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To take in the actual, you cannot do better than to listen to Vladimir Putin,
The next question is about peace settlement. You said earlier that you basically see a certain potential in this regard and even invited Vladimir Zelensky to Moscow. However, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has officially declined it. Do I take it right – or maybe I am wrong – that we cannot speak about any steps towards peace settlement in the nearest future?because he never veers off the truth from the first time he imparts it.
Vladimir Putin: I would like you to stick closer to the topics of the Asia-Pacific economic cooperation. But I realise that without solving such acute problems, cooperation as a whole is burdened, so these are legitimate questions.
What can I say?
First, just recently the leadership of the Kiev regime spoke unflatteringly of us, to put it mildly, and excluded any possibility of direct contacts. Now we see that they are asking for such contacts, at least they are suggesting having them.
I have repeatedly said that I am ready for such contacts. At the news conference in Beijing that you mentioned I said that I do not see much sense in them. Why? Because it will be impossible to come to terms with the Ukrainian side on the key issues. Even if they have political will – which I doubt – there are legal and technical difficulties which are related to the fact that any agreements on territories must be confirmed, under the Ukrainian constitution, in a referendum.
To hold a referendum, a martial law must be lifted, as referenda are not held under martial law. If martial law is lifted, presidential elections must be held right away. After the referendum, if it is held, regardless of its results, it must be endorsed by a Constitutional Court’s ruling. But the Constitutional Court is not functioning because, as I see it, after it received enquiries on the legitimacy of the incumbent authorities, the court dodged rulings while the head of the regime ordered the security guards not to let the Constitutional Court Chairman to his office.
This is the kind of democracy they have there. Meanwhile the Supreme Court Chairman is in jail on corruption charges. It is common knowledge that corruption abounds in Ukraine. But is not clear exactly why it is the Supreme Court Chairman who should be put behind bars. Although it is clear that they have reached the point of destroying their judicial system as such. This is yet another vivid example of how “democratic” the current Ukrainian authorities are. So this is an endless process leading to nowhere. Nevertheless, we said that we are ready for a top-level meeting.
Look, the Ukrainian side wants this meeting and suggests it should be held. I said, ‘I am ready, please come, we will certainly provide proper conditions for work and security, with a 100 percent guarantee.’ But if we are told, ‘We want to meet with you, but you should go to some place for this meeting,’ I think these are just excessive demands towards us.
Let me reiterate – if someone really wants to meet with us, we are ready. The best place for it is the capital of the Russian Federation, the hero city of Moscow.
Maria Rybakova: Mr Putin, thank you for the answer.
May I ask one more question? And then we will definitely switch to the Far East.
Vladimir Putin: Go ahead.
Maria Rybakova: I would like to go back to the root causes of the special military operation.
Literally, during the same news conference, you said you saw no obstacles and had no problem with Ukraine accessing the EU. That same day, a statement by former Ukrainian President Yanukovich was released. He enjoyed support at the time, and we got along with him just fine. I understood that he also always said that he wanted and looked to the West. Maybe, I misunderstood it. Were you talking about the same thing, or not?
Vladimir Putin: I have no way of knowing how you understood it. I will tell you how things are, and things are as follows. Indeed, Ukraine set itself a goal – and still has it – to join the EU. To reiterate, this is Ukraine’s legitimate choice. It decides how to build its international relations, how to ensure its interests in the economic sphere, and whom to conclude alliances with.
The problem for us when Yanukovich was president was that Ukraine’s integration into the European system of economic relations entailed certain economic issues, because Ukraine was part of the free trade zone, our customs borders were open, and for us this implied certain consequences. Ukraine had to compare, put on the scales and see what it was losing in contacts with us in direct monetary and cooperative terms, and what it was gaining there. This is what President Yanukovich thought about.
He ran the numbers and that made him cry, because opening markets to competitive, highly competitive European products was killing the manufacturing industry in Ukraine and shutting down cooperative and trade relations with Russia. That was the problem. As far as I remember, he did not say no to joining the EU, on the contrary, he wanted to join it. I do not know what he said, but I know for sure that he wanted it and was striving for it, but on terms that were acceptable to Ukraine.
It did not concern us in any way other than it affected our interests in cooperation ties. But otherwise, no problem, we have never objected to any integration moves in Ukraine’s policies with Europe.
Security issues are a different matter. President Yanukovich and the Ukrainian prime minister were against drawing Ukraine into NATO. This issue directly affected us and continues to affect us from the point of view of ensuring Russia’s long-term security interests.
What happened next? As a result of the coup, they got Yanukovich out of power. They removed the person who was against Ukraine joining NATO, and used a bloody coup in Kiev to bring to power forces that advocated and continue to advocate for Ukraine’s NATO membership. This does not suit us at all.
Even though each country can choose how it prefers to ensure its own security, such issues cannot be addressed without regard for Russia’s security, because there is a general rule included in the European documents: the security of one country cannot be ensured at the expense of the security of another country.
I marvel at the man's straight-forward speech and truthfulness... and P A T I E N C E.
We would be so much better off to take it in fully and realize that he has more than shown he is seriously not going to give in to our dithering and slithering on these points. NOR SHOULD HE!
For fucksakes! Nor should he.
pipe up any time....
