Excerpts from the briefing by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Moscow, April 18, 2024
- Events to mark 70 years of Russia’s accession to UNESCO
- Ukraine crisis update
- Terrorist attacks by Ukrainian neo-Nazis against Russian medical workers
- Outcome of the UN Security Council meeting on the Ukrainian Armed Forces attack on the Zaporozhskaya NPP
- France handing over its nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and escort combat vessels under NATO’s operations command for the period of naval exercise in the Mediterranean Sea
- Attempts to cancel Russian culture in Romania
- The Moscow International Film Festival
- Stepping up cooperation with ASEAN countries
- International Day of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps
- The International Day for Monuments and Sites
- Mendeleev International School Olympiad in Chemistry
- International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace
- VYZOV National Prize for Future Technologies
- The French President’s Olympic Truce initiative for the Paris Olympics
- China’s initiative to hold a peace conference on Ukraine
- Debates in the European Parliament
- IAEA initiatives
- The Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Bluebook report
- The Japanese Prime Minister’s visit to the United States
- The Armenia-EU-US meeting
- The census in Moldova
- Remarks by the Moldovan President
- The further escalation of the Iran-Israel conflict
- US phobias with regard to BRICS
- US actions in the Middle East
- Investigation of the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall
- Iranian-Israeli relations
- Gaza ceasefire update
- Moldova’s referendum on joining the EU
- Central Asian countries’ cooperation with NATO
- Armenia-UK contacts
- Armenia’s approaches to settling the conflict with Azerbaijan
- The opening of Russian consulates general in Aktau and Samarkand
- Russian citizens in the Iranian-Israeli conflict zone
- Russia-Türkiye contacts
- Starting the pullout of the Russian peacekeepers
- Armenian-Azerbaijani normalisation
- Canada’s participation in the EU mission in Armenia
- The expansion of Japanese-US military cooperation
- The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation
- The role played by the UN
- The May 9 celebrations
- The Western plans to confiscate Russian assets
- Investigation of the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall
- Russia’s nuclear doctrine
- The US plans to deploy intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles
- Ideas spread by Western media
- Invitation for Russia to participate in the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the Allied landing in Normandy
- The West’s hybrid war against Russia
Events to mark 70 years of Russia’s accession to UNESCO
April 21 will mark 70 years since our country joined the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
To mark this day, on April 22, the Foreign Ministry will host a ceremony, which will be attended by Sergey Lavrov, the diplomatic corps and members of the Russian Commission for UNESCO.
Plans are in place to open a retrospective photo and document exhibition co-organised by the Foreign Ministry and the TASS News Agency, as well as to cancel the thematic stamp blocks that JSC Marka released for this anniversary.
The Kiev regime continues relentless terrorist attacks targeting Russia’s civilian population and civilian infrastructure.
On April 9-15, Ukrainian neo-Nazis carried out over 300 bombings in the DPR and Belgorod Region alone, firing about 700 rounds, killing and injuring 39 people, including 4 children. One person was killed. More than 80 residential buildings and about 15 social facilities were significantly damaged.
On April 9, a woman and a child were killed, and three others were wounded by shells in the centre of Klimovo, Bryansk Region.
April 12 was one of the darkest days in the history of Tokmak, Zaporozhye Region. In the evening, when people returned home, the enemy carried out a deliberate massive artillery strike on the residential area, which killed 16 people, including three children. As many as 28 civilians were injured with varying degrees of severity. Five buildings were partially destroyed, and several dozen buildings were cut off the public gas supply system. To perform this brutal murder of innocent people, those followers of Bandera used GLSDB, Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb of US-Swedish production, launched from a HIMARS.
On April 13, Lugansk came under fire for the first time since the summer of 2023. The Armed Forces of Ukraine used British Storm Shadow missiles, targeting the vicinity of a local engineering plant, which was preparing to begin operation, as well as a bus station and a secondary school. Nine people were injured; seven of them were workers from the plant.
On April 14, the followers of Bandera shelled the paramedic centre in the village of Glotovo, Belgorod Region. I wonder why I don’t see a high-profile campaign in the Western media? This was a civilian facility, there were civilians there. Where are the headlines in the British tabloids? Where is breaking news on American television channels? They’re not interested. They are not interested in these people or their rights.
On April 15, two people were killed in attacks on Kakhovka and Tsarskoye in the Kherson Region.
Those Bandera followers continue to use drones to shoot unarmed people. They are on a relentless hunt for paramedics, rescue workers and firefighters providing aid to the injured and clearing the aftermath of attacks.
On April 10, they deliberately dropped ammunition on a civilian car in Apanasovka, Kursk Region. Three people died on the scene.
On April 11, a Ukrainian drone attacked a minibus on the Yasinovataya-Gorlovka motorway. Five people were injured, including a 17-year-old girl.
On April 14, two women were injured during an UAV attack on a passenger bus in Aleksandrovka (DPR).
On April 8-15, Emergencies Ministry rescuers were attacked three times by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The most high-profile case occurred on April 12 in Gorlovka when a team was extinguishing a fire after an attack. The Ukrainian drone operator was specifically waiting for the firefighters to arrive before dropping a grenade on them. Why not, if Washington, London, Paris, Berlin and other capitals in the collective West have been providing funding for it? They’re sponsoring this.
The Ukrainian special services are relentlessly continuing to track down their former compatriots. On April 12, they made an attempt on the life of retired SBU officer Vasily Prozorov in Moscow, and on April 16, they targeted a deputy of the Akimov District Council of the Zaporozhye Region, Alexander Yakimenko. In both cases, explosive devices were detonated in the victims’ cars. Remarkably, those attacks do not qualify as acts of terrorism in any of the collective West capitals, which consider themselves “enlightened.” How do they qualify this then? Otherwise, they would have to adopt resolutions and bills condemning sponsorship of terrorism with regard to themselves.
All of these atrocities are being carefully recorded by Russian law enforcement agencies. Those involved are being identified and will face prosecution.
The Kiev regime continues to openly announce planned terrorist attacks on the territory of Russia, and the details of these attacks are being extensively discussed in the Western press.
Vladimir Zelensky set the tone on April 10, 2024, when he told the German tabloid Bild that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were planning to demolish the Crimean Bridge by mid-July 2024. On April 13, 2024, Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and an expert in naval operations and radio-electronic warfare,told UK newspaper The Sun about the details of a hypothetical operation to destroy this civil infrastructure facility. Did Downing Street, the Foreign Office or those human rights "observatories" that have mushroomed in the West respond in any way? No, they did not, showing a lack of concern. The collective West, which has announced a policy of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia, seems to consider civilian facilities and civilians as legitimate targets.
According to Bryan Clark, specialists consider a barrage of Storm Shadow and SCALP cruise missiles to be the best strategy for attacking the Crimean Bridge's pillars and spans. Additionally, there are plans to use multiple naval drones and to detonate a barge or a container carrier loaded with explosives.
It is important to note that this is not just extremist propaganda or an attack from terrorist bots on some online platform. Rather, an official printed media outlet is offering this content. This is not even sponsoring international terrorism; it amounts to encouraging it through the media controlled by the Anglo-Saxons.
Bryan Clark also acknowledged that the Kiev regime is unable to carry out this operation alone, openly suggesting that the collective West needs to provide the required assistance to the Kiev regime. There is reason to believe that a "naval coalition" recently established by the UK and Norway is intended to plan and execute these terrorist attacks.
Now, let's imagine a hypothetical scenario to fully grasp the scale and inhumanity of these discussions and statements. How would the Western public, government bodies and intelligence agencies react if military experts from other countries openly discussed ways to blow up the Rügen Bridge in Germany, the Vasco da Gama Bridge in Portugal, or the Eurotunnel under the British Channel? What if The Sun, Time magazine, or The Washington Post published transcripts of these discussions? How would they respond to such publications and experts proposing such scenarios?
In the Russian Federation, courts continue to sentence Ukrainian militants who have committed serious crimes against innocent civilians, relying on evidence collected by the Russian Investigative Committee.A court in the Donetsk People's Republic has sentenced Alexey Zhernovsky from the Azov pro-Nazi unit to 28 years in prison. Additionally, members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Vladislav Veselovsky and Artyom Kashirin, were sentenced to 22 years in prison. Alexander Kirilenko received a life sentence in a maximum security prison. All of them were found guilty of murdering civilians in Mariupol in March 2022 due to their political and ideological hatred.
No Ukrainian criminal will go unpunished. They will be exposed and severely punished in accordance with the law. None of them should hold any hope of escaping justice, as there is no statute of limitations for these crimes.
Speaking of alternative scenarios that could have resolved the simmering conflict at an early stage, it is worth mentioning the unique meeting that took place ten years ago, on April 17, 2014, between Russian, US, EU, and Ukrainian foreign ministers in Geneva. In their concluding statement, the participants of the meeting emphasised the urgent need to deescalate the already flaring up conflict in Donbass following Kiev's punitive operation against the people of southeastern Ukraine on April 15, 2014, and urged the Euromaidan authorities to initiate a wide-ranging national dialogue that involved all regions of Ukraine, in compliance with the constitutional process. Unfortunately, at that time, the concerned parties missed an opportunity to resolve the crisis through political means and maintain peace in Ukraine. This situation was reminiscent of what happened after the signing of the agreement between the opposition and President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych on February 21, 2014. The subsequent events are well-known. It is important to remember that the Kiev regime chose to exclude the word "dialogue" from its vocabulary and opted for punitive measures to address the "Donbass issue." Washington and Brussels responded to this in their typical fashion, stating, "You do not understand, this is completely different."
One more day Kiev tried to forget is April 13, 2014, when the “march of polite Zaporozhye residents” was held. Right Sector thugs armed by Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky were sent from Dnepropetrovsk to suppress that march. For six hours, those thugs encircled the civilians who took part in that peaceful demonstration, including women and the elderly, who supported the federalisation of Ukraine which gave the country a chance for a peaceful future. The Right Sector threw smoke grenades and flares and used tear gas against that crowd. The Zaporozhye police stood around the city residents to protect them from the Bandera thugs while the people responded to the provocation with the famous WWII song, The Sacred War (Arise, Great Country). As a result, 48 people, including police officers, were injured and 28 were hospitalised with burns. But they didn’t give up and they didn’t kneel, as the Right Sector neo-Nazis demanded. It is one of the thousands of reasons why over 93 percent of voters in the Zaporozhye Region supported the region’s incorporation into Russia during the September 2022 referendum.
On April 9, 2024, US Senator Tommy Tuberville said that the United States spends about $80,000 on Ukraine every second, that Washington can’t afford this level of spending and should find more appropriate ways to use the taxpayers’ money.
We are aware that Ukraine is nothing other than a “business project” for the United States or, more precisely, for the ruling political elite. The most shocking thing is that no matter what ideas or ideology the current US officials uphold they always speak about money, calculating human lives and the future of the nation in US dollars.
The same day, The American Conservative published an article by Bradley Devlin, who wrote that the Biden administration had “massively undercounted the Ukraine aid” and that “one of the worst kept secrets in Washington is that no one actually knows just how much money the United States has spent in support of Ukraine.” Devlin believes that “the current total of aid to Ukraine amounts to at least $125 billion.”
Everyone knows why Washington is undercounting the funds spent on the “Ukraine Americana” project. The answer is simple. It has to do with the total corruption of the US ruling elites, for whom Ukraine is only a tool for moving funds out of the United States and redistributing them among private actors. These funds hardly touch, if at all, the bank accounts affiliated with the Kiev regime before going back to those who allocated them on behalf of the United States and other agencies and countries of the collective West.
On April 16, 2024, Zelensky signed the horrible law on mobilisation, which is inhuman towards Ukrainian people and deprives them of their rights. Under it, all men of service age, regardless of whether they are in Ukraine or outside it, are to update their personal data with the territorial enlistment centres (former military recruitment offices) within two months, that is, by mid-July. This law concerns a vast number of people, who are unlikely to voluntarily enlist in the Ukrainian armed forces which means a prompt dispatch to the frontline and certain death. Zelensky will send them to their doom, which is obvious to everyone, including his closest cohorts and those who support him.
Predictably, the law sets no deadline for the demobilisation of troops and allows drafting people even with disabilities. Ukrainian men trying to evade service will face penalties, like the suspension of the driver’s licenses and the compulsory delivery of draft dodgers to the territorial enlistment centres.
Ukrainian men living abroad have panicked. There are long lines of those who don’t want to return to Ukraine standing outside embassies to renew their passports before the law comes into force on May 16. After that day, they may be denied consular services. Is this the future the United States planned for Ukraine when it orchestrated and financed the anti-constitutional coup in Kiev in 2014? Is this “democracy Americana” in Ukraine? Is this freedom and respect for human rights?
There is no doubt that this horrible and cannibalistic “mobilisation” law will further increase sky-high corruption in Ukraine and deepen the division of society, but it will hardly help Zelensky reinforce the Ukrainian armed forces.
We have seen the examples of the “democratic” and “legitimate” methods used to recruit Ukrainians into the army. I will now say what everyone in Ukraine, both ordinary people and officials in Bankovaya Street, are afraid to say. But we are not afraid to say it: this is only the beginning. Zelensky has started the final phase called “finishing off Ukrainian citizens the American way.” Regrettably, it will only get worse.
I would like to mention one more bitter day, April 16 . On that day nine years ago, Ukrainian writer and opposition journalist Oles Buzina was killed near his house in Kiev.
He is one of the numerous victims of the Kiev regime, which saw him as a threat because he openly criticised and exposed the essence of the neo-Nazi forces that seized power during a bloody anti-constitutional state coup, which was carried out with foreign assistance.
Oles Buzina urged the Ukrainian authorities to start a dialogue with the people of Donbass and to formalise the rights of the Russian language. He infuriated the Kiev regime and was threatened by Ukrainian radicals because his interpretation of Ukraine’s historical path clashed with the nationalist ideology. That active and firm civil stand cost him his life.
All the facts I have mentioned are a drop in the ocean of life in Ukraine. We are speaking about them to put a light on every aspect of the horrible crimes the Kiev regime is committing in Ukraine at the prompting of the collective West. We are doing everything we can to keep the international community informed as much as possible.
The facts I have mentioned today reaffirm the urgency of the goals of the special military operation, namely, the denazification and demilitarisation of Ukraine and the neutralisation of threats coming from its territory. As the Russian leaders have said, all these goals will be achieved.
Terrorist attacks by Ukrainian neo-Nazis against Russian medical workers
At all times, the red cross against a white background has been a shield protecting medical workers and allowing them to do their work, including during armed conflicts, and to do their job by saving the lives on both sides of the line of contact. However, moral principles and the laws of humanism mean nothing to the Kiev regime.
With obsessive cruelty, fighters from the Ukrainian Armed Forces hunt down the medical workers who are helping the victims of shelling attacks and target them in an attempt to destroy them and prevent them from saving civilians. In 2022-2023, numerous cases of deliberate shelling and drone attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces targeting medical professionals and healthcare facilities in Russia’s frontline regions were documented. In 2024, these sad statistics show no sign of abating. Here are some facts.
On January 12, 2024, the Ukrainian neo-Nazis carried out two attacks targeting the Nikitovsky District in Gorlovka, DPR, using UAVs. The first strike hit energy company employees who were repairing an infrastructure facility, and the second UAV attacked the medical workers who arrived on the spot to help the injured. Two women were killed (one of them a medical worker) and eight more people were wounded (including three ambulance crew members).
On January 13, 2024, in the Kirovsky District of Donetsk, the Banderites used a drone to attack an intensive care ambulance that came to provide help to a woman who was wounded during the shelling. The ambulance driver was injured.
On January 20, 2024, in Gorlovka, an ambulance paramedic was injured in line of duty, as she was providing help to the people wounded in the course of a violent artillery and rocket attack.
On April 4, 2024, in Novaya Kakhovka, Kherson Region, neo-Nazis used a drone to bomb a repair crew that was working to restore mobile communications. Two workers died and one was injured. One of the workers could have survived had the Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters not obstructed the work of the doctors by opening fire at the ambulance from the drones. The victim could not be saved.
Hospitals, outpatient clinics, rural health posts and other medical buildings in the DPR and LPR, as well as the Belgorod, Bryansk, Zaporozhye, Kursk, and Kherson regions, regularly come under fire from neo-Nazis.
Since early April alone, Ukrainian attacks damaged at least three medical facilities. On April 6, 2024, City Hospital No 21 in Donetsk and Children’s Outpatient Clinic No. 4 in Belgorod were damaged. On April 15, 2024, an exploded shell set ablaze a rural heath post in the village of Murom, the Belgorod Region.
The above incidents reveal the deliberate nature of the attacks on medical facilities and the ongoing aggression and terrorist attacks targeting medical workers and first responders. Information about Ukraine violating international humanitarian law is regularly brought to the attention of specialised international organisations and agencies, including within the UN system.
Unfortunately, we have not once heard words expressing sympathy, condolences or support for those who have fallen victim to the Kiev regime as they performed their duty as medical professionals. Not once have we heard words of condemnation from the specialised UN agencies, or representatives (as they call themselves) of the Secretary-General’s office, or press secretaries. Not once. Can’t they see who is doing the shelling and who are the victims?
In February 2024, the statistical records of the attacks on medical facilities in the DPR and LPR, as well as the Bryansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson regions, were submitted to the World Health Organisation to be included in its Surveillance System for Attacks on Health Care. What do you think the WHO did with these data? Nothing. This information was not included in its publications.
Interestingly, international officials do not bother to look for evidence or double-check the facts when it comes to accusing Russia of anything. They rush to express their concern about the Russian Armed Forces’ actions, but suddenly become deaf and mute when it comes to the crimes committed by the Ukrainian Armed Forces not only against Russian citizens, but civilians in general, or humanitarians. As a reminder, there was a pseudo-humanitarian organisation in Syria – the White Helmets – that engaged in provocative activities. They were repeatedly caught red-handed engaging in fake claims and staged events, as well as outright lies. The international community was abuzz and indignant about the alleged attacks on the would-be humanitarian workers. Movies were made which later came close to being nominated for all sorts of international awards as masterpieces of documentary filmmaking. In fact, all of that was fake.
Here though, the Kiev regime is using the weapons supplied by the West to kill real medical workers, not some dressed-up actors wearing some made-up uniforms designed by top-of-the-line Western PR companies. The medical professionals who get killed now have many years of experience working in hospitals and manning ambulances. No one in the West wants to see anything. I am not talking about ordinary people. They are simply cut off from this information. I am talking about the collective West’s specialised agencies and media.
This kind of despicable behaviour is discrediting not only isolated individuals, but also the organisations they represent, which leads to the UN losing its credibility with the international community.
For our part, we are not going to leave the above crimes unpunished. Russian investigative bodies are documenting the atrocities committed by the Ukrainian forces, including the killings of civilians, medical workers and first responders, as well as the attacks on civilian sites. The perpetrators will be identified and held accountable to the full extent of the law.
On April 15, the UN Security Council held a briefing to discuss Ukraine’s attacks on the Zaporozhskaya NPP in early April. The meeting clearly demonstrated that the collective West, led by the United States, continues to create a halo of total permissiveness around Ukraine, turning a blind eye to any crimes committed by Kiev against the Zaporozhskaya NPP and its staff.
However, this time, the Western countries seem to have got carried away and let out their own and the Zelensky-led regime true motives. Unbeknownst to themselves, they issued an ultimatum: “Hand over the control over the Zaporozhskaya NPP and it will no longer be subjected to shelling.” This is a very telling indication of what is actually going on. Not only did they publicly admit that Ukraine is a source of security threat to the plant, but they actually confirmed their involvement in the dangerous attacks on the facility. Most importantly, they confirmed their own attempts at blackmail. But there is a catch. This is nuclear blackmail.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi’s position deserves particular attention. On the one hand, he has been actively dragged into the political games around the Zaporozhskaya NPP, by formulating some sort of “security principles” and presenting all sorts of initiatives. On the other hand, Rafael Grossi becomes silent and shields himself with the IAEA technical mandate when it comes to naming the perpetrators responsible for the attacks on the NPP. This is ambiguous behaviour, to put it mildly, and it does not create the best impression of the role that the IAEA Director General is trying to play in these events.
I would like to stress once again that we consider silencing the crimes of the Kiev regime and especially attempts to justify them as complicity.
We took note of the reports from the French Armed Forces General Staff on handing over the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier and its escort combat vessels under NATO’s operations command for the naval drills in the Mediterranean. As far as we understand, it is the first time in France’s history that it has transferred the flagship of its national naval forces and the key element of the naval component of its nuclear deterrence forces, under NATO’s command.
Certainly, it is the sovereign right of the French leadership to take such decisions. However, it appears to us that this is yet another clear indication that France’s national sovereignty is being progressively eroded – and in its most important and sensitive dimension, which is nuclear deterrence. This step is in line with French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent statements about the Europeanisation of France’s nuclear arsenal that caused heated discussions in France itself. Apparently, now the President of France went even further and what is happening is the NATOisation of France’s nuclear arsenal.
Since the times of President Charles de Gaulle, France’s nuclear arsenal has been considered a pillar of France’s national sovereignty and independent foreign policy. In many respects, it was to preserve the country's strategic autonomy and sovereignty in decision-making that Charles de Gaulle removed the country from the alliance’s military command in 1966. It is deeply symbolic that the era of Paris’ independence in the international arena is ending with the handover to NATO of an aircraft carrier named after the founder of the French Republic. I don’t know if President Macron realises what he is doing or whether he or his inner circle see clearly what is happening. I’m not sure if the French public is fully informed about this. But some French experts are literally crying out, unable to do anything.
We see a convincing demonstration of the transformation of modern France’s foreign policy. France is moving further and further away from de Gaulle’s practices and losing its independence. This independence is dissolving in the common approaches of the European Union and NATO.
This and similar decisions made by Paris convince us once again that, when discussing the crisis in European security and the problem of global security, strategic stability and arms control, France’s nuclear arsenal must be considered as one with that of the United States and Great Britain. We arrived at this conclusion thanks to French President Emmanuel Macron.
Attempts to cancel Russian culture in Romania
Guided by political motives, Romania’s National Film Archive has terminated a contract with the Russian Embassy in Bucharest which provided for leasing its screening facilities as part of an educational and outreach initiative to show The Challenge and The Age of Pioneers, two outstanding Russian motion pictures. These are spectacular, positive and uplifting films with a focus on cosmonautics, its past and present. It was the partisan media, headed by the local editorial board of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and Romania’s Ministry of Culture, which pushed this decision through.
This represents a standard attempt to cancel Russian culture and is part of a more general pattern the West has been using in its all-encompassing censorship effort to eliminate any dissent. This will only harm the people of Romania and cinema aficionados who have expressed many times their desire to watch these films with a translation into the Romanian language. They will not get this opportunity.
The attempts to drop an iron curtain on the world culture are doomed. As for Russia, it remains true to the principles of creative freedom and remains ready to embrace and welcome cultural figures from across the world. An opportunity to discover Romanian cinema during the Moscow International Film Festival, which will open soon, will be a great honour and privilege for us.
The Moscow International Film Festival
The 46th Moscow International Film Festival will take place from April 19 through April 26, 2024.
One of the world’s oldest cinema forums, it is also one of the most prominent ones alongside the festivals in Berlin, Cannes, San Sebastian, Venice and Karlovy Vary. Sergey Eisenstein headed the jury when the Moscow film festival held its first edition in 1935. In 2023, 38,000 people visited the festival, while the competition and out-of-competition programmes included films from 64 countries. And this was happening at the very moment when the United States was crying from all corners about cancelling everything Russian and that our country would never recover its standing as a global cultural powerhouse. What a ridiculous thing to hear.
This year, there will be over 230 films at the festival, and filmmakers from China, India, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Spain, Germany, Serbia, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Türkiye, Iran and many other countries have already confirmed their attendance.
The Moscow festival will also include the BRICS International Film Festival this year. Its programme includes feature-length films from Russia, China, Egypt, India, Iran, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil. Ilya Malanin’s Extraordinary will represent Russia.
We are certain that genuine freedom, multiformity and diversity in cultural development are the future, and the same applies to promoting dialogue among cultural communities within the emerging multipolar world on the broadest possible scale. The BRICS Film Festival aspires to become part of this very dialogue. Countries within our group have always worked together proactively in various ways, including in the cinema industry, and also when promoting their cultural heritage and unique cultural identities. This has been happening despite the attempts by the collective West to cancel the cultures of Russia and other undesirable countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
We invite all those who love cinema, as well as the media, to attend and cover the film festival and its programme.
Stepping up cooperation with ASEAN countries
Despite the challenging geopolitical environment, our relations with Asian countries have continued to enjoy positive momentum, which includes, among other vectors, efforts to expand our strategic partnership with ASEAN, which stands at the core of regional integration processes.
This year got off to a good start as far as ASEAN is concerned. In January 2024, Vientiane hosted the Russia-ASEAN Meeting on Tourism. It was a success. As you know, Russians love spending their vacations in Southeast Asia, so we do hope that the agreements we have reached will help further increase our mutual tourist flows.
The ten ASEAN countries have demonstrated their interest in our cutting-edge solutions for promoting the digital transition and have offered Russia to act as their digital partner. We have launched expert consultations on this matter which are designed to supplement the Russia-ASEAN dialogue mechanism on international information security.
Joint structures focusing on countering terrorism and combatting transnational crime have stepped up their efforts. The recent Crocus City Hall tragedy reaffirmed the need for close cooperation along this track. ASEAN Foreign Ministers adopted a special statement to this effect. Our partners also demonstrated the same vision during the regular meeting of the corresponding Russia-ASEAN working group in early April 2024. Next week, St Petersburg will host the 4th round of Russia-ASEAN consultations, bordering on the calendar with the 12th International Conference of Senior Security Officials.
Jakarta has recently hosted meetings of Russia-ASEAN working mechanisms, and our agencies in charge of the corresponding sectors attended them. This included the Joint Cooperation Committee and the Joint Planning and Management Committee. These meetings helped diversify our practical cooperation with a focus on projects in energy, agriculture, digital transformation and developing smart cities.
The ASEAN Centre at MGIMO-University held a series of cultural and educational events since the beginning of the year. In March, the first meeting of young diplomats from Russia and the ASEAN countries took place on the sidelines of the World Youth Festival in Sochi. It brought together representatives from the foreign ministries of the ten ASEAN countries, so now we have established informal communication channels with them on top of our official contacts. We are thinking about transforming this format into a permanent mechanism.
We will have an opportunity to discuss all the matters on the Russia-ASEAN cooperation agenda and outline our plans during the upcoming ASEAN-Russia Senior Officials’ Meeting at the level of deputy foreign ministers. It will take place in St Petersburg on April 25 and 26, 2024, and will serve as a major step in preparing the Russia-ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting, to be held in July in Vientiane.
On a separate note, I would like to emphasise that this autumn we will mark the 20th anniversary of joining the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia.
International Day of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps
The International Day of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps is marked annually on April 11. This date was chosen for a reason. On this day in 1945, the inmates of the Buchenwald concentration camp, one of the largest Nazi death camps, started an armed uprising they had been carefully planning with the help of underground organisations and Soviet prisoners of war. They seized control of the camp and held it until the arrival of American troops, preventing the Nazis from destroying the evidence of their atrocities, so the whole world could see the true face of Nazism.
The Nazis created a large network of concentration camps during World War II. The figures are staggering: over 14,000 concentration camps housed more than 20 million prisoners. Millions died there as a result of torture, medical experiments, hunger, cold and exhausting labour.
On March 19, 1944, Red Army soldiers from the 65th Army led by General Pavel Batov liberated 33,480 prisoners of the Ozarichi death camp located in the Byelorussian SSR, including 15,960 children under 13. One just cannot cite these figures without shuddering.
The Red Army also saved the prisoners of Majdanek near Lublin in Poland from death in July 1944. Later, Soviet troops liberated the prisoners of Auschwitz (January 1945), Sachsenhausen (April 1945), Ravensbrück (April 1945), Stutthof (May 1945) and many other death factories.
What did it really mean for the Red Army to liberate those prisoners? After so much time, many probably imagine that they arrived on the scene, pronounced some magic formula, showed their IDs, said the password, opened the door and let them out. Our soldiers were liberating the prisoners of concentration camps at the cost of their own lives. They sacrificed their lives voluntarily for the sake of unknown people of all nationalities, different religions and ethnic backgrounds. They had no idea of the political beliefs those people had or which party they belonged to, but they gave their lives to liberate them. Some in the West are now trying to forget their heroism and self-sacrifice, to edit it out of history by demolishing monuments, rewriting history books, and destroying documents. Now anyone who wants to preserve this memory, to keep it, are also facing direct persecution, political persecution.
In this regard, we would like to highlight the notices that the Russian Embassy in Berlin received earlier this month from the administrations of the memorials at former Nazi concentration camps of Buchenwald, Dora-Mittelbau, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück. What were those officials notifying us about? You might think those letters were sent to invite us to join some historical project, or offer a renovation of the parts of the exhibitions covering the Soviet troops’ contribution to the liberation of those death camps. No. It’s impossible to pronounce; it’s impossible to believe. Our Embassy in Berlin received letters saying it was undesirable for Russian officials to participate in the commemorative events on the 79th anniversary of the release of those death camps’ prisoners.
That referred to the Russian officials who made the preservation of the memory of the Great Patriotic War and World War II their life purpose and invested so much effort in it, balancing their official duties with this civic engagement, working to preserve historical memory and defend every memorial in Europe. As a reminder, war memorials have been deliberately demolished in Bulgaria, the Baltic States, Poland and other cities of “enlightened Europe.” However, they do not want to see the individuals who have been conducting the military-historical work to preserve memorials and burials at their events. They do not want to see those who have been contributing to Immortal Regiment, a civil initiative taking place around the globe. Those people have been helping everyone who wanted to hold such public civic events, endlessly persuading the local authorities to support these projects to preserve historical memory.
We regard this provocation as yet another step taken by the German side aimed at further politicising the historical memory of the course and outcomes of World War II in an anti-Russia vein. This destroys historical memory and distorts the truth about World War II, with official Berlin clearly being behind this, encouraging this sentiment.
This largely explains why the German authorities have not yet responded to the note the Russian Embassy sent to the German Foreign Ministry in March demanding that Berlin officially recognise the crimes committed by the Third Reich on the territory of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War as acts of genocide. I want to assure the German side that they will not be able to remain silent and avoid answering this call.
We will continue our persistent and systematic work to preserve the historical truth about the crimes of German Nazism and bring it to the attention of the general public. We will insist that the German government make humanitarian payments to the non-Jewish survivors of the Siege of Leningrad, whom Berlin has been stubbornly brushing aside for many years.
This year, Russian diplomats posted in Germany, along with war veterans and Russians compatriots, will honour the memory of the prisoners of Nazi concentration camps and Soviet soldiers who gave their lives to liberate Europe from the terror of the Third Reich, saving German citizens and their honour, returning them to the framework of humanity. In April and May, employees of Russia’s diplomatic and consular missions in Germany will lay flowers and wreaths at memorials and war graves located in various German federal states.
Cultural and humanitarian projects initiated by Russian volunteers and activists deserve special mention. One of such projects, led by teacher Yelena Serpionova (PhD in Psychology) and supported by the Russian Foreign Ministry, involved translating and recoding an audio tour of the former Ravensbrück concentration camp memorial. The translation from German into Russian was performed by 58 high school students and their German teachers from 15 schools in Moscow, St Petersburg, Lugansk, Tambov, Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Penza, Chelyabinsk, Vologda, Yelets, Cherepovets and the Orenburg Region.
Soviet prisoners made up the second largest group at Ravensbrück after Polish women. However, until now, the memorial did not offer a Russian-language version of the audio guide. Only German, English, French, Dutch and Polish versions were available.
In 2021, Yelena Serpionova and her group of like-minded people wrote three letters to the management of the Ravensbrück memorial proposing to translate and record a Russian version at their own expense, but German officials showed no interest in this. The memorial’s administration also refused to discuss this issue with the Russian Embassy in Germany.
As a result, the group decided to go through with the project on their own. Currently, the audio tour of Ravensbrück in Russian is available free of charge on the izi travel portal and on a special website.
While working on the project, the volunteers discovered that the 15 tracks with stories of eyewitnesses and former prisoners in the German version did not include a single comment by Soviet prisoners of Ravensbrück. The volunteers found testimonies of prisoners from the USSR and added them to the audio guide.
We thank every volunteer who has been involved in this project, everyone who cared enough. It has enormous patriotic significance, including for the extensive Russian-speaking diaspora in Germany.
Not only will we continue to cherish the memory of every prisoner who died or survived the terrible dungeons of Nazi concentration camps, but we will also pay tribute to those who liberated them. The great holiday is approaching, the most revered day – the Day of Victory over the Nazis. Let us be worthy of our grandfathers and fathers who brought this day closer at the cost of their lives.
The International Day for Monuments and Sites
April 18 is the International Day for Monuments and Sites established by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) in 1982 and approved by the General Assembly of UNESCO in 1983.
Monuments are bearers of the cultural code of a nation and maintain the link of times. Embodied in the monumental art, historical memory shapes national identities, values and orientations, thereby influencing a society’s vision of its future.
Russia is home to 32 UNESCO World Heritage sites, including 21 cultural monuments. There are 31 candidate sites more on the preliminary list.
The Russian Federation strictly abides by its commitments under the key international legal acts, including the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage and the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.
The Russian Armed Forces involved in the special military operation are doing all they can to ensure the safety of world cultural sites and religious institutions in Ukraine.
For its part, the Kiev regime deliberately shells social and cultural facilities in Russia. We have repeatedly focused on this, citing concrete examples and diffusing relevant information at international venues. The Kiev regime is not averse to using historical monuments in its territory as shelters for its forces and equipment. For example, its units have organised artillery positions on the heights next to the Holy Mountains Lavra of the Holy Dormition.
The Ukrainian authorities are exporting Orthodox Christian artefacts to the West. In 2023, they handed over to Le Louvre 16 unique icons from the Bogdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Arts. Icons, relics, and church utensils from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra are being prepared for departure to Europe.
As they continue their cynical fight against our common cultural and historical heritage, the Kiev authorities are pulling down monuments to Nikolai Gogol, Alexander Pushkin, Maxim Gorky, Mikhail Bulgakov, Nikolai Ostrovsky, as well as to Russian and Soviet generals, including Georgy Zhukov, Nikolai Vatutin, and Alexander Suvorov. The Lvov Region has demolished all its monuments to soldiers, who fought against Nazism. A horrible figure: 312 structures were pulled down in 2023.
In its disgraceful campaign, Ukraine follows the example of its “civilised” neighbours, Poland and the Baltic states. In violation of their international obligations with regard to tending to, upgrading and preserving the memorial structures, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are demolishing military memorials and encouraging acts of vandalism. The Ukrainian government policy is aimed at rewriting history in Ukraine and glorifying the former Waffen-SS legionaries and traitors, who collaborated with the Nazis.
The UN Human Rights Committee has repeatedly stated that the demolition of monuments is unlawful, but the authorities in the Baltic states persist with their policy. The statistical data for Poland speaks for itself: out of 561 memorials, which Russia and Poland jointly put on the List of Sites Commemorating the Soviet Defenders of the Fatherland Killed in the Territory of Poland in 1997, only 90 monuments have survived to this date.
In fact, they are undermining the ideological foundation of the postwar system of international relations, which came into its own following the USSR’s Victory over Nazism. It is this Victory that forms the cornerstone of the current UN system created on the basis of the anti-Hitler coalition.
Our sacred duty is to preserve the memory of those, who liberated the world from the pest of brownshirts. After all, glorifying Nazism is just one step away from disrespecting the memory of our common ancestors and desecrating monuments to the liberator soldiers. We see the Canadian Parliament applaud the Nazis who killed people on the ethnicity principle during the Great Patriotic War and World War II. We see monuments to war criminals being built in the collective West and other countries that align with it. This is happening not only in Ukraine, but in the United States and Canada as well.
Mendeleev International School Olympiad in Chemistry
This year marks the 190th anniversary of the birth of Dmitri Mendeleev, the eminent Russian scientist renowned for his creation of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. His profound contribution to global science carries universal significance.
The 58th International School Olympiad in Chemistry is named in honour of Dmitri Mendeleev. This prestigious competition, the largest gathering of young chemists, is scheduled to take place from April 21 to 26 in Shenzhen, China. The competition will be hosted at a collaborative Russian-Chinese institution: Lomonosov Moscow State University – Beijing Institute of Technology (MSU-BIT University).
This year, a record number of participants, approximately 300 school students and their mentors from over 30 countries, are expected to attend. Notably, this is the first time in its history that the competition will be held outside the CIS.
Russia’s Olympic team in chemistry includes representatives from seven regions: the Altai Territory, the Nizhny Novgorod Region, the Novosibirsk Region, Moscow, the Samara Region, the Republic of Bashkortostan, and the Republic of Tatarstan.
For the young participants of the Olympiad, this event will mark their first foray into international scientific collaboration. It is heartening that this tournament will be conducted on an equitable and depoliticised basis, reflecting the direction in which cooperation in this field should evolve for the advancement of all humanity. We wish our students success.
International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace
On April 24, we will mark the International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace, established by UN General Assembly Resolution 73/127 of December 12, 2018, at the initiative of Venezuela during its chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement.
The spectrum of challenges faced by the world today continues to expand, encompassing armed conflicts, international terrorism, erosion of arms control regimes, drug trafficking, organised crime, hunger, poverty, pandemics, climate change, and neo-Nazism. These issues can only be surmounted through concerted efforts by all nations, guided by the principles of solidarity and shared responsibility for the well-being of present and future generations. Therefore, there is an urgent imperative to build an effective and equitable framework of multilateral cooperation.
The United Nations remains the optimal forum for such collaboration, considering its central role in global politics. With its universal legitimacy and broad mandate, the UN is uniquely qualified to facilitate collective responses to the challenges confronting humanity. However, these opportunities must not be hindered, as is currently being done by representatives of the collective West, led by the United States. The international norms enshrined in the UN Charter, including the sovereign equality of states and non-interference in internal affairs, are more relevant than ever. Strict adherence to the Charter’s provisions in their entirety and their interconnectedness is essential to unlock the UN’s formidable potential for positive change.
In recent years, the authority of the United Nations has experienced a noticeable decline. This decline can be attributed to the destructive actions of the collective West, which persists in attempting to manipulate the organisation to serve their narrow self-interests and promote the outrageous concept of a rule-based international order rather than adhering to international law. The US and its allies are actively undermining the functioning of the UN Security Council, leveraging their numerical advantage within this body. Additionally, efforts are underway to manipulate the General Assembly into exerting pressure on countries from the Global South and Global Majority. The predominance of Western influence in the leadership of the UN Secretariat has led to a departure from the impartiality mandated by Article 100 of the UN Charter.
Amidst these challenges, Russia, recognising its unique responsibilities as a founding member of the United Nations and a permanent member of its Security Council, is committed to revitalising the UN’s role as the cornerstone of multilateralism. Central to this initiative is the Group of Friends in Defence of the UN Charter, which has demonstrated effectiveness in advancing the interests of the majority of nations and pushing back against neocolonial ambitions of the golden billion. Furthermore, we emphasise the vital role of the Non-Aligned Movement, which unites 120 nations from the Global South in upholding international law.
We invite all nations inclined towards constructive engagement to join us in strengthening the principles of genuine multilateralism in international relations.
VYZOV National Prize for Future Technologies
This year, a new international category has been introduced as part of the VYZOV national prize in the realm of future technologies. Titled Discover, this category is intended for foreign scientists under the age of 35, as well as citizens of the Russian Federation residing abroad. It is worth noting that applications will be accepted until May 20, 2024, giving applicants about a month to submit their entries.
The award recognises groundbreaking research in fundamental science that lays the groundwork for future technologies, with a projected implementation timeline of 3-10 years. These innovations are poised to have a significant impact on global scientific and technological advancements. Scientists working in various fields of exact and natural sciences, including mathematics, physics, chemistry, biomedicine, astronomy, and engineering, are eligible for nomination in this category.
The goal of the prize is to inspire and cultivate a passion for science among the younger generation. Equally important is fostering sustainable and inclusive international scientific dialogue. Our nation remains committed to advocating for such multilateral cooperation, standing as one of the foremost leaders in this field.
We extend an invitation to scientists worldwide – innovators whose ideas and discoveries have the potential to revolutionise modern science and impact the lives of individuals globally – to participate in this prestigious competition. For detailed information, please visit the website премиявызов.рф.
Question: President of France Emmanuel Macron suggested introducing an Olympic truce for the duration of the Olympic Games in Paris. What does the Foreign Ministry think about this initiative? Could this be a trick to give a brief respite to the Ukrainian Armed Forces that are losing on the battlefield?
Maria Zakharova: I do not feel like diving deep into Mr Macron’s motivation. Putting an end to arms supplies would show whether his suggestions and statements are sincere. We have made this clear repeatedly.
All of that sounds more like a general discussion. What we see in practice are endless private get-togethers within NATO and the EU that are aimed at instigating aggression and conflicts. They are not hiding it. What we hear is aggressive rhetoric, endless attempts at fomenting and goading the Kiev regime to commit more crimes, silencing the crimes that have already been committed by the Kiev regime, and the glaring absence of any attempts to condemn the acts of terrorism that were committed with their help, as well as extremist attacks on the civilians and civilian infrastructure. They want us to believe them. We need to see practical steps in this regard.
Question: The Chinese President said China was in favour of convening an international peace conference to resolve the Ukraine crisis, which will be recognised by Russia and Ukraine alike. What can you say about this initiative?
Maria Zakharova: President Xi Jinping’s initiative is in line with the document titled, “China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis” drafted by Beijing and made public on February 24, 2023. We highly appreciate the approaches it contains as set forth by our Chinese friends. Of course, we respect their sincere commitment to bring about a fair and lasting settlement.
The Russian leadership has repeatedly made it clear that the provisions of this well-thought-out 12-point plan are in line with our vision, and deserve to be used as a foundation to resolve the Ukraine crisis.
We are grateful to our Chinese partners for their deep understanding of the root causes of this situation and for their efforts to firmly stick to their position where any peace-related discussions without Russia or without taking into consideration Russia’s interests, especially in terms of security, have no future.
Question: What can you say about the April 10 European Parliament debate about “undemocratic presidential elections in Russia?”
Maria Zakharova: It was more akin to communicating with spirits. I never tried it myself, but I have seen people in the movies sit at a round table, hold hands, and summon the spirits of the dead. I have an impression that the European Parliament is busy doing just that. There is no other explanation. It is truly ridiculous. It would be even funnier if they did not have real things to attend to. Their agenda is overflowing with multiple problems such as migration, security, weapons coming from Ukraine, drug trafficking, crime growth, declining economic growth, economic crises, and vast numbers of unsettled issues within and along the perimeter of the EU member states. There is plenty to do. Instead, they are discussing elections in a country that has nothing to do with them. An absolutely ritualistic and pointless event.
What took place in an almost empty auditorium of the European Parliament can hardly be referred to as a debate. It came down to a 20-minute exchange of views with the participation of EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell. He delivered his all-too-familiar anti-Russian rhetoric, but this time also provided an “assessment” of the outcomes of the presidential election in the Russian Federation. Who asked him to do that? Who wants to know his opinion or what he has to say? I think only doctors and those within the EU who are trying to figure out what he is trying to say may be interested in that, because they have to work with his statements and decide whether they should confirm or refute them (no one has a clue). All of that is unfolding in a situation where elections for the EU institutions have long ago become a formal act of electoral engineering. As we can see, they could not care less about the voters’ opinion neither in the EU, nor, even more so, outside it.
Josep Borrell’s remarks are yet another proof of the EU planning to use its purported concern for human rights and democracy around the world as a cover to continue to egregiously interfere in the electoral and democratic processes in the countries that are upholding their right to pursue sovereign domestic and foreign policy.
That is why the direct and free expression of will by the Russian people, especially in the new constituent entities of the Russian Federation, is causing such fury in the European Union. Enormous amounts of European taxpayers’ money and efforts have been wasted on propping up a marginalised opposition that is supposed to serve the interests of the West and incite partisan infighting within the Russian society. The result is nil. It was all in vain. They should have focused on the effectiveness of those who they are banking on.
Question: The IAEA wanted to send a proposal to Russia and Ukraine to carry out a technical audit of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant this year. Has Russia received an official request from the IAEA about this inspection? When can it take place? Do you know when the agency’s head, Rafael Grossi, will visit Russia?
Maria Zakharova: I would like to begin with the IAEA’s mandate. The IAEA is a technical body. It does not have the mandate to initiate nuclear physical security or safety audits at nuclear sites. What it can do is organise partnership missions, but only when requested to do so by the country which owns the nuclear facility in question. The agency’s mandate does not provide for initiating, let alone imposing its missions on other countries.
As to whether we received a request to this effect, my answer is no. And Russia has not sent any requests of this kind to the IAEA Secretariat. We have only seen statements on this topic in the public space. At the same time, what does Ukraine has to do with a Russian nuclear facility? This is something we do not understand.
Question: We would like to ask you to comment on the Diplomatic Bluebook – the annual report released by the Foreign Ministry of Japan. Once again, it talks about the South Kurils as being “illegally occupied” by Russia, and once again expresses concern about Russia and China expanding their military cooperation.
Maria Zakharova: There were two key words in your question: annual and again. To be honest, my advice would be not to waste your time reading what has been published before, the things they keep repeating.
The Japanese Foreign Ministry has been publishing this voluminous document one year after another using the same old rhetoric, so reading it again does not make any sense. We know what is in there.
Let me remind the officials in Tokyo once again that the South Kuril Islands form an integral part of the Russian Federation in keeping with the valid international norms resulting from the outcomes of World War II, as primarily set forth in the UN Charter. Not only Russia’s sovereignty over these islands cannot be contested in any way, but it cannot be questioned or debated in any way either. No reports, bluebooks or books of any other colour can change this state of affairs.
As for the part where the report expresses “serious concern” about Russia and China strengthening their cooperation, first, my advice to Tokyo would be not to worry about this. If it needs to discuss cooperation, it would be more appropriate, adequate and legitimate for Tokyo to assess the way it works with other countries. Had Japan focused on its interactions with Beijing, this would have offered us a better insight into this topic. We would like to hear from Tokyo how it ruined cooperation with the Russian Federation. This information could be useful for the Japanese companies and business operators. We know what they would say, but Japanese subjects can have an even keener interest in getting this information. Why are officials in Tokyo seeking to learn how Russia proceeds in its relations with third countries? What for? This is none of their business.
Military-to-military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing is an important element of the Russia-China comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation. It helps our countries ensure our respective security and maintain stability in the key regions around the world. At the same time, this cooperation is not directed against third countries.
Deep mutual trust, the special nature and the unprecedented level of interstate relations which, in terms of its effectiveness, go far beyond the Cold War-era military and political alliances, underpin the close ties between the Russian and Chinese armed forces. Our two countries strictly abide by the international law in their interactions which are transparent. This cooperation is free from any bloc-based approaches and is not confrontational. I have a question for Tokyo: Does it have anything similar to show?
Moscow and Beijing share similar views regarding the transformation of the global geopolitical landscape and hold converging or close positions on fundamental global matters, and are both committed to the principle of indivisible security. With the global governance mechanisms faltering and the United States losing its dominating standing in global affairs, Russia and China have been working together to build a multipolar world order with better justice for all, based on the principles of the sovereign equality of states, and inclusive and mutually beneficial cooperation.
At the same time, we would like to note that we have been compelled to keep a close eye on the way Japan has been stepping up its military activity and drills close to our borders, including by drawing into these efforts not only the United States, but also extra-regional actors from NATO. The Self-Defence Forces have been receiving US-made cruise missiles, while Japan has purged its Constitution from its pacifist provisions. There is an ongoing discussion about deploying American intermediate and shorter-range missiles on the archipelago. In these conditions, we will continue taking all the necessary measures for further strengthening Russia’s defence capabilities at the national level, as well as by working with friendly countries.
Let me explain why Tokyo, or any other country, for this matter, may hear us express our concern about Japan’s relations with NATO, while we keep saying that interfering in our relations with China, including on security matters and technical cooperation, is unacceptable. I have mentioned this many times. Our relations with China do not target any third country or force, and the same applies to all other countries. We are seeking to strengthen our security by working together and delivering on the objectives we share in common. We have never mentioned any third country, inflicting strategic defeats on anyone, or containing other countries or nations in our policy objectives or goals, or expressed anything of this nature in our public statements or taken any practical steps along these lines. However, this is precisely what the collective West has been doing all along in what it presents as an effort to expand its relations with Japan.
In fact, the collective West is using the notions of a strategic defeat or containment when talking about Russia and China. It is not hiding the fact that this vision guides it in its efforts to expand ties with Japan. This is what makes our positions so different, as a matter of principle.
Question: What is your opinion of Prime Minister of Japan Fumio Kishida’s recent state visit to the United States in light of its potentially anti-Russia tenor?
Maria Zakharova: We have taken note of that visit, but it was not a revelation for us. More anti-Russia statements were made, primarily by Prime Minister Kishida. As we see it, they were designed mostly for the Japanese “audience,” and here is why. According to polls conducted by the Japanese media, the prime minister’s approval ranking has plummeted to below 20 percent, which is almost the limit. The Japanese administration is probably looking for solutions to pending domestic problems, and they have probably decided that the easiest way is a trip to their patrons over the ocean where they could gain scores with anti-Russia and anti-China rhetoric and do it cheaply. It looks like they cannot act differently. Mr Kishida’s predecessors did the same thing. This has probably become a trend in Japan’s policy. Well, I don’t know.
Anyway, we have taken note of Mr Kishida’s statement in the US Congress where he made offensive remarks about Russia’s alleged “nuclear blackmail.” It is not only an offensive remark but also disinformation on a global scale. There is not a grain of truth in it, especially when it comes to the feeble attempt to draw parallels with the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is yet another glaring evidence of the Japanese authorities’ unwillingness to accept the historical truth and to name the culprit of the tragedy. The Japanese prime minister could have found time during his week-long trip to the United States to visit the National Air and Space Museum. One of its exhibits is the Enola Gay bomber, which dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan. But Mr Kishida was probably not interested. It was not the goal of his visit, which focused on strengthening the policy of disinformation, both at home and on the international stage. The political servility and historical deafness of the current Japanese administration is the main reason for its low approval ranking.
For our part, we are closely monitoring discussions on the possibility of Japan joining US nuclear missions. This stance of Tokyo, which seems to have forgotten its pacifist and anti-nuclear principles, could push peace in the Asia-Pacific region to an extremely dangerous edge.
Question: We would like to ask you about the April 5 meeting in Brussels in the Armenia-EU-US format. What do you think about media information regarding secret military-political agreements reached at it?
Maria Zakharova: Simply put, media information, as you said, is leaked reports.
Yerevan previously said publicly that the development of its cooperation with Western countries is not spearheaded at third countries. Considering these factors as a package, we look forward to seeing the Armenian authorities’ reaction or, better still, a statement disavowing these leaks. Anyway, the ball is in Yerevan’s court.
At the same time, it won’t come as a surprise if it turns out that during a high-level meeting in Brussels on April 5, 2024, the US and EU participants urged Yerevan to adopt the plans outlined in a document titled Building Armenia's Defence and Security Resilience. They provide for replacing the Russian military base and Russian border guards with US-EU-NATO troops, expanding US and EU sabotage activities on Armenia’s border against Azerbaijan and Iran, as well as reorienting Armenia’s critical infrastructure and energy system and dismantling the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant.
It is clear that Washington and Brussels’ goal is to destroy all security and economic ties between Armenia and Russia and to undermine the mechanisms of regional security and economic partnership based on the CSTO and the EAEU. The West is trying to provoke a quarrel between close neighbours, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Russia and Türkiye, despite their nice words about “concern for peace in the South Caucasus.” Armenia has been assigned the role of a tool which the US and the EU are using to start a new big fire. The United States and the collective West have learned to do this very well. They can’t restore peace, settle problems or stop the bloodshed; they can only start fires, set countries against each other and undermine relations.
It would be naïve to think that the abovementioned events organised by the West can strengthen Armenia’s defence capability and border security or guarantee its economic prosperity. On the contrary, their goal is to strip Armenia of everything it has – the defence capability, the economy and the energy system – and to replace it with inherently unfeasible roadmaps, plans that are not worth the paper they are written on, and other demagoguery. When they have enough of this game and achieve their self-serving goals, the West will desert Armenia, just as it has done before to many other countries around the world, which have seen this before and some of which, including post-Soviet countries, have experienced this first-hand.
Speaking about energy, the West urged East European countries, for example Lithuania, to abandon the use of Russian nuclear energy under environmental slogans, frightening them with all manner of nuclear disasters. Many of them have fallen for it. Some had environmental concerns, others worried about costs, and still others believed the Americans. Lithuania is currently buying electricity at exorbitant prices. History has shown that Russia’s nuclear energy technology is the best and safest in the world. We are prepared to continue to provide it to Armenia, where the Metsamor NPP accounts for about 30 percent of electricity generation.
Question: On April 8, 2024, a nationwide population census got underway in Moldova. Since the census began, there have been calls openly urging the people of Moldova to identify as Romanians. How can you comment on this?
Maria Zakharova: This is like a medieval fairy tale. Many of them had to be rewritten because they were not positive and radiant but rather terrifying, horrid and morbid. It was impossible to believe such fairy tales. What is happening there resembles a horrid and monstrous medieval fairy tale. Let me share several facts with you.
There is an ongoing effort to artificially Romanise Moldova. Together with Russophobia, it has become a pillar of the policy line adopted by the country’s leadership. Virtually all representatives of the Moldovan leadership have Romanian passports. The most odious manifestations of Romanisation include the appointment of people from Bucharest to state agencies and renaming the Moldovan language as the Romanian language. Today, a widely advertised slogan urges everyone to identify as Romanians.
Moldovan experts are saying openly that the current census mostly aims to show that Romanians, rather than Moldovans, live in Moldova. Representatives of the current authorities completely disagree with the results of the previous 2014 census when about 75.1 percent of the respondents called themselves Moldovans, and only 7 percent identified as Romanians.
They are using various propaganda tools in order to change this ratio, including themed videos, leaflets and video addresses. The most surprising slogan that I saw reads as follows: “I am Romanian, I speak Romanian, let’s get the numbers straight.” What is this all about? What do they mean? Is this happening in the 21st century? Is this how they are defining Moldova’s European future? I personally associate this with what happened in Europe in the 1930s. At that time, they used similar methods to force people to renounce their national and cultural identity. This closely resembles a recent statement by Romanian Prime Minister Ion-Marcel Ciolacu that Romanians alone live in the Republic of Moldova. What does he mean?
The advocates of Romanisation are urging Moldovan citizens to climb out from this “national identity” quagmire. Just imagine, the proponents of this forced Romanisation are telling people who identify as Moldovans that they have been allegedly dragged into a quagmire of their own national identity. It is impossible to watch and comment on this. However, we are forced to do this just because we realise that all this can lead to disastrous consequences. History has already seen similar examples.
Moldova’s citizens who stick to their roots and who recall the history of their country reject all this. For example, they recall the occupation of Moldova by Romania in 1918-1940. We recently discussed the deleterious consequences of this occupation for the people of Moldova in the context of the 106th anniversary of incorporating Bessarabia into Romania. They include poverty, executions by firing squads and all-out emigration. It is impossible to forget this.
I will not be surprised if Moldovan citizens refer to the current situation as genocide of the Moldovan nation in the context of latest developments in Romania; they would do this in order to protest or try and save themselves.
Question: On April 9, President of Moldova Maia Sandu said that Moldova, unlike Russia, was a democratic country where the authorities worked so that everyone “was free to express their point of view.” How could you comment on this?
Maria Zakharova: Let us throw in some statistics. Since 2022, the broadcasting of 12 Russian-language TV channels and over 60 internet websites has been suspended due to Maia Sandu’s actions during the “state of emergency.” As you know, the “state of emergency” expired on January 1, 2024, but it looks like no one is going to restore broadcasting. It is obvious that the work of the Moldovan authorities is aimed precisely at limiting or eliminating opportunities for expressing a point of view different from the official one.
The Moldovans say openly that their leadership is living in a parallel universe perceiving what is happening not through the prism of the real situation in the country, but through the smiles and cash handouts of European officials and numerous photo sessions in European offices.
Maia Sandu’s trips to Gagauzia on March 29 and April 10, aimed at explaining the imaginary benefits of European integration to the locals, are a good example. The visits attracted mass protests of Gagauz people against Chisinau’s repressive policies against the autonomy and its head Yevgenia Gutsul. During the first trip, President of Moldova Maia Sandu, who came to attend the launch ceremony of the construction of the Vulcanesti-Chisinau power line, chose to drive around the protesters along country roads, which was perceived as a “shameful flight.” On her second visit, she found the courage to speak at Comrat State University, but only in front of a limited, specially selected audience, while outside the police were pushing hundreds of protesters away from the building.
Vote by mail during the country's presidential election scheduled for October is another example of how far the Moldovan authorities are from their own people (though I am not sure they are their own, because the people of the leadership of Moldova are Romanians, and those who have not yet called themselves one, apparently are not Maia Sandu’s people). Let me remind you that this right is supposed to be given only to Moldovan citizens living in the US, Canada, and several Western European countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The interests of the thousand-strong Moldovan diaspora in Russia are ignored. As Speaker of the Moldovan Parliament Igor Grosu explained, the Russian state is allegedly not able to “guarantee the security of voting and will interfere in it.” How? In what way?
Chisinau has forgotten that Russia has always provided all the necessary assistance in organising the voting for Moldovans on its territory. During the 2020 presidential election, 17 polling stations were opened in 10 Russian regions. The Moldovan side did not express any complaints regarding their security. What happened this time?
The extent to which the consciousness of the Moldovan politicians is divided can be demonstrated by a statement a deputy of the ruling Party of Action and Solidarity made. He proposed, supposedly as a joke, compiling a list of Moldovan politicians visiting Russia in order to “build a special prison for them with European money.” As they say, there is no smoke without fire. Moreover, similar initiatives, albeit less radical ones, have already been expressed. I have never read anything like this in any dystopia novel. These are people who consider themselves civilised.
This absurd distorted reality, where things that are difficult to imagine in a normal society become real, causes increasing indignation and protest among Moldovans. The Moldovans value political pluralism, true freedom, and democracy. They can see that Maia Sandu’s “European project” has nothing to do with these concepts and will bring the country to a split, the destruction of people’s national identity, and disregard for their rights and freedoms.
Question: According to the New York Post, Tel Aviv has decided to retaliate clearly and powerfully against Iran in response to Tehran's drone and missile strikes on Israeli military facilities. The decision followed a telephone conversation between Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin. At the same time, Axios agency reported that Lloyd Austin had earlier asked his Israeli counterpart not to escalate the situation further. The Chinese Foreign Ministry called the strike against Israeli territory a new round of spreading conflict in the Gaza Strip and called on the parties to exercise calm and restraint to avoid further escalation of tensions. How can you comment on this? How does the Russian side assess the likelihood of conflict escalation given Israel's position?
Maria Zakharova: Our assessments of the latest developments in the region were set out in detail in the April 14 Statement by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They were also retransmitted to the international community during a UN Security Council meeting on this matter.
I should like to reiterate that here, too, we are united with Beijing in our position that maximum restraint is necessary in the current explosive situation. We urge all parties involved to behave in an extremely responsible manner and to refrain from actions that could spin the situation out of control and lead to irreparable consequences, up to and including a large-scale war.
Regarding the publications on US-Israeli contacts, I would encourage you to ask the United States, but after President Joe Biden's call for Israel not to strike the Israeli city of Haifa, I do not recommend asking the United States for clarification. They can only confuse you.
Question: Brandon Weichert, a former congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst said that the United States could “go from a superpower to a middle power in terminal decline overnight” due to the growing influence of BRICS . American economists missed the development of the association from a “cool-sounding acronym” to a monstrous competitor. He also noted that “by carrying the debt load that the United States has been carrying – and constantly piling more – all while using the dollar's dominant position as a cudgel against other great powers, Washington has set the conditions to turn the small BRICS bloc into something truly monstrous over the next several decades.” What do you think of these words?
Maria Zakharova: I think the most important point is the phobia of US experts who develop or write about developing the logic of this US "deep state" claiming its own dominance. Phobia. What are they afraid of? What's the big deal about free competition? There's nothing wrong with it. It's a norm. Especially for liberal democracies, at least based on the political concepts they postulate. And certainly not for market economies. Competition is not just an "alpha" or an "omega," it is the oxygen, the nourishment, the natural habitat. So what are they afraid of? The secret is simple. It is that they are afraid of losing their imaginary, self-appropriated sense of being the only leaders. That is the fear. People, countries, institutions that are not infected with this bacillus of exclusivity treat competition all right. It is a driving force for them, a motor. But not for those who believe that they are so exceptional that neither international law, nor legislation, nor morals, ethics or morality apply to them. From their point of view, they are entitled to anything, that is the way it has historically been and that is the way it should remain.
The development of the BRICS naturally fits into the framework of modern global developments and is in line with the trends of multipolarity. Interaction within this association, based on the principles of mutual respect, equality, openness and consensus, fully meets the aspirations of the world majority countries. Representatives of the Global South and East see it as a symbol of multilateralism, a platform where their voices will be heard.
One of the important priorities of Russia's BRICS chairmanship this year is to raise the association’s profile in world affairs and to enhance its capacity to promote a more democratic and fair system of international relations through joint efforts. All BRICS members, both the founding countries and the newcomers who joined the BRICS on January 1, 2024, consistently advocate balanced development and security on the basis of international law and sovereign equality of states, and oppose illegitimate sanctions bypassing the UN Security Council.
BRICS cooperation in the economy is rapidly developing. This is quite understandable, because in recent years the share of the BRICS countries in the world GDP in purchasing power parity terms has increased significantly, and with the accession of new members, the aggregate potential of the association has become even stronger. In the new configuration, the BRICS has significant oil and other resources and accounts for about a quarter of the world's exports of goods. The increased trade requires search for new formats of cooperation in finances as well. The relevant work is being carried out by the specialised agencies in the BRICS countries.
Question: When Israel was repelling Iran’s attack, the US military helped to down several dozen of unmanned aerial aircraft and ballistic missiles, launched by the Houthis, among other parties. Does this mean that the United States does not intend to withdraw its troops from the Middle East? What do you reckon of the actions of the United States in the Middle East?
Maria Zakharova: You should ask Washington about its plans to withdraw or send troops. But everybody understands that the United States adheres to the agenda of exploiting countries, regions and peoples for their its benefit, whether it is for profit, opportunity, temporary gains, or benefits to domestic or foreign policy. The US always takes advantage of the current state of affairs.
In this case, the problem is broader, deeper and more horrific. American politicians and the deep state are simply exploiting the situation in the Middle East to serve their own interests. They have literally taken countries and the region hostage to their own domestic and foreign policy. Unfortunately, this has resulted in a horrendous escalation.
We adhere to the same views about the Americans’ policy in the Middle East as before. We believe that, to a great extent, the recent developments are the result of their long-term policy of creating dividing lines in the region. It is impossible to eliminate the UN Security Council resolution without a legal procedure, but it is possible to set other countries against fulfilling it, and the United States is openly doing exactly that. They say at the Security Council that some provisions of the resolution are not binding. They have eliminated the international legal mechanisms for implementing the recognised decisions of the Quartet of mediators and other negotiation frameworks.
This approach largely determines Washington’s course in the Palestinian issue. The unprecedented crisis in the Gaza Strip became possible due to the stagnation in the settlement process while the United States has been trying to unilaterally promote its vision of the Arab-Israeli normalisation and the overall developments in the region. Meanwhile, solving the Palestinian problem has been put into cold storage.
As we have repeatedly stated, building foreign military presence in the zone of an armed conflict, particularly, strengthening the US presence in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea, is fraught with further escalation.
Question: Could you share updates on the investigation of the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall? Are there any updates on the suspects or organisers of the attack?
Maria Zakharova: In the context of the criminal case opened by the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee under Article 105 part 2 and Article 205 part 2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, law enforcement agencies continue the investigation concerning 11 individuals involved in the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall, including four persons who directly executed the attack and seven other individuals who knowingly provided them with assistance. All the suspects have been charged and placed into custody.
The Investigative Committee is reconstructing the course of events. Forensic experts are examining evidence, including electronic devices containing data, to discover and record any information relevant for the investigation. Substantial details have been obtained about the terrorists’ preparations for the crime, pointing to their links to Ukrainian intelligence. I would request more information directly from the Russian Investigative Committee.
As we said repeatedly, it is important to establish not only the executors and organisers of this atrocious terrorist attack but also its masterminds and ideologists. We are absolutely certain that they will inevitably sustain punishment regardless of who they are or who steered them. These crimes have no statute of limitation.
Question: Last weekend, Iran launched a retaliatory attack on Israel. If Israel and its allies retaliate against Iran, will Russia help Tehran?
Maria Zakharova: Diplomacy does not use what-ifs; it operates according to other rules.
For a better understanding of the situation, let’s reconstruct the correct timeline of events. The steps taken by the Iranian side on the night of April 14 were limited and calibrated. According to Iranian officials, they were prompted by an Israeli air raid on the consular building of the Iranian Embassy in Damascus on April 1 of this year, which violated international law.
Moreover, Iran stated publicly that the military operation, which was solely a response to Israel’s hostile actions, was completed and there were no plans to resume it unless the Israeli authorities resorted to a new provocation. Tehran, like all states in the region, is not interested in escalating tensions.
Therefore, it would be wrong and untimely to talk about any retaliatory measures at this point. It is important to keep the situation from spiraling out of control, which can be fraught with most serious consequences for the entire Middle East. We are making every effort to prevent this. During the intensive interaction at various levels, we have been tirelessly calling on all parties involved to be prudent and restrained. We hope that our efforts will bear fruit.
I would like to point out that Iran, while explaining and arguing its response to the Israeli attack, stressed that this could have been avoided if the UN Security Council had condemned the illegal actions by Tel Aviv (or any other state) – a targeted strike on diplomatic and consular facilities. The Security Council’s role is to guarantee international security and stability to all nations. Seeing no international condemnation, Iran was left without a choice (Tehran has repeatedly stated this publicly) and had to retaliate in its national capacity, although initially, the country relied on international legal institutions to resolve that situation before any retaliatory steps followed.
Now the question arises: why has the UN Security Council failed to address this? There could be only one reason – the move was blocked by the United States. The Russian Federation will continue to urge the Security Council to act and invoke international law at the UN, as it always did in the past. We will carry on this diplomatic and foreign policy activity. But it is important to consolidate the efforts of the entire international community. It should call on Washington to stop blocking the work of the UN Security Council in obvious cases, when a decisive word is needed from this UN body to prevent an escalation using its authority and the tools it has.
Question: There is no ceasefire in Gaza up to now. What does Russia think about this situation and what will it do to achieve ceasefire in Gaza?
Maria Zakharova: Our position on this issue is well known. It is consistent. Since the very start of this most acute crisis, we have repeatedly spoken in international organisations and during bilateral contacts about the need to achieve ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and render urgent humanitarian aid to its population.
Together with our associates, we have achieved the adoption of a UN Security Council resolution on March 25 this year, which clearly demands an end to hostilities in the Gaza Strip and humanitarian access to it. All members of the council except the US voted for it.
Earlier, Russia and other countries made repeated attempts to this end, suggesting a draft resolution with similar assessments and description of the course of events but, unfortunately, the US blocked them one after another.
Regrettably, despite the adopted resolution, Israel continued its military operation in the enclave. Its toll has already exceeded 100,000 people, including many children, women and elderly people. In these conditions, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is getting worse. According to UN estimates, people in Gaza are facing a real threat of a famine.
We believe that the blame for this catastrophic situation largely rests with the United States that has assumed responsibility for the destiny of a settlement in the Middle East. The US has blocked the work of the Security Council and destroyed all mechanisms for implementing decisions based on international law. For almost half a year, the Americans were blocking UN Security Council draft resolutions aimed at long-term ceasefire, including Russia’s well-balanced document. When the overwhelming majority of the world’s countries rejected this destructive line and the US faced isolation, it had to abstain from voting on March 25 this year. However, almost instantly the US started devaluing the council’s decision by saying that it was not mandatory. These US statements caused a wave of criticism all over the world because they directly contradicted the UN Charter.
During UN Security Council sessions on the Middle East, we repeatedly drew the attention of the participants to this irresponsible US conduct that led to the continuation of bloodshed and aggravation of sufferings of people in Gaza. For our part, we will continue consistently working with our constructive partners to achieve ceasefire as soon as possible and ensure the necessary conditions for humanitarian relief to Gaza residents.
Question: What does Russia think about the referendum on the country’s joining the EU announced by Moldovan President Maia Sandu?
Maria Zakharova: Organising a referendum on a particular issue is an internal matter of the state, in this case of Moldova.
However, we cannot but be concerned that Russophobia is an essential component of the European Moldova project, for which Moldovans are invited to vote in October. It is noteworthy that Moldovan officials’ public attacks against Russia have become a daily routine. This comes as no surprise, because the aggressive anti-Russia policy of the current Chisinau leadership is well paid for and is a condition for joining the European Union and interaction with NATO.
We can also see that Maia Sandu’s European project has nothing to do with democracy, freedoms, and human rights. On the opposite, it negates all this. Repressions against the opposition and independent media, unfortunately, have become the norm in Moldova. An alien neoliberal agenda, including non-traditional values, is being imposed on the Moldovans under the guise of European integration. Considering 250,000 Russian citizens living on both sides of the Dniester, this cannot but cause concerns.
The procedure of the upcoming referendum also raises questions. Moldovan political analysts note that the authorities expect to organise it outside the legal field in conditions of legal chaos. Under these conditions, there is no reason to think that determining the results of the voting will be unbiased. The authorities are unlikely to accept the fact that the majority of Moldovans do not accept the listed attributes of European integration and do not want their country to become an appendage of the EU and NATO deprived of sovereignty, where they will be treated as second-class citizens. The West demonstrates this regularly.
Question: Yesterday, Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Defence announced that NATO specialists had visited the Training Centre for Junior Specialists of the Armed Forces of Uzbekistan and inspected its activities. How do you assess the dynamics of cooperation between Central Asian countries and NATO?
Maria Zakharova: For us, NATO is an association that brings destruction and aggression. The alliance member countries have launched a campaign to inflict the “strategic defeat.” We call it a hybrid war. Agency is not that important in the context of the NATO policies, whether they do it as a bloc or as separate member countries. We can see that corresponding doctrines have been adopted within NATO, where Russia is determined as a target. We know that the implementation of these NATO documents envisages the resources of the member countries in their national capacity.
We find cooperation with the aggressive North Atlantic alliance, which is in fact a tool used by the West to maintain its hegemony by force, extremely negative. This alliance is known for its barbaric aggressiveness, which does not stop at destroying the statehood of independent sovereign countries. It creates hotbeds of tension, new dividing lines, and security risks wherever it goes. Our partners in Central Asia know this firsthand. Everyone could see in real time how the alliance’s multi-year adventure in neighbouring Afghanistan ended.
The bloc’s “assistance programmes” are aimed at expanding its geopolitical influence, not at strengthening its partners’ defence sector. No one should have any illusions about the alliance’s true goals. We can confidently say that the obsessive desire of the United States and its NATO allies to develop cooperation, particularly in matters of defence and security, has nothing to do with the interests of sovereign countries that are friendly to Russia.
Question: London has recently offered Yerevan to begin negotiating on sending UK illegal immigrants to Armenia, as reported by The Times citing the leaked UK government documents. If it is indeed so, what effect will it have on our ally’s reputation in the CIS and CSTO? This is a similar scheme that was offered to African countries. What is Moscow’s assessment of this situation?
Maria Zakharova: This looks very much like the Rwanda plan that we have already mentioned. Yerevan should provide its own comments on this.
According to the Armenian Foreign Ministry, no substantial negotiations have taken place between the parties on this matter. But maybe there were some non-substantial talks? We can give comments only if they say what the point of discussion was and what it was all about.
I agree that this is a conventional scheme that the British pursue, and it is surprising that they have offered it to Armenia. We understand that the migration issue has become so pressing for London that it is seeking to pay considerable money solely to implement its own colonial ideas. But why Armenia, after all? British politicians claim they are willing to ensure the country’s security. Is this what Armenia needs right now? First of all, Yerevan should make its own comments.
Question: On April 9, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan had a telephone conversation with Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz. Mr Pashinyan noted that Armenia is ready to implement decisions on Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process based on the principles adopted on October 6, 2022 in Prague, as well as on May 14 and July 15, 2023 in Brussels and on October 5, 2023 in Granada, and called any attempts at falsifying these principles unacceptable. Yet, the statement by Nikol Pashinyan’s office fails to mention any agreements reached during the meetings in Moscow and Sochi. How can you comment on Yerevan talking about the relevance and their commitment to the principles achieved solely through the Western platforms while completely ignoring the negotiations in Moscow and Sochi?
Maria Zakharova: Armenia is a sovereign state that is taking steps as an independent country. Russia had made every effort as an honest mediator, friend and neighbour; this proved efficient. Then the West interfered to implement their opportunistic schemes. Let Yerevan make its own comments on whether they need this. Questions should be addressed not to us but to the Armenian leadership as to why they are choosing ways that lead to conflicts, chaos, and destabilisation.
Question: Can you mention any specifics regarding the opening of general consulates in the cities of Aktau, Kazakhstan, and Samarkand, Uzbekistan, which were announced in late 2023? When can our compatriots expect the opening of the diplomatic missions?
Maria Zakharova: On February 13, 2024 the Russian Government issued a directive on opening the Russian Consulate in Samarkand. Currently, the ministry’s specialised departments are implementing relevant personnel-related, organisational and other preparations. So far, it is early to talk about specific dates for the opening of the Consulate General.
As to the Consulate General in Aktau, joint work is actively underway with our Kazakh colleagues to conclude a bilateral agreement on establishing the aforementioned Russian foreign mission to serve as the legal basis for the project implementation.
Question: How does the Foreign Ministry view the safety risks for Russian citizens and diplomatic personnel in the area of the escalating Iran-Israeli conflict? Have any Russian citizens sustained injuries due to recent Iranian strikes? Are there any agreements in place with the conflicting parties to ensure the safety of our compatriots during potential strikes?
Maria Zakharova: There have been no reports of casualties among Russians either from the air attack or from the subsequent Iranian response.
We note Tehran’s indications of a lack of interest in escalating tensions further in the region. Through contacts at different levels, we urge all involved parties to exercise caution and restraint to prevent a negative turn of events. We hope that everyone comprehends the risks associated with provocative actions that fraught with serious risks for peace and security in the Middle East.
Once again, we advise Russian citizens residing in the area to stay updated with messages and recommendations provided on the information channels of the Foreign Ministry and the official platforms of our country’s diplomatic missions in the respective countries.
Question: On April 15, Reuters released a report suggesting that Russia and Ukraine had been engaged in discussions with Türkiye for two months regarding a security agreement in the Black Sea. The report claimed that agreements had been reached, but Ukraine allegedly backed out of the deal at the final stage. Can you provide any insight into these claims? At the very least, were negotiations of this nature indeed underway?
Maria Zakharova: We are engaged in discussions with our Türkish partners on various topics, including matters concerning the Black Sea within the context of the situation in Ukraine.
Question: Yesterday, news emerged regarding the commencement of the withdrawal of the Russian peacekeeping forces from Azerbaijan’s Karabakh economic region. What would be your comment on this?
Maria Zakharova: The comment should be provided by the Russian Defence Ministry.
Question: Currently, at the behest of the Armenian side, several international organisations are addressing the repatriation of people who voluntarily departed the Karabakh economic region in September 2023. Azerbaijan has established a procedure for the repatriation and citizenship acquisition for those interested. However, scant attention is given to the plight of approximately a quarter of a million Azerbaijanis displaced from Armenia. There’s no indication of the Armenian authorities addressing this matter. Are there any initiatives from Moscow to facilitate a reciprocal launch of this process?
Maria Zakharova: We need to address these issues separately.
Concerning the Armenian population that departed from the Karabakh region, as you correctly pointed out, the Azerbaijani authorities have implemented a dedicated reintegration plan. It’s been reiterated several times that Russia approves and supports this initiative. The Karabakh Armenians must have the opportunity to return to the region with their rights and security adequately safeguarded. We are prepared to offer all possible assistance in facilitating this process.
When discussing the Azerbaijanis who left Armenia due to the conflict in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as well as the Armenians who departed from Baku, Sumgait, and other Azerbaijani cities during the same period, it’s important to acknowledge the extensive work required to create conditions for the possible return of these citizens. Achieving comprehensive normalisation of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations is essential and it necessitates creating an atmosphere of trust between the two countries. To this end, it’s important to implement the measures outlined in the trilateral statements issued by the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. These measures include developing and concluding a peace treaty, unblocking transportation links in the region, delineating and demarcating borders, and fostering regular civil society contacts.
Upon completion of these efforts, we can envision the commencement of a reconciliation process between the Azerbaijani and Armenian peoples, fostering an environment where people can travel freely to neighbouring countries and reside on their territories without fear.
Question: What does the Foreign Ministry think about Canadian observers joining the EU Mission in Armenia? What is the result of the expanded presence of “observers” from NATO countries in the South Caucasus?
Maria Zakharova: We have already commented on the EU’s decision of July 18, 2023 that documented Canada’s involvement in the EU mission in Armenia. You are welcome to hear our assessments once again. Russia’s position on this issue remains unchanged.
Noting complete inefficiency of the EU’s presence in preventing incidents on the ground, we are becoming increasingly convinced in the absence of any positive contribution by the EU into normalising Baku-Yerevan relations. On the contrary, EU officials are staging all kinds of provocations. They are involved in intelligence activities and propaganda. It is no surprise that the countries of the region have legitimate objections to such actions. They are unanimous in the belief that all issues arising in the South Caucasus must be resolved inside the region and in the interests of all its countries without the destructive interference from the outside.
As we understand, Ottawa’s involvement in the EU mission has taken on a practical turn. An “expert” from Canada arrived in Armenia the other day. The value of this decision is uncertain, nor is it clear to how much Armenia needs it.Armenia. Let Armenians comment on this themselves. Washington is likely to use its junior partner – the EU – to bring NATO forces into the region. Obviously, overseas politicians want not only to expand their ability to control the situation on the ground but also to keep an eye on their European allies. The strengthening of external players in the South Caucasus, represented by NATO, is bound to decrease trust in the region and escalate armed confrontation in the region.
To sum up, the EU and NATO are not going to facilitate Baku-Yerevan settlement. The West continues militarising the South Caucasus. It is turning the region into yet another arena of geopolitical rivalry, ignoring the interests of local residents and actually blocking its peaceful development in the near future.
Question: During the past weekend, Prime Minister of Japan Fumio Kishida completed his seven-day state visit to the US. This visit has again confirmed the alarming trends towards the expansion of Japanese-US military cooperation. It is an open secret that Tokyo is under tremendous US influence. The Japanese even wrote their current Constitution first in English and then translated it into their native tongue. Do you think Tokyo’s strong external dependence may lead in the near future to an attempt by the Americans to use it as an anti-China outpost? I don’t rule out that they may repeat the West’s scenario for Ukraine.
Maria Zakharova: Tokyo has long chosen to follow strictly all instructions from Washington and is wholeheartedly building up its military-political cooperation with the US. This is negatively affecting security interests in the Asia-Pacific Region and has a direct bearing on our national interests.
We are regularly transmitting our concern over these processes to our Japanese partners via diplomatic channels, warning them that we are bound to adequately respond to them. Thus, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko and Japanese Ambassador to Russia Akiro Muto discussed this issue during their conversation in Moscow on April 11 of this year.
In addition, the Kishida government is doing all it can to play up to the US in promoting narrow US-centric blocs. A trilateral summit with the participation of the Philippines became yet another example of these efforts. We consider it obvious that in this way, Tokyo is trying to support Washington’s policy towards dual deterrence of Russia and China.
Question: Plans for the Russian Foreign Ministry’s work are based on the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation (approved by President of Russia Vladimir Putin on March 31, 2023). To what extent is this concept binding in your work? If the provisions of the concept diverge from the documents of specialised international institutions, such as UNESCO, what will be the priority for the Russian Foreign Ministry’s work?
Maria Zakharova: The Foreign Policy Concept is a binding document for us. This strategic planning document represents a system of views on Russia’s national interests in foreign policy, basic principles, strategic goals, main tasks and priority directions of foreign policy. It is developed in accordance with Federal Law No. 172-FZ On Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation dated June 28, 2014 and The Foundations of the State Policy on Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation (approved by Presidential Executive Order No.633 dated November 8, 2021). The concept is approved by a Presidential Executive Order. In accordance with Article 90 of the Russian Constitution, Presidential executive orders are binding on the entire territory of the Russian Federation.
We are parties to conventions under which we have obligations under international law. And we fulfill them. However, there are many documents of international organisations that cannot establish rights and obligations for states. Of course, we do not assume obligations that contradict our Foreign Policy Concept.
Question: In line with Point 19.3 of the Foreign Policy Concept, the Russian Federation intends to focus on restoring the UN’s role as the central coordinating mechanism in coordinating the interests of UN member states and their actions to achieve the goals of the UN Charter. What events do you think must happen in Russia and the world that could have a decisive impact on restoring the UN’s role?
Maria Zakharova: Events? It is daily work that must impact this process. This is what we do.
Question: May 9 is coming soon. Will you celebrate it, and if so, what do you think the word Fatherland means today? Can we surrender part of the territory of our Fatherland to NATO?
Maria Zakharova: Do you understand that questions like these are offensive?
Question: I often ask…
Maria Zakharova: I would like to understand who you often ask.
Perhaps you do not know our Ministry’s position or my personal civic stance. How could you ask me things like this? Will I celebrate May 9? For me this is a sacred holiday. I have just said this again today. I said it in the context of my functional duties. All my professional life, I have been defending the historical memory of those events. And you dare ask me questions like this?!
I am shocked that you seem to be a Russian publication with some patriotic slant but how can you ask questions like this? I find them either ignorant or disrespectful.
Question: I am sorry that the question caused such a reaction. It is actually important, because, in our understanding, part of our Fatherland is occupied by NATO troops today. And our sacred task...
Maria Zakharova: Then ask these questions to those whom you suspect of this. It is not my reaction that should cause regret but you posing this question to me.
Question: The US Treasury Secretary has said there may be a response from Russia if the West moves to use its frozen sovereign assets. Therefore, they are now evaluating the associated risks. What steps can the Russian Foreign Ministry suggest in response to possible US actions?
Maria Zakharova: If these assets are actually seized, we will be guided by the principle of reciprocity in international relations, which provides for the inalienable right to retaliate. We have a significant amount of Western funds and property under Russian jurisdiction, which can be subject to retaliatory actions. We are not going to disclose everything but decisive action will definitely be taken; we are not going to hesitate.
They may attempt to issue bonds with the Russian assets as collateral, allegedly to attract private capital to finance the Kiev regime. Any individuals or funds that decide to purchase such financial instruments will be the first candidates for counter-sanctions, with far-reaching consequences for their future international activities.
Question: It has become known that the main instigator behind the Crocus City Hall attack was Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian company in which Hunter Biden, the son of the US President, played a major role. ISIS, a terrorist organisation banned in Russia, whose members perpetrated the attack and were captured, was also created by the United States. What is the Foreign Ministry’s view on this terrorist act against the civilian population of Russia? Isn’t it time to heed the appeal of the picketers standing outside the US Embassy every day with the poster, “Make the U.S. a focus [for all blame] for Crocus”? We have talked to them, and they are asking for the nuclear deterrence policy to be brought back. And it should not be a hidden policy; they insist it must be public. Isn’t that why Biden is building a bunker, by any chance?
Maria Zakharova: What is your question? Isn’t it time?
Question: Isn’t it time?
Maria Zakharova: The investigation is ongoing. Our law enforcement and heads of the relevant agencies have stated that, unfortunately, the trail leads to Ukraine. Why ‘unfortunately’? Because it will take a bigger and deeper effort. In particular, because all the noise and fuss that rose after the US announced that the crime had been practically solved and pointed fingers at the extremist terrorist organisation ISIS (banned in Russia) only shifted the focus from the actual events.
I would like to emphasise that no matter how much any of us would want to make a general statement on this matter, I suggest that we return to what President Vladimir Putin said: the investigation must be thorough and depoliticised.
We comment on all the materials we receive from the law enforcement authorities, just as we are doing today. I really feel like saying all the things I’ve been long desperate to say, but out of respect for the victims of the Crocus City Hall attack as well as other terrorist attacks, we all need to show restraint and wait for official information about the investigation. We have to do it.
Question: The attempts to destroy the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant are being made for more than a year. Earlier, Vladimir Putin said that “it is the elites of the US and their satellites that are the main beneficiaries of global instability.” Isn’t it time to change our nuclear doctrine from a retaliatory counter-strike to a strike at the decision-making centre in Washington, DC? What does the Foreign Ministry think about this?
Maria Zakharova: You are asking the second question with the words “isn’t it time,” aren’t you?
We are guided by the documents that are drafted in the interdepartmental format. This applies to our country’s nuclear doctrine as well. This document is based on the opinion of our best specialists and departments. It was tested and in this sense, it ensures our security. High-profile specialists have confirmed this more than once.
Question: Is it possible to withdraw a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of medium and shorter-range missiles? According to the Russian Defence Ministry, NATO has actually ignored us. What is the Foreign Ministry’s position on this issue?
Maria Zakharova: There have been many comments on this issue recently. We noted that if the US implements its plans to deploy medium and shorter-range missiles in various parts of the world, Russia’s revision of its unilateral moratorium on the deployment of these weapons will become a major countermeasure.
Russia also noted with concern that apparently the US desire to obtain this potential is irreversible. The US military do not conceal that the US primarily needs the missile systems earlier banned by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, from which the United States withdrew, to carry out its concept on “dual deterrence” of Russia and China. Against this background, we are ready to emphasise again that our response measures to the emerging threats won’t be long in coming. As it was noted following Sergey Lavrov’s visit to China, “our countries can and should respond to ‘double deterrence’ with ‘double counteraction.”
Question: The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper, published a detailed plan for the destruction of the Crimean Bridge. The Ukrainian regime made statements to this effect earlier. Can the Foreign Ministry comment on this? Will there be a response to such threats?
Maria Zakharova: I have just commented on this in detail in the opening part.
Replies pertaining to our national security are given by relevant competent bodies, security services, our Defence Ministry and so on. I have already commented today on the articles in the Western media on attacks on the Crimean Bridge.
Question: You told Radio Sputnik yesterday that as of Wednesday morning, Russia did not receive an invitation to take part in celebrating the 80th anniversary of the allied landings in Normandy. Has anything changed since then?
Maria Zakharova: No, nothing has changed so far. We will certainly inform you about this because this issue evokes much interest.
Question: If the invitation arrives, at what level may Russia be represented?
Maria Zakharova: This depends on what is written in the invitation.
Question: All of us have seen how the US-led NATO took part in the conflict in the Middle East to defend Israel. We also heard Vladimir Zelensky’s statement on the protection of Israel (not a NATO member) and his failure to understand why Ukraine is not protected as well. We remember President of France Emmanuel Macron’s statement about his readiness to send troops to Ukraine. Does this mean a possibility to interfere in the conflict directly? How will Russia react to this?
Maria Zakharova: Who may interfere? NATO?
I have just said today that it is possible to discourse on end about the form – about who is interfering and in what form. But there are realities. The collective West has unleashed an aggression, a hybrid war against our country that involves NATO countries in their national formats but proceeding from NATO doctrines.
We are dealing with reality. Obviously, there are legal terms and international politological assessments, but in reality we are repelling the aggression of the collective West, the ideological core of which is represented by NATO.
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