Briefing by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Moscow, February 25, 2022
25 February 2022 17:42
362-25-02-2022
Table of contents
- Sergey Lavrov's upcoming talks with UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan
- Sergey Lavrov's forthcoming visit to Geneva
- The first meeting of the organising committee for the 45th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee
- Launch of the special military operation
- Severance of diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation by Ukraine
- Attacks on the Russian media by a number of Western states
- A neo-Nazi march in Bulgaria
- 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Russia and South Africa
Answers to media questions:
1. Statements by German Foreign Ministry officials on NATO's non-expansion
2. Cancellation of Sergey Lavrov's visit to Paris
3. Protection of Russian missions abroad
4. Ukraine talks
5. Possibility of Finland joining NATO
6. Plans of Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics
7. Statements by UK Foreign Secretary
8. Talks with Ukraine
9. NATO's strategy during the attack on Yugoslavia
10. Azerbaijani President's visit to Russia
11. Declaration on Allied Interaction between Russia and Azerbaijan
12. Military-political alliance of Azerbaijan and Turkey
13. Letters from members of the public
14. Cancellation of Russian nationals' visas and residence permits in the EU
15. Use of CSTO mechanisms in Ukraine
16. OSCE's role in Donbass crisis
17. Genocide in Donbass
18. Possibility of Donetsk and Lugansk's joining CSTO
Sergey Lavrov's upcoming talks with UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan
On February 28, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will hold talks with UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who will be in Moscow on a working visit.
The ministers will focus on priority issues concerning the further development of diverse bilateral relations, with an emphasis on the implementation of the agreements reached during the personal meetings between the leaders of the two countries, as well as the provisions of the bilateral Declaration on Strategic Partnership that was adopted in Moscow on June 1, 2018.
The foreign ministers of our two countries will exchange views on current international and regional issues. They will discuss developments in Syria, Yemen, Libya and the Arab-Israeli settlement. The parties will concentrate on finding political solutions to the persisting conflicts and disputes in the Middle East and North Africa.
The ministers will review prospects for sustainable stabilisation in the Gulf region via the formation of sub-regional mechanisms of collective response to the existing challenges and threats with the participation of all states concerned.
Sergey Lavrov's forthcoming visit to Geneva
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has plans to visit Geneva (Switzerland) from February 28 to March 1 to take part in the high-level segment of the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council and to speak at the Conference on Disarmament.
He is expected to meet with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and have a number of bilateral meetings with his foreign colleagues.
The Foreign Minister will also attend a traditional meeting with the heads of Geneva-based leading international organisations.
The first meeting of the organising committee for the 45th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will chair the first meeting of the organising committee for the 45th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee on March 2. The key events will be held in Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, between June 19 and 30. The organising committee meeting will be attended by top officials from federal ministries and departments, and representatives of the host regions of the Russian Federation and interested research and educational institutions.
The participants in the meeting are, in particular, expected to approve the concepts of the key events for the 45th session, including, along with the main sessions, the World Heritage Site Managers Forum, the Youth Model of the World Heritage Committee in Kazan, the Young World Heritage Specialist Forum in St Petersburg and a themed session for children at the Orlyonok children's camp in the Krasnodar Territory.
Our country attaches great importance to the upcoming session of the World Heritage Committee. It is expected to bring together about 4,000 guests from all over the world, including ministers overseeing relevant issues, experts in preserving cultural and natural landmarks, diplomats, and public and political figures.
The special status of the Kazan session is emphasised by the fact that it will take place in the year when the 50th anniversary of the 1972 UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage is marked.
Launch of the special military operation
As you are aware, the President of the Russian Federation, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of our country, made a decision to launch a special military operation in accordance with Article 51, Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, with the authorisation of the Federation Council of Russia and pursuant to the treaties of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance signed with the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic and ratified by parliament.
The goal of the operation is to protect the people who, for the last eight years, have been suffering humiliation and genocide at the hands of the Kiev regime that came to power through an anti-constitutional coup in 2014. One more task of the operation is to bring current "officials," the puppet regime, to justice for crimes against civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation, committed throughout those years, and also to demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine.
We have been doing our utmost for eight years to urge the Kiev authorities to stop the punitive operation against their own people, to settle the conflict in Donbass by peaceful, political and diplomatic means, to establish a direct dialogue with Donetsk and Lugansk as per Paragraph 4 of the Package of Measures, which states that the Ukrainian authorities are to launch a dialogue on the modalities of holding local elections and the future status of these regions in accordance with Ukrainian legislation.
Unfortunately, we were ignored. Kiev, with support from the West, evaded its commitments under the Minsk agreements in every possible way, trying to shift responsibility for its own actions onto our country. The Ukrainian authorities were openly violating their own constitution and legislation and adopted discriminatory laws on language, education and native peoples.
I hope it will not come as news for those who attended the briefings, followed the Foreign Ministry website, and are aware of all position-staking speeches by the Russian leaders and the Foreign Ministry both in public statements and when voicing the Russian position at international platforms. We spoke about that in detail (as much as it is ever possible) practically on a daily basis.
In turn, the United States and some of the Western countries rolled out a massive anti-Russia disinformation campaign. Under its guise they pumped Ukraine full of weaponry, sent their military advisers and held large-scale military exercises. In fact, they were seeking the military exploitation of the country's territory with certain goals. Meanwhile, Russia's repeatedly raised concerns were ignored both by the Kiev regime and its global patrons.
I would like to place special emphasis on the fact that during the special military operation in Ukraine the Russian armed forces have not launched missile, airborne or artillery strikes on the country's cities. The strikes take out military infrastructure, air defence facilities, military airfields and the Ukrainian air force. Nobody is creating a deliberate threat to the civilian population. The mission includes only what the President of our country stated and what the Russian Defence Ministry reports daily.
Russian military personnel will take all necessary steps to ensure the safety of UN and OSCE missions' staff in Ukraine. We know where they are accommodated. I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that the personnel of international organisations are threatened not by the Russian military but by Ukrainian nationalist battalions who have become a part of the country's armed forces while pursuing a totally barbarous logic. At present there is no one to control them.
Regarding Russian nationals still in Ukraine, after the evacuation of the Russian diplomatic missions who faced outright massacre by nationalists, they can turn to the appropriate agencies on the territory of the Russian Federation or Russian consulates in neighbouring countries to obtain necessary consular services.
Yesterday we received a note from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry notifying us of the severing of diplomatic relations with our country. This is not our choice. The rupture of diplomatic relations is a logical result of the Kiev authorities' purposeful Russophobic policy since the 2014 bloody coup (although certain political forces did a lot of this previously, too), the termination in 2018 of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation and the adoption of a variety of discriminatory laws targeting the rights and freedoms of Russian speakers in Ukraine. We also informed you in detail about Ukraine's withdrawal from agreements and treaties within the CIS.
Unfortunately, all that supports our old conclusion that the current authorities, the Kiev regime, the puppets who proclaimed themselves the rulers of that land while degrading people's dignity and abusing them, lack all sovereignty and the ability to set goals in the interests of the entire Ukrainian people. Kiev's regime can only carry out directives coming from across the ocean, however, it does not always succeed at that, to put it mildly, but these actions are obviously contrary to the interests of the Ukrainian people.
We really hope that the Ukrainian people will rid themselves of an oppressive, nationalist government, which is exploiting the country in the interests of foreign actors, and will begin to enjoy full sovereignty while respecting the rights, freedoms and interests of all their citizens without dividing them along ethnic, language or religious lines.
Just an hour ago, Vladimir Zelensky released another video address in which he expressed his feelings about possible talks. A response from Moscow arrived promptly. Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said that we are prepared to dispatch a delegation of representatives from the Foreign and Defence Ministries and other agencies to Minsk for such contacts.
Severance of diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation by Ukraine
We have received a note from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on severing our diplomatic relations, which were established 30 years ago, on February 14, 1992.
Thus, the nationalist regime that came to power as a result of an armed coup in February 2014 has brought our relations to an end. We know that breaking is not making. They seem to believe that it is easy to do, without thinking about the consequences. On April 1, 2019, the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership of May 31, 1997, was terminated at the initiative of the Kiev leadership. In total, since 2014 Ukraine has withdrawn from over 33 interstate and intergovernmental agreements, to say nothing of dozens of interdepartmental agreements and more than 60 agreements within the CIS. I will remind you that the Ukrainian Ambassador to Russia has been absent from Moscow since 2014, and that is not because something threatened him here, or because no one communicated with the Ambassador or he was unable to exercise his diplomatic functions. Not at all. Until now Ukrainian diplomats enjoyed all the privileges of diplomatic immunity. They had all the opportunities for full-fledged work and certainly nothing threatened them personally, which was not the case with the Russian diplomats and consular offices in Ukraine: they were constantly besieged by the nationalists who threw Molotov cocktails at them, stormed our missions, damaged buildings and put people in danger (which made us take urgent measures, including the closure of the branch of the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation). Our diplomats and their families received threats on numerous occasions and could neither function nor work normally. All of you saw it. We have spoken about it on multiple occasions. We have not had our Ambassador in Kiev since 2016. Ukrainian radical nationalists made multiple provocations against our Embassy in Kiev and Consulates General in Lvov, Odessa and Kharkov. So, all this caveman hatred toward Russia and everything Russian, including our language, culture and our common history with Ukraine has become a calling card of the Kiev regime's domestic and foreign policy.
We deeply regret that the Kiev regime has chosen the policy of severing all relations with Russia and everybody and everything related to anything Russian.
We hope that history will soon put everything in its place. We believe in the age-long wisdom of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples who inhabited the territory of modern Ukraine and lived in harmony and respect for each other for centuries. We are sure that our family and spiritual ties are stronger than the aggressive and hateful policy of the current puppet government in Kiev.
Attacks on the Russian media by a number of Western states
Numerous attempts by a number of countries from the so-called collective West to take advantage of the anti-Russian hysteria which they themselves have whipped up off the chart have come to our attention. Their goal is to deal a final blow to the Russian media and block all sources of information that are alternative to the mainstream news. They fear that their public will learn something that is not agreed with the White House or Downing Street. They are making use of a multitude of catchwords about the need to fight Russian propaganda and disinformation. We've heard that before. The people, including in Europe, who paid no attention to and did not see what has been happening in Donbass over the past eight years have fallen victim to this approach. Why? Because the Western media have failed to mention it. You stigmatised everyone who tried to do so and slapped sanctions on them, and you poked fun at them all you wanted. In Ukraine, those who tried, including reporters from Western countries, to let out the truth about the atrocities that were perpetrated in Donbass, were put on the Mirotvorets website list, which neither the OSCE, nor UNESCO, or other specialised international journalist organisations paid any attention to. What kind of website is it? It is basically a hit list that includes people against whom aggressive and monstrous steps and actions have been taken by the nationalists. Many of my colleagues have experienced this approach first hand. It includes threats, persecution, and so on. Many Western journalists wrote about those who tried to cover the situation in Donbass and were denied entry to Ukraine. It was punishment and revenge on those who tried to convey at least a word of objectivity. The victims of this collective information conspiracy included citizens of Europe who knew nothing about what was happening in Donbass for eight years, and for whom today's reality came as a surprise.
The Latvian authorities banned the broadcasting by three Russian TV channels (Rossiya 24, Rossiya RTR and TV Tsentr). If it were connected with the situation around Ukraine, it would probably be possible to somehow give it a logical explanation. The fact is that the attempt to get even with the Russian media was a long-term policy lasting more than one year, more than two years, and even more than five years. Our journalists and media outlets went through a lot, including deportation, being denied entry, being put on stop lists, closures, fines, and simply stigmatisation, in other words, labelling, name-calling, and cancel culture, in a word, a smear campaign that was launched against them. All of that was portrayed as a threat to national security. At the same time, over the past two years alone Riga has already restricted the broadcasting of 41 Russian media outlets. Estonian Minister of Justice Maris Lauri threatened with criminal prosecution those who would dare to rebroadcast Russian television channels. In the UK, Boris Johnson announced plans to revise the decision to issue a license to the RT media holding, after which, following a command from Downing Street, the discussion on this issue was initiated in the British Parliament. After that, we are being told that the authorities and the media regulator in civilised countries simply do not know each other. Sure, they don't. They just issue orders to each other, otherwise they may not even know each other. Calls from various public and political figures to ban RT broadcasting are heard louder and louder in France, where the national regulator is already conducting some kind of "investigation" into the Russian media outlet on absolutely ridiculous accusations, and the journalists, as you may be aware, are not allowed to attend official events at the Elysee Palace, even though invitations and accreditations are being sent to everyone. These and many other examples of "moderation" of the media space are nothing short of ordinary censorship, if you call a spade a spade.
Given the circumstances, we believe it is pointless and futile to continue to appeal to supranational human rights mechanisms with demands to conscientiously fulfil their obligations in order to ensure guaranteed freedom of speech and pluralism of opinions. We have been doing this for several years now. We have had multiple opportunities to see that the West shamelessly promotes double standards regarding freedom of speech and human rights. They have torn up these standards, and there are no more standards left.
They act as they see fit, opportunistically and cynically. Unfortunately, many international organisations simply began to "service" them in the worst sense of the word. Similarly, the ruling elites in the Euro-Atlantic countries are trying to advance their own agenda, which is clearly based on their desire to achieve global dominance in all spheres. We believe time is ripe to send a clear and unambiguous message to the capitals of states that are unceremoniously attacking Russian media outlets and journalists that these attacks will not go unanswered. We reserve the right to take a measured response to their media outlets represented in the Russian information field, if the rights of Russian correspondents and media outlets, as well as broadcasters, continue to be violated.
We also consider it necessary to emphasise the fact that our societies' need to form an objective and complete picture of international developments, which is particularly important during crises, directly depends on all international community members honouring their pledges in the sphere of protecting freedom of the media.
A neo-Nazi march in Bulgaria
On February 12, Bulgarian nationalists again staged the so-called Lukov March despite a ban by the Sofia Mayor's Office and the measures taken by the Interior Ministry and the prosecution bodies. This march is held in memory of World War II general, Hristo Lukov, known for his fascist and anti-Semitic views.
We note the position expressed by the Foreign Ministry of Bulgaria in this regard on the unacceptable manifestations of anti-Semitism, racism, intolerance, discrimination and hatred.
Russia invariably calls on the international community to pool its efforts in countering the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and aggressive nationalism. As you know, we initiate the adoption of a relevant resolution by the UN General Assembly every year.
Our duty to those who sacrificed their lives in the fight against Nazism is to prevent falsification of the historical truth, glorification of Nazis and their accomplices, propaganda of chauvinism, war and xenophobia. We hope the Bulgarian authorities will take consistent and effective steps against these ugly phenomena in their country.
We noted the Bulgarian authorities' position and fully support their efforts to prevent the holding of unacceptable Nazi and fascist events. We support their response to the desecration of the memorial. There may be no dual interpretations here. We noted this and appreciate it. We consider it to be a worthy response. It is important to make it a practice.
30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Russia and South Africa
On February 28, it will be 30 years since Russia and South Africa established diplomatic relations (consular relations were established in 1942 but were interrupted in 1956; in 1991 the two countries signed an agreement on setting up sections representing their interests at Austria's diplomatic missions in Moscow and Pretoria).
Our bilateral cooperation is rooted in the firm ties of friendship and cooperation, which took shape during the anti-apartheid struggle and continue developing today. Over the past three decades, relations between Russia and South Africa have reached the level of strategic partnership.
Our two states maintain regular trust-based political dialogue at the high and top levels. We are developing contacts between our parliaments. Our trade, economic and business cooperation is making steady headway. Trade between Russia and South Africa increased to reach $1.1 billion in 2021 as against $981.8 million in 2020. The leading role in this respect belongs to the Joint Intergovernmental Committee on Trade and Economic Cooperation. It is co-chaired by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of Russia headed by Minister Alexander Kozlov and South Africa's Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor. The Committee held a regular meeting in July 2021.
Moscow and Pretoria closely coordinate their actions in the international arena. They uphold the fundamental principles of multipolarity and are working to create a secure and just world order based on mutual understanding and observance of international legal standards, and the principles of sovereign equality and non-interference in the domestic affairs of states.
Russia and South Africa are actively cooperating at the UN, BRICS, the G20 and other multilateral platforms.
We offer our greetings to our South African friends on the anniversary of our bilateral relations.
Answers to media questions:
Question: German Foreign Ministry spokesperson Christopher Burger said during a briefing that treaties with Russia did not contain any promises not to expand NATO the east. What would be your comment on the statement by your German colleague?
Maria Zakharova: At first, NATO member states denied the very fact that the West had made promises not to expand NATO to the east. However, when the officials who took part in those events and negotiations started publishing their memoirs, they could no longer deny facts or claim that nothing had happened. Instead, they started saying that even if there had been some verbal promises, there were no official written documents. This collective amnesia is astonishing. However, the article published by Spiegel magazine, a German media outlet by the way, showed that this position is also at odds with reality.
Declassified archival documents showed that following the February 2, 1990, talks in Washington, Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany Hans-Dietrich Genscher and United States Secretary of State James Baker said that they "were in full agreement that there is no intention to extend the NATO area of defence and security towards the East. This holds true not only for GDR, which we have no intention of simply incorporating, but that holds true for all the other Eastern countries." During 2+4 talks involving the German Democratic Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, the USSR, Great Britain, and the United States, the representative of the Federal Republic of Germany, Jürgen Chrobog, said: "We had made it clear during the 2+4 negotiations that we would not extend NATO beyond the Elbe. We could not therefore offer membership of NATO to Poland and the others." Let me remind you that this meeting took place in Bonn, on March 6, 1991. Since then, NATO has accepted 14 countries as its new members.
To avoid any doubts in the future as to whether Western leaders promised to senior Soviet officials in the early 1990s not to expand NATO to the east (we found fragments and shared them with the public), we suggest that you read a selection of quotes from the relevant conversations compiled by the Foreign Ministry based on archival documents.
Interestingly, members and representatives of the North Atlantic Alliance have been contradicting each other on matters of principle, and continue making statements that are at odds with their actual policy. Now that they have to find new ways to justify their actions, they emphasise that these promises were not put on paper. This is the trick they have been using.
For example, when Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wrote a letter to his colleagues - heads of European foreign ministries, instead of receiving replies from each country in its national capacity, he got collective letters from two structures, NATO and the EU, which came up with formal, non-committal replies lacking any substance. Still, they failed to speak in one voice. When it suits them best, they say that they do not have a position as nation states because the majority opted for a collective response. How can that be? After all, they act in their national capacity in order to form a majority in their organisation. But what happened to the minority? It turns out that when it suits them best, they opt for a collective response, claiming that this was the majority that made this decision. However, when acting otherwise is better for them, they tell us "to address each member in its national capacity" or that "this is not something our structure deals with," or "we were not present at the time," etc. They are hiding behind this language and quotes only to get lost in them. Still, this is something they do on a regular basis.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said many times that you cannot take what the West is saying for granted. We have now seen that this is true. This is yet another lesson of the past eight years, and we learnt it quite well. We were told that "all we have to do is agree that Donbass will not act as it did in 2015 to try to win back its own territories in order to reject the ideas imposed by puppet regimes using tanks," "let us sit down at the negotiating table and agree on everything," or "we need to peacefully coexist in a safe Europe." We sat down, we agreed, and did everything we could. We went to great lengths to persuade people that the Minsk agreements will change their lives in Donbass for the better. We said that we have a stage-by-stage plan, and our Western colleagues are ready to pressure the Kiev regime and coordinate their efforts with it to fulfil these agreements. Look where it got us. In all these eight years, they failed to force them to carry out what they signed up for. For eight years, the Kiev regime shifted the commitments and obligations from one official to another, accusing every outgoing government of all the mistakes and blaming them for their inability to implement the commitments the country had assumed. They did everything not to move a single inch from the position they took back in 2015 (in all senses). All they did was backslide on a number of matters. This is quite common, in fact: they say one thing, but do another. They are fooling us.
It is for this reason that Russia sent the United States and NATO countries its proposals on security guarantees. Executed in writing, these documents were made public for everyone to see that we were trying to initiate a discussion on an issue of great urgency and importance for us, as well as to draw the attention of the international community and make sure that there is no falsification. Talking about security is not enough for Russia. We need lasting legally binding guarantees from the United States and its NATO allies. This is especially relevant today, considering what we saw and heard over the past months.
Question: Will you please comment on France's decision to cancel Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's visit to Paris?
Maria Zakharova: We already commented on this yesterday. I would like to remind you about the sequence of events. There were several contacts between President Vladimir Putin and President of France Emmanuel Macron at the latter's initiative. Russia responded to all calls. It was agreed that foreign ministers Sergey Lavrov and Jean-Yves Le Drian would meet in Paris to discuss the creation of a new European and global security architecture based on respect for each other's interests and the principle of indivisible security. The meeting was planned for February 24-25. However, in the evening of February 22, the French minister announced at a news conference following the emergency informal meeting of the EU foreign ministers that the visit had been cancelled. At the same time, the Russian Embassy in France was officially notified that Jean-Yves Le Drian had decided to cancel the planned meeting "in the current context."
Therefore, full responsibility for frustrating the talks lies with the French side. At the same time, it should be noted that France's pointed rejection of dialogue took place against the backdrop of the latest round of anti-Russia hysteria being whipped up by representatives of the collective West. This is proof that they are not ready to conduct a substantive discussion based on mutual respect, including on the most urgent matters on the international agenda on which stability in Europe and the world depends.
During that news conference, the French foreign minister said that all the diplomatic efforts taken by the partners over the recent weeks "came up against a brick wall," clearly referring to Russia. We consider it necessary to provide an explanation regarding the French minister's statement.
During the past weeks, intensive talks were held at the high and highest levels with a single aim: to reach progress in the settlement of the conflict in south-eastern Ukraine. We agree that these efforts have come up against a wall of misunderstanding and unwillingness to come to an agreement. But it was not Russia that built that wall, it was Ukraine and all those in the West who propped up that wall. Our partners know this very well, because they, instead of encouraging Kiev to implement the Minsk agreements, cynically pandered to Kiev's aggressive actions, which have ultimately buried the Minsk Package of Measures. As it happened many times in the past, they are trying to shift the blame for the consequences onto us. This is nothing new. We have seen this before. We can only once again recommend that our Western friends are honest, at least with themselves.
We remain open to an equal and honest dialogue on a broad range of issues, on the condition of respect for each other's interests. I would like to provide an example to prove this point. President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky has filmed one more video address regarding negotiations. Despite our attitude towards his "activities" and everything the Kiev regime has done under his guidance, we promptly made, and publicly announced, the decision to hold such a meeting and to form a delegation. This is to explain who builds walls and disrupts talks. We never disrupted any talks. We can separate emotion from professionalism.
Question: Is Russia planning to do something to protect its offices abroad?
Maria Zakharova: Any actions to protect foreign missions are regulated by the 1961 and 1963 Vienna conventions on diplomatic and consular relations. We expect all countries hosting Russian embassies to faithfully comply with them.
Despite these obligations of foreign governments, we pay close attention to the security of our foreign missions in accordance with the Russian legislation.
The new reality calls for appropriate measures. In this context, we are working on a package of additional measures to reinforce the physical and engineering protection of Russian diplomatic and consular offices abroad.
Question: At what level will the Foreign Ministry of Russia be represented at the talks on Ukraine?
Maria Zakharova: It is hardly practical to discuss this now. A delegation will be formed promptly. A responsible attitude of the Ukrainian side is more important now.
When we were preparing for this briefing, I saw a statement made by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba. He said that Kiev would appeal to the Hague over the Russian special operation. If there is anyone still capable of making decisions in Kiev, they should do so responsibly. Those who consider themselves to be part of the Ukrainian executive authorities should adopt consolidated approaches. We need to know what Zelensky is asking for in his addresses. His team must not send mixed signals. This stands true in any situation, but especially so in the current circumstances.
Question: Finland said that it was ready to apply for NATO membership if this becomes a matter of national security for it. How does Moscow assess statements of this kind? If Russia's neighbouring countries join the Alliance, will this result in a greater escalation?
Maria Zakharova: The Russian Federation has shared its position on this matter many times, including at the Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's annual news conference when he summed up the performance of the Russian diplomacy in 2021. If I need to refresh your memory on this point, here are the key takeaways.
Russia views the commitment of Finland's Government to continuing its military non-aligned policy as an important security and stability factor in northern Europe and on the European continent in general. At the same time, we cannot fail to notice the targeted efforts by NATO and some of its member states, primarily the United States, to draw Finland, as well as Sweden, into the Alliance. Practical interaction between Helsinki and Stockholm, on the one hand, and NATO, on the other, have been gaining momentum, which includes participation in NATO military exercises and opening their territories to manoeuvres near the Russian borders, such as imitating US nuclear strikes against a "comparable adversary." It is easy to guess who they have in mind. We have been witnessing this policy for several years now.
Choosing ways of ensuring national defence and security is an internal and sovereign affair for any country. At the same time, all OSCE member states in their national capacity, including Finland and Sweden, reaffirmed the principle according to which states must refrain from reinforcing their security at the expense of other states. It is obvious that if Finland and Sweden join NATO, which is primarily a military organisation, this would have serious military and political consequences that would compel the Russian Federation to take retaliatory steps.
Question: President Vladimir Putin said that Russia will not occupy the Ukrainian territory. Does the Russian Foreign Ministry know anything about the plans of the DPR and LPR regarding the Ukrainian territory? Could these republics seek to expand their territory, and can this be expected?
Maria Zakharova: Today, I have every right to say that these countries, the DPR and the LPR, have their own state policy in this regard, and their own laws. They are about to set their domestic and foreign policies. Today, this was on the agenda of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's meeting with his DPR and LPR colleagues.
In all honesty, I suggest that you ask them directly about their plans. They have their own press services and information policy executives. They have been active on social media. These are now sovereign states, so let us talk about our plans, not theirs.
Question: Britain's Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said that Vladimir Putin has gone "full tonto." This is English slang for "completely mad." What is your reaction to that description of his action?
Maria Zakharova: How strange for a UK Defence Secretary to speak out this way about a head of another state. I think he could use a similar description for the UK Prime Minister. This is what I can say about making personal remarks.
As for the special military operation, unfortunately, yes, it is an immense tragedy that we had to resort to methods of this kind. This is what we were talking about for eight years. For eight years, through our policy and efforts, working around the clock, we sought to show and prove that there was a peaceful, negotiated way for resolving this acute conflict. In 2015, this was already a bloody conflict. Any move away from a negotiated scenario is a tragedy that should be avoided at all costs.
For how many years more did the bloodshed in south-eastern Ukraine have to continue? Five? Ten years? Why is it only today that you started counting the victims? Who gave you this right not to notice the victims before? There were thousands of them over these years. How can you have an easy conscience after that? You, the Western journalists covering Ukraine, the Minsk agreements and Russia, you always failed to mention that people living in eastern Ukraine, in the DPR and LPR, in Donbass, were dying. You never noticed or counted them. Who gave you the right to start talking about victims today?
If this is the way you do your reporting, if this is your approach, you are not a journalist or a human being. There were 13,000 people dead. I am not dividing them (even though I have this urge and probably should) to leave out those who fired the first shot and were part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including the regular army and the nationalist battalions that later merged into the Ukrainian Armed Forces. I am not dividing them to separate civilians from those you call separatists and insurgents, while we call them militias. This number includes all of them.
According to the OSCE, 13,000 people died. This organisation has been unable to report every casualty. This is their preliminary estimate. Where were you all? Why didn't you ask Kiev these questions? Why didn't you give airtime to people from Donbass? You denied them the opportunity to attend meetings of international organisations or take part in them remotely. You have no shame.
How about starting by counting how many people the British government killed in Iraq? How many civilians died because of Downing Street? How many British soldiers died there? Would you like to talk about Afghanistan? It is high time. Before you judge others, how about you start with yourselves. If you want to talk about the developments in Ukraine and what Russia does to protect civilians in Donbass, it is not in February 2022 that this story begins. It reaches back many years. It all started at least in 2013.
You want to count the casualties? Have you counted the 2013-2014 Maidan victims? How many people died there? How many people did the snipers kill? How many Berkut fighters lost their lives there? How many people were stoned and tortured to death? Have you ever reported on that? Maybe once in all these years. You are not the one to talk about this. It is not now that the war broke out. The purpose of this operation is to end the war which has been going on for many years now. Failing to understand or see this is a crime, just like serving as a media outlet of the Kiev regime for all these years.
Please forgive my emotions, but this is a sensitive issue for me. We do not want to listen to your media or believe you anymore. We will answer your questions, but we will not tolerate this attitude. What you are doing is propaganda. Had it been two-sided, this would be one thing, but you are linking it to the propaganda of war which you have been drumming up for two months now. This goes beyond all limits. After that, you turn everything upside-down and present the innocent as the culprits.
Question: Can I ask you to talk about Minsk? You are saying that you were prepared to go and talk with the Ukrainian regime in Minsk, but the terms of those talks seemed to be the total surrender of Ukraine. You're saying it needs to be following demilitarisation. How can that be acceptable to President Zelensky if you're asking him to surrender before he even begins negotiating with you?
Maria Zakharova: We warned about this. I have said twice that Russia is ready to send an interdepartmental delegation to the talks in Minsk. We have announced this. We are ready for this. Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov has said so. Since he mentioned the Foreign Ministry, I can tell you that this work can indeed begin at any moment. But the problem is that the other side can again begin, at the prompting from the West, to use evasion and lies, or representatives of the Kiev regime can start disavowing each other's statements. I have cited just now the statement made by Dmitry Kuleba. I didn't make it up; it has been cited by news agencies. They must make a choice between real talks and new complaints about us.
Question: It has been said that these talks can go ahead once Ukraine has demilitarised. Surely that's just demanding their complete surrender before talks have even begun.
Maria Zakharova: We have already said that we are ready [to talk]. Of course, the tasks set by President Vladimir Putin before the special operation have not been cancelled. They remain in force. The matter only concerns our response to the relevant requests from President Zelensky. We have seen the video, and we have reacted appropriately.
Question: Can you explain how you're describing this as the end of the war when it could be the beginning of the biggest military offensive we've seen in Europe since World War II?
Maria Zakharova: We won't indulge in fantasies here. This has nothing to do with the current situation. We are proceeding in stages. The operation is ongoing. Its goals have been outlined clearly. The Defence Ministry of Russia is providing comments. At the same time, we have taken note of a relevant statement, an appeal made in a video by President Zelensky. We have responded to it. Nobody will indulge in fantasies now. We saw the request, and we responded to it.
Question: Several times before the military intervention in Ukraine President Putin emphasised the bombing of Yugoslavia as an example of a grave violation of international law. Many analysts now say that President Putin's arguments and military strategy are the same as those used by NATO during the attack on Yugoslavia. What is your response to such comments?
Maria Zakharova: Such comparisons and claims are part of the falsification campaign. We know that the West loves doing this. We have seen this happen many times over the past two months.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke about this at a news conference today. But since you have asked, I would like to remind you of something, even though I doubt that you need reminding because you are from Serbia, as I gather. When NATO bombed Yugoslavia, it acted indiscriminately, hitting civilians, infrastructure, military infrastructure, military personnel, and ordinary people. If you remember, they hit the Chinese Embassy. They later said it was a mistake, but the fact remains. You probably know better than many others how many civilians were killed, simply because they were walking in the streets of a peaceful city when missiles started falling on them. The bloc's goal was to attack the country, not its government. That operation targeted civilians. And the use of depleted uranium to bomb Yugoslavia? This is another story.
You said that what is happening now is an aggression.
I would like to point out that it is a special military operation waged to protect the people who have asked us for help. The appeal they made in 2022 was by far not the first one. It is a long story.
They first appealed to us after the anti-constitutional coup in Ukraine in 2014, when the new Kiev regime sent regular troops to suppress discontent in eastern Ukraine. It sent tanks there. The legitimate authorities, who represented the people of Donetsk and Lugansk and remained committed to the law and to their culture, refused to recognise the illegal unconstitutional regime, especially when it used aggression to force them to do that.
They asked for help. You probably don't remember this, but I will tell you about this now. They held a referendum in the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics, and they clearly formulated their appeal based on the outcome of that referendum, during which the people of Donetsk and Lugansk expressed their will. Take a look at these materials. How many times have they asked us for help? We sent humanitarian aid, medicines, infrastructure assistance to save them from freezing and provide them with food, targeted assistance for children, and political support in the form of the first Minsk agreements. And later we helped by contributing to the drafting of the second Minsk agreements, which are based on the first agreements we had initiated.
For eight years we tried to promote a dialogue between Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk, but Kiev blocked it. For eight years blood was shed there. Russia tried to attract international attention and understanding of those who were responsible for the situation, calling for an end to the bloodshed. The last chance for dialogue was killed by our partners (I spoke many times about this yesterday and today) when we received a letter, including from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a long letter saying that they no longer wanted to talk. Berlin and Paris failed - and have actually admitted this - to play their role as mediators. The shelling raids continued, and the number of refugees increased. The situation came to a head. Meanwhile, weapons were sent to Ukraine for many years, and numerous provocations were staged. This is why it was decided to launch a special pinpoint operation. The Defence Ministry of Russia is holding briefings, which are available. Pinpoint strikes are being delivered at military infrastructure. The Defence Ministry has publicly announced our goals, the targets and the goals of attacking them.
I would like to remind you that we have been speaking repeatedly, since the summer of 2021, about the provocations staged by NATO countries jointly with Ukraine in direct proximity to our country. Provocations were staged in the Black Sea, for example, when a British destroyer entered Russian territorial waters and only stopped after our warship fired a warning shot in response to its illegitimate actions. NATO exercises were held in direct proximity to our border. What did they do it for? Was it a peaceful action? And then they started acting even more brazenly. They staged provocations in the sky over the Black Sea, when NATO countries' combat aircraft made dangerous provocative manoeuvres in direct proximity to Russian civilian aircraft. All that took place over our national territory and over the Black Sea. Just imagine your feelings when you see a NATO combat aircraft perform dangerous manoeuvres 50 or 100 metres from your civilian plane. And you cannot do anything to protect your safety, because it is a combat plane doing this? We reported five such incidents in October and November 2021. Do you remember how Ukrainian vessels crammed with weapons tried to break into the Kerch Strait in 2018? There were many more such provocations. On the one hand, people were dying in Donbass, civilians and militiamen. On the other hand, provocations involving weapons and military equipment were staged on our border, with Ukraine's participation and to the applause of the NATO countries. All types of offensive weapons were delivered to Ukraine. The last straw was the statement made on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, not at a weapons fair or a conference of nuclear experts (I don't remember Yugoslavia making such statements), that they [Ukraine] would consider raising the question of nuclear weapons, and that they regard this option as important. How do you like that? We certainly don't like it. We have seen this before and cannot regard this "coincidence" as accidental. The President of Russia spoke about this in his address when he mentioned the Munich Pact and the appeasement of the aggressor. Nobody will do this anymore. Everyone knows what this can lead to.
Question: During his visit to Moscow, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed the Declaration on Allied Interaction between Russia and Azerbaijan. How will this agreement affect Moscow's position on the Karabakh issue? Before that, Russia and other co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group said that the question on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh has yet to be settled, including taking into consideration the right to self-determination.
Maria Zakharova: Regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement and in general efforts to bring the relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan back to normal, in paragraph 9 the Declaration on Allied Interaction with Azerbaijan stipulates that the parties undertake to facilitate in every possible way efforts to fulfil the agreements reached by the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia on November 9, 2020, January 11 and November 26, 2021. Paragraph 10 states that the parties will work together on addressing matters arising from the provisions of these agreements and will work closely on achieving lasting peace between the states in the region. This means that the declaration that was adopted contributes to strengthening regional security.
As for the position adopted by OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs - Russia, the United States and France - it was set out in their joint statement. They released their latest statement on December 7, 2021, at the level of foreign ministers.
Question: How will the agreement with Azerbaijan affect Russia's obligations towards Armenia within the CSTO and bilateral agreements between Moscow and Yerevan?
Maria Zakharova: We proceed from the premise that the declaration does not present any challenges in terms of Russia's allied relations with Armenia. We will honour all our bilateral commitments vis-à-vis Yerevan, a long-standing and close ally. We believe that signing this declaration with Baku will help strengthen the trilateral relations between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, including regarding security, economic, and humanitarian cooperation in the South Caucasus. Moreover, we are constantly updating our bilateral legal framework with Armenia, which includes over 200 documents, among other things, considering the changing geopolitical reality in the region.
Question: How will this agreement affect the military and political alliance between Baku and Ankara taking into consideration the Shusha Declaration, which has already been ratified by Azerbaijan and Turkey, as well as the fact that Moscow requested that NATO stop its military cooperation with the post-Soviet republics?
Maria Zakharova: The Declaration on Allied Interaction with Azerbaijan is not directed against any third countries. It is designed to strengthen regional security, as set forth in one of its provisions. We are discussing military and political ties with both Baku and Ankara. They know where Russia stands on these matters.
We do have mutually beneficial cooperation formats that we share. For example, there is the 3+3 consultative regional platform. In addition to Azerbaijan and Turkey, it enables Russia to work with Iran and Armenia, while keeping the door open to Georgia.
It seems to me that the way you framed your question was not entirely accurate. This is a matter of NATO's obligations and Russia's demands that NATO not expand its infrastructure. No one is against this, as long as the universally recognised norm against ensuring one's security at the expense of others is observed. As long as this fundamental principle is honoured, no one is against countries engaging in military and technical cooperation, if it is not directed against anyone else.
Cooperation between our countries, just like relations between other countries, regardless of whether they are part of any blocs, is a sovereign affair. Of course, there are common principles, in particular, that military and technical cooperation must not be directed against third countries or create potential threats without taking into consideration the fundamental principle of indivisible security.
We keep getting the question of whether the Kiev regime has the right to engage in military and technical cooperation as a state and receive legitimate arms supplies. Of course. When it started receiving arms supplies in 2015-2016, we pointed out that this was quite odd. You might think that international efforts would be focused on fulfilling the Minsk agreements. Instead, they have tilted toward arms supplies, despite the fact that this was not what the Minsk agreement were all about. When provocations were added to all of this, we started to ask more questions about these supplies. Of course, Ukraine is a sovereign state. The problem is that it carries out provocations along our border. This is not something that simply raises our concern. We have to speak out in protest of these actions and refuse to turn a blind eye to them. All this was related to NATO countries in one way or another. Mass killings of civilians continued, and so did the aggressive rhetoric against us. Accompanied by sanctions, it all came together to form one big terrifying mass. You need to see what is really going on. It is quite natural to reach back in history for examples, but they must be relevant and suit the specific situation.
Question: Many people I know, from different countries, are reaching out to me and other compatriots, not only offering sincere words of support for Russia's policy towards Donbass and security issues. They are also writing and asking me to translate and pass on their letters addressed to Russia's top officials and the Foreign Ministry, and to you personally.
For example, Mr Hrdlicka, Ms Frycova (Czech Republic), Mr Dusa (Slovakia), Mr Michalu (a Czech national who is in Donetsk) and many others. Could you give me a forwarding address?
Maria Zakharova: By all means, send them to us. If you want to send them to the country's leaders, there is the President's website.
We have all been targets of DDoS attacks, the Kremlin website and the Foreign Ministry website. They are now intensifying. We will give you a way to contact us by email. If you specify who they are addressed to, we will forward the messages ourselves.
Remark: For your information, the Czech Republic is now disconnected from Russia. Everything Russian is shut down. Even your briefing can't be accessed.
Maria Zakharova: What do you mean everything is shut down?
Remark: All Russian-language websites and the like.
Maria Zakharova: Can you open the Foreign Ministry website?
Remark: No, it can't be reached. I'm in Moscow. People are writing to me from there, asking for a link to this briefing (on the Foreign Ministry website), but they can't open it.
Maria Zakharova: Was this an official decision?
Remark: Yes. A decision by the Czech Interior Ministry, effective today.
Maria Zakharova: How can this be? It's the 21st century. And channels of communication continue to be closed, not overnight but methodically. It gets more and more brazen every year. They block our presence on social media, on video hosting websites; journalists are expelled; the entire flow of Russian-language information from our country, with different points of view and perspectives, is put under embargo. What you just told me is news to me. We'll definitely have to look into this. I just really didn't know. Maybe the decision was made in the last few hours. How can everything Russian be blocked as a matter of policy?
On the other hand, why would we be surprised? They de-platformed the president of the United States last year. Why? No reason. The incumbent president. The most incredible thing was that the move was welcomed by the very same people, using the very same logic, who had demanded that he (the US president) not block their comments or delete even offensive comments, or regulate who can follow him. Can you imagine this? At first, they fought for openness, defending everyone's right to insult others in any way they want, insisting the president or the people who run his social media accounts have no right to block any comments. And then, apparently, when they thought the point of no return had been reached, they just blocked his account with a huge audience of millions, cutting all those people off from the words of a sitting US president. This is nonsense. This is George Orwell. End of story.
Question: People on social media have been discussing proposals to cancel all Russian nationals' visas and residence permits in the EU. If this happens, the children of Russian citizens who do not have Russian citizenship will find themselves in a difficult position and may be taken away from their Russian parents. Is it possible to quickly issue Russian citizenship to such children in the current situation?
Maria Zakharova: Under current Russian law, a child whose parents were citizens of the Russian Federation on the day of the child's birth is entitled to Russian citizenship by birth, that is, automatically.
As a rule, the necessary formalities for getting Russian citizenship and a passport for such a child don't take very long, depending on the Russian foreign mission's workload and, most importantly, on the Covid restrictions and requirements in the country in question.
A child born abroad in a mixed marriage between a Russian citizen and a foreign national can be granted Russian citizenship by request of the Russian parent and with the written consent of the other parent. Their citizenship is formalised by the head of the respective competent authority.
If the child is less than 14 years old on the day of the application, such applications are considered and decisions to issue the passport are made in the shortest possible time.
If the application for citizenship involves a child aged 14 to 18, decisions on such applications are considered, by consent of the competent Russian authorities, within six months.
Question: Can the CSTO mechanisms be invoked to settle the conflict in Ukraine? Is this a possible scenario?
Maria Zakharova: Russia has always brought up the Ukraine agenda, including the implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures by Kiev, during the meetings with our allies, both at the highest level and between the heads of the respective foreign policy and defence departments, and secretaries of security councils of member states.
I even think the CSTO has actually commented on this and given its assessments. It would be better to address them with this question.
Question: In its February 21 report, the OSCE Mission confirmed the Ukrainian security forces had violated the norms of international humanitarian law. Yet, at a special meeting of the Permanent Council, Russia was urged to "withdraw troops" and condemned for recognising the "separatist entities." How do you assess the OSCE's role in the Donbass crisis? I would like to understand what international institutions have done to prevent the crisis in Donbass from entering the third, bloody phase.
Maria Zakharova: They played different roles. It would be wrong and even impossible to paint it white or black only, as in many other situations. In some cases, a black and white assessment might be possible, but not in this case.
The OSCE has been active in dealing with this problem since 2014. The Special Monitoring Mission has been deployed in Ukraine by the decision of all 57 participating States, and it also worked in Donbass. A representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office was a member of the Contact Group, where Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk were supposed to reach an agreement on the implementation of the Minsk agreements.
It is now clear that the OSCE's efforts were not enough. That organisation was never actually tasked with resolving this problem. This was the purpose of specific formats and international efforts. Those efforts were not enough because the OSCE includes 57 states. Many of them took a highly one-sided approach. I cannot even say they adopted Kiev's approach. This actually requires further exploration for one simple reason: that was not an approach that reflected the interests of the Ukrainian people. It was not Ukraine's approach. It was an approach articulated by representatives of the Kiev regime, primarily backed by the United States. Accordingly, that approach was imposed or forced on many of the OSCE member states so that they would, among other things, slow down this process, which could be different - more effective and dynamic. It did not have to be politicised at all. What was the main idea of that politically imposed approach? It was to support, inspire and justify in every way the Kiev regime's reluctance to comply with the Minsk agreements.
That approach was also reflected in the Special Monitoring Mission's work, which every year moved further and further away from the principles of objectivity, impartiality and professionalism. The OSCE could have contributed to resolving the conflict in Donbass, but they had no real interest in persuading Kiev to fulfil its obligations under the Package of Measures.
Otherwise, the relevant changes to the Constitution of Ukraine would have been made back in 2015; Donetsk and Lugansk would be Ukrainian regions with a special status, and the Ukrainian state would have remained in control of the border. These regions would have re-elected their administrations more than once, possibly under ODIHR supervision. This was a glimpse into the potential future. What I mentioned are not Russia's obligations, but the goals that were set for Ukraine as a country, for Kiev on the one hand, and Donetsk and Lugansk on the other. However, Kiev has not been persuaded to implement these goals for as long as seven years (starting from the Minsk agreements).
Question: The discussion of the genocide in Donbass continued after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's visit to Moscow. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said his piece in Munich. Do you have any comment on this?
Maria Zakharova: What is there to comment? Their reluctance to see the obvious? Is this the first time this happens? Have they taken a different approach on other global matters they were involved with? They slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq - never even counted. When they were cornered, they said they relied on "unverified data," and it was a "mistake." No one even bothered to apologise. This is a manifestation of a colonial mentality formed during a transition from the Middle Ages to colonialism - a generalised "big white man" engaging with other people whom he, for some reason, considers below himself in every respect - the level of development and civilisational achievement, education and culture. He wouldn't speak to them as equals, not even as if they were children, because adults usually bother to help their children rise to their level and speak their language - but as hopeless "species," as President Vladimir Zelensky said. I cannot imagine how someone could even use this word about human beings. This ideology of superiority presupposes that it is not necessary to see many obvious things. This inevitably happens whenever anyone sees themselves as being exceptional. Anyone considering themselves as an exception from normal life, from reality, is allowed to ignore things. We can see the same approach on a number of matters when you cite specific facts.
Today we again touched upon the proof of NATO's assurances they gave to the Soviet government and later repeated to the Russian representatives that they would refrain from further eastward expansion. Look how far this has come - we show it to them on paper, one they have published. They don't see it, let alone believe it. We publish videos showing their representatives. Those videos were recorded before the boom of deepfakes, when footage was actually authentic. They don't want to see it.
UK Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss has paid an unforgettable visit. She was asked specific questions - whether she could confirm or deny the existence of the so-called British files, documents leaked online and containing examples of the UK government interference in Russia's internal affairs, or the distribution of grants to support specific media. She didn't even hear the questions. She was asked a second time, to clarify. She did not bother to give an answer. This is their typical approach - giving an answer, saying yes or no when they feel like it. Otherwise, they simply refuse to see or notice something and pretend that nothing is happening. But we know that if they do not see something, it does not mean that nothing is happening.
As to Germany taking the liberty to mention genocide in a disrespectful context, well, on the one hand, let God be their judge. These things should be assessed from a human morality perspective, not only from a political angle. But, on the other hand, we have given our assessment and provided Berlin with proof of the atrocities committed by the forces controlled by Kiev against the people in Donbass. We have sent it to them directly. We will continue to carry out such work in the future. The materials that were handed over to Washington and Berlin have also now been transferred to all capitals in a complete package. Our embassies have already sent the entire package to the governments of the host countries, so that they could study it and see what it is. We are only starting this initiative; we are not going to stop, but we are just starting. We want everyone to understand what kind of "democratic rulers" they have been dealing with in Kiev.
Question: In your personal opinion, do you think the LPR and the DPR could become the "third wheel" if they join the CSTO? If this is really happening, isn't it a good idea to establish a CSTO base somewhere on the border, a temporary one at least?
Maria Zakharova: Let's not hypothesise or consider imaginary situations; this is a job for political scientists and futurists. My job is to comment on the developments, give assessments and answer your questions with facts.
As for the possibility of the DPR and LPR joining or not joining any associations, it is a matter of their policy. They have been independent for less than three days; they are only gaining their recognised sovereignty. They have been recognised by a few states. Accordingly, they can join any associations when the other members recognise them as state entities, and then consider other matters. Their further interaction with the world is just beginning. These are the first days. Even with Russia, they have just taken the first steps to present the relevant documents and establish diplomatic relations. As for how they will proceed with their foreign and domestic policies, these questions should be addressed to them directly.
Question: Why are we not sending troops to Cuba?
Maria Zakharova: We are developing our cooperation according to the vision of each of the parties. As questions arise, we discuss them. We consider those matters that are on the agenda. If these questions are not on the agenda, then I have no comment.
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