begin to look for new words, play with them, or make up some points. The first step in solving a problem is acknowledging it. I think they are circling around it but have yet to get down to the main point: recognising that they were wrong. This is not about sarcasm or gloating. First of all, they need this and so do we. We share the same continent; many things built here have common roots, nature, and prospective. But above all, this is their problem that they must acknowledge. It would also be proper to discuss numerous problems they have created for the entire world.
Question: On Wednesday, you mentioned that the Ukrainian Armed Forces fired at a convoy of IAEA experts, effectively disrupting the rotation at the Zaporozhye NPP. What do you think was the purpose of this, given that Kiev continuously stresses its successful cooperation with the IAEA?
Maria Zakharova: I believe the goal was to escalate activity specifically for the Munich conference, and possibly even take critical terrorist actions against the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant. This is why the Kiev regime likely did not want IAEA personnel there. Obviously, any dramatic developments would have required reporting and explanations, perhaps not publicly, but at least to IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi. That’s likely why they were not allowed to go. There is no doubt that a provocation in relation to nuclear facilities was being prepared for the Munich conference. I can say it with certainty, we had such information.
It’s another issue that they carried out this provocation against the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Let me remind you of what we’re discussing. On the night of February 13-14, reports emerged indicating that the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was targeted in this provocation. This is yet another, and I believe not the last, step by the Banderites aimed at undermining a critical nuclear security facility. There have been similar provocations before, such as the attack on the Zaporozhye NPP cooling tower on August 11, 2024.
The murder of the head of the pass office at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant on October 4, 2024, which was claimed by the neo-Nazis of the Kiev regime. The attack on the vehicles of Russian military personnel and IAEA Secretariat employees during the rotation on December 10, 2024. The disruption of two attempts to rotate Secretariat specialists at the plant on February 5 and 12, 2025. Furthermore, on February 12, 2025, this disruption involved the use of artillery, mortars, and drones. Additionally, there was artillery shelling of the open switchgear at the Zaporozhye Thermal Power Plant late in the evening on February 13, 2025.
None of this can be seen as accidents or mistakes. It is a series of provocations and acts of terrorism, as the Kiev regime views civilian nuclear infrastructure as an opportunity for nuclear terrorism.
The provocation at the New Safe Confinement facility of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is a clear continuation of the criminal actions by the Kiev regime, which is fully aware of what it is doing. Russia was once part of international efforts to build this facility and called for help in addressing the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The current actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are undermining these long-term, multinational efforts, as it was not just our country that monitored the safety of these facilities and this structure over the years.
Therefore, this is a provocation. As I mentioned earlier, we have repeatedly warned about the preparation of such provocations, and later confirmed their execution. Our concerns have once again proven justified. I believe this serves as another lesson for all those who care about the Kiev regime. Nuclear technologies in the hands of Vladimir Zelensky’s criminal regime pose a serious threat to international peace and security. Vladimir Zelensky and his regime even view nuclear power plants as tools for their terrorist activities. There’s no need to discuss their desire to possess nuclear weapons – they make no secret of what they would do with them – they would immediately use them.
We regularly provide updates on the situation with the IAEA employees. On February 12, a detailed comment on this matter was published on the Foreign Ministry’s website. I have now reiterated some of its key points.
Question: Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has called the possibility of Ukraine returning to its 1991 borders unrealistic. Hegseth said this at the Ramstein meeting, and for the first time the meeting was chaired by the Great Britain instead of the United States. Do such statements mean that the new US leadership is taking a more sober view of the balance of forces in the Ukrainian conflict?
Maria Zakharova: I have just spoken about what had happened at the Ramstein meeting. And I will also repeat what Russian leadership said on many occasions. Now the Joe Biden administration, which has moved away from this “bloody feast,” leaves leftovers for its European satellites to pay the bills, clean up after Big Brother, and somehow cope with it all. Obviously, this was part of the strategy to shift all responsibility, to inflict a “strategic defeat” on the EU members, because they had “shifted into high gear” their economy, currency, and development prospects. The methods and illegitimate sanctions used by the Joe Biden’s administration “brought down” their EU partners. This was continued so that, given the already existing horrendous situation with the economy, with industry, with security, the EU would also take responsibility for what is happening in Ukraine. The first is the financing for the Kiev regime, the second is the reconstruction of Ukraine, etc. This is also part of the strategy.
No wonder they are putting it all into practice. What is different about it is that we should pay attention to the statement by US President Donald Trump that all this is not close to him and that all such activities were provoked by the previous administration and he would not do anything like this. He is attempting to assure everyone of this. There is a certain logic in this too, but the question is different: when will the EU countries “wake up”? (Some of them kept their minds sober, but they were a few all these years). Some of them begin to “come to themselves,” some continue to think that “the gender can be changed.”
Question: I have a question about potential talks on resolving the Ukrainian conflict and the ongoing US and European arms deliveries to the Kiev regime. Since the very beginning of the special military operation, people in many European countries, including Bulgaria, took to the streets and urged their authorities to prevent the delivery of weapons to the Kiev regime. Europe calls this “military assistance.” Most European media outlets hushed up these protests and pretended that they never took place. It turns out that many of them were financed by the notorious USAID. They are now actively discussing possible talks to resolve the Ukrainian conflict. As a pre-requisite for launching these talks, can Russia demand a cessation of military deliveries to territories where combat operations are conducted, and where an illegitimate government is functioning? Is it possible to legally formalise this in some document as a pre-condition for launching the talks? It is illogical to deliver weapons and to talk about peace.
Maria Zakharova: We have been discussing this all these years. You are asking whether we will stipulate this as a pre-condition. We are stating that these deliveries should end, and the conflict’s continuation is linked with ongoing shipments. It is still too early to talk about any specific negotiating process. I believe that you should not merge these two issues that are actively discussed by our politicians, diplomats and media outlets. All these years, we are talking and explaining that arms shipments are illegal. This runs counter to calls for peace that we hear, and all this is the cause of continued bloodshed.
I am talking about this at every briefing, mentioning examples of these shipments and discussing the violation of contractual obligations by third countries reselling weapons. All these years, we expose, urge and so on. You have not attended our briefings for a long time, and you probably did not follow these developments. So, one should not think that this issue should only be included in the agenda. It has been on the agenda all these years.
Question: No, it did not emerge today. Russia should officially stipulate this as a pre-condition for launching these talks because it would be elementary to stop deliveries and to sit down at the negotiating table. This would motivate the negotiating process.
Maria Zakharova: Until recently, there was nothing to “motivate” in Ukraine because the Kiev regime forbade itself to negotiate. Others shouted that everything should only be decided on the battlefield. So, this question is a bit far-fetched.
Whom should we motivate and for the sake of what? We have charted our goals and objectives. Speaking at the Foreign Ministry in June 2024, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin set forth our conceptual attitude towards the peace settlement. Our position is clear. What ideas will “mature” on the other side? We should ask them this question. We have charted all our positions in the context of the special military operation’s goals and objectives and issues of resolving the situation. Sometimes they say that let us expand the “component.” We have our basic approaches, and I have said where and when they were formulated.
Question: On February 2, Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin had no information about Vladimir Putin’s meeting with US President Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, now in Moscow. Did Steve Witkoff meet with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov or other Foreign Ministry officials?
Maria Zakharova: We would have informed you if he did. I don’t have an update on any such meeting at the Foreign Ministry.
Question: Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said the United States did not consider Ukraine’s NATO membership a prerequisite for future talks about peaceful settlement. Does the Russian side view this as a compromise on behalf of Washington? Is Moscow ready to strike a compromise?
Maria Zakharova: You see a compromise coming from whom?
Question: Washington.
Maria Zakharova: This looks more like realistic approach to me. In addition to the Pentagon chief’s statement, President Trump also came up with a statement yesterday, saying that (in his opinion) this whole thing began after Biden’s team started speculating on Ukraine potentially joining NATO. He elaborated on that thought. I believe this is indicative of a realistic approach which should not be underestimated. It is a key element of our efforts if we want to move forward. We have covered this extensively today.
We have always asserted that Ukraine’s NATO membership is unacceptable for Russia. It poses a serious threat to Russia’s security and would entail catastrophic consequences for Europe. President Vladimir Putin presented our idea of what it should look like in June 2024. Of course, there’s need for assurances. There’s more to it than just words or some political science ideas. We need assurances. Otherwise, all this will continue to create even more problems for Europe and for the world at large. However, I think that the statements that we hear coming from Washington show a realistic approach to the situation.
Question: Former Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu proposed granting the Gaza Strip the status of a Turkish autonomous region. He criticised Donald Trump’s plans, who earlier said that the United States would seize control of the Gaza Strip and would be in charge of rebuilding it.
In particular, Davutoglu had the following to say, “As a legal successor to the Ottoman Empire, Türkiye should treat people of the Gaza Strip as comrades... Let the Gazans hold a referendum and, until the Palestinian state is established, let them be connected to Türkiye as an autonomous region. It’s up to them.” What’s your take on this news?
Maria Zakharova: My first point is that we provide comments only on what active statesmen who are vested with power and authority to make statements on behalf of the people, the country and the state have to say.
Second, there are quite a few statements, especially on hot-button topics, coming from political figures that have presence on the political field, but do not hold official positions which would authorise them to come up with such statements. Sometimes, these people make adjustments to their statements.
We believe it’s best to refrain from commenting on such remarks. Sometimes, we do take them under advisement and keep them in mind, but assessing them is not quite appropriate, because we are not talking about the position of a state.
We should ask the Palestinians first about what they want. I think they are waiting for their own state to become a reality. We have discussed this many times before, and not only discussed, but also had it enshrined in international legal documents. We should be based primarily on this premise whenever someone out there starts modeling the future of the Palestinians and the region at large.
Question: I would like to clarify where the Foreign Ministry stands with regard to President Trump’s plans to deport two million people from the Gaza Strip and to redevelop the ruins of Gaza Strip into a Riviera. Isn’t it time for the Palestinians to petition human rights organisations such as the UN, the ICC, Amnesty International, or Human Rights Watch?
Maria Zakharova: You are addressing the Foreign Ministry. I think you should address the second part of your question to authorised representatives of Palestine.
With regard to rebuilding plans, I’m not even sure which verb I should use given that the Gaza Strip is in shambles. The word “rebuilding” is clearly not a good choice given the scale of devastation.
The plans for the future of Gaza must, primarily, be in line with what the people of that region want for themselves and with the existing international legal decisions. They are there and didn’t go anywhere.
Question: Do you think inviting President Trump to attend celebrations of the 80th anniversary of Great Victory in the Great Patriotic War is a good idea?
Maria Zakharova: All matters related to contacts or events at the top level are commented on by the Presidential Executive Office. We live by this golden rule. I will take this opportunity to remind you of it.
Question: The Armenian Parliament has passed a draft law to begin the European integration process. This issue is currently being debated in Armenia. The opposition argues that this move could harm economic ties with Russia, lead to a loss of market access, and result in higher gas prices. The Armenian authorities, however, assure that it will not negatively impact the economy and emphasise that the country will only leave the EAEU once it signs a free trade agreement with the EU. They also stress that this is a long-term process, and when it reaches its conclusion, Armenia will independently exit the EAEU. I would like to clarify.
Maria Zakharova: What do you mean by reaching a conclusion? Are you referring to joining the EU?
Question: Yesterday, in an interview with Armenpress, Chair of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly of Armenia on European Integration Arman Yegoyan explained that Armenia will leave the EAEU once a free trade agreement with the EU is signed. This does not even imply EU membership. What is Moscow’s stance on this? Does it agree with the Armenian authorities that this process will not impact economic cooperation until Armenia officially leaves the EAEU? I would like to understand the situation more clearly.
Maria Zakharova: I apologise, but you are an adult. Why are you asking these questions when you’re aware of the ongoing processes there? What’s the purpose? Are you looking for us to say something that you could figure out or write yourself? What’s the point? Perhaps you should honestly reach out to the people who matter to you, reflect on the situation, and see the truth for what it is. Understand where they are being called and led to and what the consequences might be. But that’s not my responsibility. It’s yours.
It seems like you’re trying to draw attention to the issue, and I understand that you care deeply for Armenia, that’s both obvious and understandable. However, I think this should be approached differently, rather than coming to briefings and trying to highlight the problem.
As a representative of your country and its people, you better should write the necessary materials yourself, outlining what the potential consequences might be and what the risks are. It’s not my job to write this for you.
We’ve discussed this countless times, citing modern historical examples over and over, so there is really no need to repeat it. If there were no means of distributing information or if people in remote areas were in the dark, then maybe, yes, it would be worth repeating daily. But the truth is, everyone understands the situation by now. Everyone knows what’s going on. So, what’s the point of repeating the same message? At some point, it’s important to show real civic maturity, understanding that it’s not just about listening to promises, but about getting closer to the reality of the situation. That’s all.
We need to consider who in recent history has actually reached a qualitatively new level of development after all the colourful promises made by the European Union.
Serbia has been trying to align itself with EU standards for years, yet it hasn’t led to any substantial progress. It received far more promises, and for a much longer period, than many others. So, who else has succeeded and in what way?
Ukraine was also promised a lot. And what happened? They seem to support it politically, yet never gave it the opportunity to move closer to what was promised. Instead, they pushed it deeper into disaster.
Let’s consider other examples – who actually benefitted? I’m not referring to the EU members who sacrificed whole sectors of their economies and industries for Brussels. I’m talking about the countries that have been constantly lured in, only to be deceived. These countries aren’t just the minority, they represent the majority of those to whom the EU has made promises in recent years.
The key is to understand what lies behind the promises, pledges, and assurances from the European Union. It’s important to believe actions, not just words. Look at the real-world outcomes, learn from others’ experiences, and remember your own history. Draw conclusions based on that. It’s not about waiting for them to sign something and then hoping they’ll follow through. Talk is cheap, but practice speaks louder.
Question: I would like to clarify my position as journalist and expert. During the parliamentary discussion, when pro-government MPs and government representatives give interviews to the media, they stress that the negotiations in Moscow were constructive. On the one hand, the opposition is telling society that this will soon result in problems in relations with Russia, with an unclear prospect of European integration. The authorities and pro-Western powerhouses keep assuring that there will be no problems with Russia, and when we leave the EAEU, join the EU or sign some document, it will be alright and economic problems with Russia will be of no importance. People in Armenia would like to understand what is Moscow’s approach: does it align with the approach of the authorities or the opposition, with the concerns the opposition deputies raised when discussing the project?
Maria Zakharova: I think it would be logical to assume that if we hear the statement that the EAEU does not interest the official Yerevan anymore, this is not only a state policy issue but that of economic operators. They draw corresponding conclusions that their partners on the other side do not seem interested in the partnership. Development prospects will be outlined accordingly, considering this information. This is obvious.
If you have trade and economic relations, and one of the partners says he wants out, this means that no one bets on that partner. This is not just about making such statements from political tribunes but about economic operators, companies, manufacturers, and industrialists drawing the conclusions that they will no longer be considered as such. They will reorient to other partners and other markets. They understand that the stake must be made based on this factor.
Can I give you an example? Let’s say that there are Russian companies entering EAEU member countries. They hear that they will not be able to purchase products they bought from their Armenian partners at the same standards, prices, or parameters. In addition to everything else, they realise that, as soon as Armenia joins the European Union or institutionalise some kind or relations with it, automatic sanctions will be turned on. So, they understand that they cannot count on this type of product that Armenia supplied them. They will simply look for other partners in advance, negotiate prices, and focus on manufacturers from other countries.
Just 10-15 years ago everyone would say “let’s think about this when this happens.” Now everyone knows what sanctions and secondary sanctions are. Everyone understands that this factor must be considered in advance, and it is important. Joining the EU in any way would mean the need to introduce sanctions against Russian operators, and so on. Everyone is considering this. Every time, we keep saying that this is not about political assessment but about the economy in its purest form, about deals that are made with a certain prospect, and about calculating profits and costs.
Perhaps you should better ask those who are counterparties, partners, sometimes a co-founder, a trading partner with Armenian colleagues, and ask something like, how will you behave if... And they will answer you with specific examples and tell you everything.
I am surprised that simple things like this require additional comments.
Question: Unfortunately, I believe they do, because people often do not understand simple things.
Maria Zakharova: I think all experiments like this should imply some guarantees. What guarantees are given? A number of countries and politicians have already experimented. Where are the guarantees? That is the question.
Question: Iranian Ambassador to Armenia stated during a news conference that “Iran is the only country in the region that shares Armenia's point of view on the so-called Zangezur Corridor.” The Russian Foreign Minister in response to my question in January 2024 said that within the framework of trilateral agreements between the leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan there had never been any talk about the Zangezur Corridor. You spoke about it, and Alexey Overchuk, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, stated that it was agreed that if all connections and routes are unblocked, the countries fully retain sovereignty and jurisdiction over these routes and communications. In this regard, I would like to understand what is the difference between the approaches of Russia and Iran in unblocking communications in the region? How would you comment on this and other statements by the Iranian Ambassador that concerned Russia?
Maria Zakharova: Russian and Iranian approaches to unblocking transport communications in the South Caucasus are similar. This is fully confirmed by the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership signed in Moscow on January 17, 2025. Under the treaty its parties shall promote stronger peace and security in the adjacent regions, including the South Caucasus, and cooperate to prevent interference and destabilising presence of any third parties there. I think that the reflection of this understanding in the fundamental interstate document for twenty years or more already speaks volumes.
The only difference is that Russia is a member of the Tripartite Working Group under joint chairmanship of Deputy Prime Ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia on unblocking transport and economic links in the South Caucasus. This group has performed a great job to agree both legal foundations and technical parameters of restoring transport routes between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It was the Tripartite Working Group that reached an agreement on the basic principle of unblocking communications – preservation of the state sovereignty and jurisdiction over the routes that run across their territories. This condition was approved by both Baku and Yerevan. Unfortunately, at present the work of the group is frozen because of the Armenian position. Alas, I have to say it, it is a fact. We reaffirm our readiness to resume full interaction in the Tripartite Working Group.
Question: Last week, a large-scale exercise involving military forces from Türkiye, Azerbaijan, the United States and some other countries ended near Armenian borders and in the CSTO’s zone of responsibility in Kars. How can you comment on NATO’s expansion into the South Caucasus region with the help of military cooperation between Türkiye, a NATO member country, and Azerbaijan? This may threaten regional countries.
Maria Zakharova: With your permission, I will clarify this issue with my colleagues, and I will either answer you personally or we will post the answer on our website.
Question: Against the backdrop of negative reports and opinions regarding Russian-Azerbaijani ties in media outlets and social media accounts, we would like the Foreign Ministry to voice its official position. What is the current state of relations between Russia and Azerbaijan, and what does the Russian side think of bilateral cooperation prospects?
Maria Zakharova: Relations between Russia and Azerbaijan have a long history, and they are formalised by the relevant documents. Two factors, specifically, history and the current international law framework of these relations, determine their future.
Of course, anything can happen in bilateral relations. We are now experiencing this process and taking it hard and feeling upset. We know that this worries official Baku. We realise that the air crash that has claimed the lives of Azerbaijani citizens and those from our country evokes hard feelings here and there.
We realise that all this not happening in a vacuum, and that many people want to gain their own advantage from this. However, this advantage would prove ineffective because any attempts to drive wedges between nations and countries that have such an impressive common history and zone of responsibility (including a regional zone of responsibility), as well as substantial development prospects, are all doomed to failure.
Russia and Azerbaijan maintain partner-like and allied relations. We have always defined them as such, and this is their essence. I believe that we should treat this issue in such a manner.
We are perplexed and worried by the current media campaign. Obviously, someone is ratcheting this up, and it appears that some people want to take advantage of this tragic air crash.
I believe that all these attempts will be doomed to failure. The level of our collaboration, the depth, profundity and wisdom of our nations will also make it possible to cope with this challenge.
Here is one more aspect. I read certain fake news, and we refute some of them. An unacceptable muck-racking media campaign is now taking place around the Russian House in Baku. We publish anti-fake stories. Sometimes, however, they are trying to claim that Russia and Azerbaijan are not engaged in any cultural and humanitarian cooperation. It is simply impossible to read this.
I will not now discuss our common history and the tremendous number of current projects between individuals in various spheres of art and culture. I would like to remind those publishing such untrue stories that the Azerbaijani Cultural Centre is functioning successfully at the Rudomino Foreign Literature Library in Moscow, Russia. The Aliyev Foundation implements multiple projects, and the Azerbaijan Pavilion operates at the National Exhibition of Economic Achievements (VDNKh). I regularly visit the library, and I have also been to the pavilion. This is a beautiful and wonderful element of our common history. On October 25, 2024, the Azerbaijani Tourism Bureau opened in Moscow. Azerbaijan’s cultural and humanitarian presence in our country is bolstered by the active work of numerous, 100-plus, Azerbaijani national-cultural autonomies. In this connection, it would be appropriate to mention Azerbaijan’s consulates-general in St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg.
Everyone is writing that Russia and Azerbaijan are only linked by the Russian House in Baku, and that there is nothing else. What do you mean that there is nothing else? These statements are probably motivated by a lack of knowledge; such provocative leaks can be explained by a lack of understanding.
As a rule, countries and nations with an extremely lengthy history sometimes react more emotionally to any problem issues.
We have noted repeatedly, both openly and privately, that we are ready to constructively address these problem issues, and our diplomatic missions are conducting this work.
Question: Let me expand on my colleague’s question regarding NATO’s growing presence in the Baltic Sea. Is the Foreign Ministry preparing a response to the detention and inspection of ships, discussions about expanding Finland’s and Estonia’s territorial waters, and Moscow being accused of damaging underwater infrastructure? You have repeatedly stated in your briefings that measures will be taken. What specific actions are being considered?
Maria Zakharova: I have already addressed your colleague’s question. You are broadly summarising a complex, multi-faceted issue, asking whether Moscow is preparing a response to unfriendly actions. When have we ever not prepared and not responded? Are we reacting to the detention of ships?
Let me reiterate – let’s discuss each case individually. We have general materials that have already been published (1, 2). For every specific incident, there will be a thorough assessment, a public response, and appropriate actions.
If you have a more detailed question about a particular situation, we’ll be happy to provide a constructive answer.
Question: What implications do the sanctions imposed by US President Donald Trump on the International Criminal Court in The Hague have for Russia?
Maria Zakharova: You know that Russia is not a participant in the ICC, and this decision is not solely based on national interests, though that is certainly a factor. More importantly, we do not recognise its jurisdiction, as we view the ICC as a pseudo-international, pseudo-legal quasi-court.
Our position on this matter has remained unchanged, though it was not always stated as explicitly. Now, however, the world has clearly seen the fundamental issues with this institution: it operates as a quasi-judicial body that has been politicised and turned into a tool. Within this structure, individuals act as they please.
There is no consistent legal and universally accepted framework. One country joins today, leaves tomorrow. Another selectively acknowledges one judge while rejecting the entire institution. A week later, a different state accepts rulings against others but refuses to recognise decisions affecting itself. The level of inconsistency has been so extreme that commenting on individual cases has become meaningless.
Just a couple of years ago, when the ICC made claims or quasi-claims that were irrelevant to us, we pointed out the obvious inconsistencies within this structure. Now, it’s clear to everyone, it resembles an orchestra where each musician plays their own tune, following their own sheet music. The conductor changes constantly. That’s exactly how I would describe it, perhaps in a more artistic way.
The ICC is an institution where decisions are made daily, contradicting both each other and previous rulings across different parts of the world.
Even those involved in this court and its tribunals seem to contradict themselves in their own understanding of their actions.
Question: The EU is discussing plans to seize ships allegedly connected to Russia in the Baltic Sea, the “shadow fleet of Vladimir Putin.” In fact, the legalisation of piracy is being prepared. What are Russia’s response actions in the event of piracy, and can these actions be considered provoking the start of a war between Russia and NATO?
Maria Zakharova: Let me repeat that any attempts to interfere in the established navigation in the Baltic Sea or restrict the freedom of navigation of our ships under made-up pretexts will not lead to anything good. This is all a global provocation.
In this context, let me remind you that the North Atlantic Alliance launched a special mission, the Baltic Sentry, in January. What is its purpose? They need it not to ensure security in the region but only to contain Russia in the region and complicate transport communications between the Russian regions.
We believe that increasing the NATO group in the area of active shipping traffic will result in a sharp increase in unintentional incidents, and the desire to control transport flows will seriously affect international economic relations. Is there anything new in this? Nothing changes: wherever the NATO flag appears, one should expect an increase in confrontation and tension.
From the legal point of view, in particular, in the context of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, possible attempts to seize ships associated with Russia cannot be interpreted as acts of piracy, but will constitute a violation of the norms of international maritime law concerning freedom of navigation. Stopping, inspecting, or arresting foreign ships outside the territorial sea are possible only on a specific list of grounds. Interfering with the navigation of a ship due to other reasons is illegal.
Let me repeat that we have already given general comment. We will continue to monitor the developments in the Baltic Sea and other parts of the world ocean. We will respond on the case-by-case basis.
Question: Will our military and technical assistance to African countries decrease after losing political positions in Syria? What steps can Russia propose and will take to prevent the weakening of cooperation with African countries?
Maria Zakharova: I cannot agree with your assessment of the situation in Syria as Russia’s loss of positions. Let us begin with clarifying that speaking about losing or strengthening positions in a country is overall incorrect due to a number of reasons. You will be immediately confronted with accusations of interference in internal affairs or some other violation of international law.
I believe we should talk about the history of relations and prospects we have, such as the recent telephone conversation at the highest level, which reaffirmed the two countries’ interest in developing a wider agenda for the development of bilateral ties.
As for weakening cooperation with our African partners, I do not think there is such a trend. On February 4, we presented the Department for Partnership with Africa. I saw a reaction in the Western countries that was similar to panic. Russian-African cooperation is reaching an entirely new level. A powerful boost to them was given by the first and second Russia-Africa summits, as well as the first ministerial meeting in this format held in November 2024. We are actively working on the practical implementation on the agreements reached as part of the joint Action Plan of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum for 2023-2026.
We are discussing the opening of embassies: they are opening in some countries and reopening in others, because they were out of service for some time.
As for the military-technical sphere, we continue to assist in strengthening the security and defence capability of African countries. We regularly update on this. Therefore, I fundamentally disagree with the way you presented your question.
Question: Recently, Speaker of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin said that “it is necessary to request lists of people in Russia, who received the USAID funding, from the US Congress to further provide them to the Federal Security Service.” What does the Russian Foreign Ministry think about this?
Maria Zakharova: First, every day we see new documents published by the Americans. Second, the USAID’s destructive activity gave serious grounds for such statements. The data, which have become publicly available, the amounts, the number of people and structures that fed from this poisonous source, are overwhelming.
It would be interesting to learn more of this. We will be telling about this for one simple reason. In 2012, Russia made corresponding steps to expel this “fetid apparatus” from our territory. Rather than accepting our position silently, Washington acted out back then. They accused, harassed us, threatened us with all measures. And we turned out to be right. Now the Americans speak about this themselves. This is why, no. If they threw a long-running temper tantrum back then (I remember how Hillary Clinton and her endless aides and advisers choked), we will be treating this topic seriously – telling about it, following it, citing examples and so forth. Such lists and information would be more than relevant.
Question: In his telephone conversation with Donald Trump President of Russia Vladimir Putin once again highlighted the necessity to eliminate the root causes of the conflict…
Sergey Lavrov said in the video congratulations that the top-priority task and the sacred duty is to defend peace based on legal results of WWII.
What root causes of the Ukrainian conflict are implied – the illegal status of Ukraine following its illegal secession from the Soviet Union?
Maria Zakharova: To avoid any retelling from my side, I am ready to give you an entire list of references where Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov and President of Russia Vladimir Putin thoroughly discussed this topic (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10).
All events – the persecution of Russian-speaking individuals, the destruction of the language, the rewriting of history, the derogatory attitude towards the ethnocultural identity of people who identify themselves as Russians, lived and continue to live in Ukraine, the neo–Nazi "firmware" that was formed there for many years – were described in great detail.
Question: What do supporters of Western values, who tell that Donald Trump will change the attitude to Ukraine and stop considering Russia its enemy, count on? Is this development possible if Russia is listed as a number-one enemy in doctrinal documents of the US?
Maria Zakharova: Different qualifications might be given and different arguments might be cited. But the point is we are designated as enemies. There are US and NATO documents, but the gist is the same – for many years, both publicly and non-publicly, they said that first they will be suppressing us and then they will try to strategically defeat us. This was a public statement.
This is a deep and interesting issue. I do not know what to start with. There are a lot of problems in the United States which they openly say they need to address. I believe that America’s number-one enemy is their problems which they now start sorting out as a stale dirty laundry. Many even turn away because it is impossible not to see and put up with the skeletons discovered in their own closets. This is if we speak in theory.
Second. We saw different periods. We saw clauses in US doctrinal documents reading that Russia needs to be interacted with, and, in fact, the attitude was different. This is NATO expansion and non-cancellation of discriminatory trade restrictions. They spoke of the big bright future our countries have at talks and negotiations, yet they never scrapped the Jackson–Vanik amendment. Remember this anecdotic situation when the Jackson–Vanik amendment was approved because the Soviet Union prevented Jews from leaving the country. Many have already managed to return yet the Americans never abolished the amendment. This was at the moment when everything became overripe, when business was actively developing and stumbling on this amendment. Rather than abolishing and forgetting it as a nightmare, the United States replaced it with the Magnitsky Act. You can see how it was immediately “driven in” for replacement. It contained both first sanction measures, the lists and so forth. Sometimes, the records contradict actual state of events.
Third. The US leadership needs to be treated as a leadership with its national interests, political twists and turns and so forth. A stake needs to be made on its own development and national interests what the leadership of our country has repeatedly said.
When we see an adequate reaction, realism – we are willing to interact. We are always ready for this. If we note another approach, in fact – we take it realistically.
Question: I would like to add something to your answer. In the US, communists were always considered enemies. The US does not change its policy. If it says that Russia is an enemy and has it enshrined in its documents, then according to international law, the law of the United States is considered higher, then it turns out that we are now documented as enemies, while Russia has no enemies, but only “bad countries.”
Maria Zakharova: Is this an addition to the question or the answer?
Question: To the fact that there are no changes in the US’s policies. Do you think any changes are possible in the doctrinal documents?
Maria Zakharova: Changes in the rhetoric were obvious. You cannot deny it. Washington is starting to change its analysis of the developments both in the US and the world. They said so directly and showed documents.
How long have we been talking about USAID today? We said that the previous administration interfered in other countries’ internal affairs. They showed clearly how much it cost and admitted that the situation in Ukraine was provoked by Joe Biden Administration. This was said, too. They said that Americans are not going to lay claim to a single-centred world power. This was all said.
There are changes in the rhetoric. Everything else will depend on the steps that will be taken.
Question: How does the Foreign Ministry assess the fact that the US administration uses the Nazi salute in live broadcast, as shown by Elon Musk?
Maria Zakharova: Did you see the statement he made after that?
Question: Did the Foreign Ministry react to this?
Maria Zakharova: Why does the Foreign Ministry have to react?
Question: Was it a gesture?
Maria Zakharova: First of all, you should ask “the other party” what that was. This is not even a state but a person from “the other party.” Ask him what it was. I do not want to guess and make up answers.
We can see enough confirmed manifestations of Nazism in Ukraine, as well as manifestations of support for the Kiev regime and the existing reincarnations of Nazism in the form of neo-Nazism in NATO countries, or the position of the United States, which does not support the UN General Assembly resolution and votes against condemning neo-Nazism. Are you asking what this was?
We see the global situation. They have never shown solidarity on the obvious universal civilisational approaches such as the fact that Nazism cannot be glorified. This is the problem, and not something that someone did or did not do. This can also be a problem. Get an answer from him about what it was, then we will be able to identify it.
If an entire country and government does not consider it necessary to firmly confront new forms of racism, xenophobia, neo-Nazism, and they do not… You are talking about one particular case. This is the problem.
Do you think that Nazism is when someone raises their hand in a salute? I think Nazism is when a misanthropic ideology is introduced under the guise of “innovations” that destroys the consciousness of children. This is neo-Nazism today. The entire story with genders and the new normal, the segregation based on who is exceptional and who is not, is how this misanthropic ideology manifests on the scale of an entire state.
Have we just started talking about now? We have been talking about this all these years.
Question: I completely agree with you.
Maria Zakharova: Finally. I think that today was not a wasted day.
Question: The US is now actively eliminating consequences of work by the USAID, prohibited in Russia. Can the Foreign Ministry of Russia give an expert assessment of damage from this organisation activities and their impact on the Constitution of the Russian Federation, as it is well-known, that the Agency took part in its creation?
Maria Zakharova: We gave numerous expert assessments to this. In 2012, we banished this organisation from our country. The rest is a question to lawyers. We formulated our position, substantiated by legal data, and made a respective decision. We commented on harmful activity of this organisation on a number of occasions.
Question: When you gave an assessment in 2012, was there any assessment of the impact on our Constitution?
Maria Zakharova: There was an impact on our domestic policy. Not some specific components, but the entire policy. They were involved in something they were not supposed to.
Question: The one-and-a-half-hour conversation of the two leaders shook the whole Europe. Federal Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz is ready to declare an emergency in Germany.
Maria Zakharova: You see how tolerant you are? I believe they did not even flinch. Some other physiological processes began there. More realism, please.
Question: Comments on the reaction of Western leaders to this conversation have already emerged. And we have not done anything yet. How can you comment on the reaction of western leaders?
Maria Zakharova: This is important not from the perspective of what they experience when the conversation of the two leaders took place. This is important from the perspective of what the root causes of their current state are.
The root causes are what we have been talking about all the time: the loss of sovereignty, identity, independence, the possibility to pursue one’s national interests.
Basically, if we speak using the Western terms, their democracy “broke down”. It does not work. This is something different – these are vassal relations. How can democracy and vassal relations co-exist? Of course, they can’t.
Democracy is when people delegate specific tasks to their elected representatives via corresponding procedures. Those who were delegated with these rights and responsibility must act in the interests of the people. This is what democracy is. It can be different, supplemented with traditions and national peculiarities. But its main drive lies within this.
If you look at the EU countries, you will see everything: political technologies, intrigues, scandals, some dirt. But they lack the main thing: the working democratic tools to fulfil the hopes of people of these countries through elected institutions. People are being fooled, some techniques are being used. But most importantly, those things that people need, do not happen. Because the things they are trying to delegate are not perceived by their political regimes.
The political regimes are doing everything to prevent people from understanding the gist of events. This is where rewriting of history stems from, as well as crazy stories about modern genders, all this crap they come up with and impose to take people out of reality and knock the ground out from under their feet every time. This is the root cause.
The terrifying thing is that we are talking about entire states. Many of which have the richest history, gave the world the notion of “democracy” and were places where world religions were born; they produced fantastic culture, literature, music, art and paintings. And now they have turned into absolutely obedient repeaters, loud-speakers or transmitters of the will of the “overseas big brother.”
