You know, on the one hand, we are now distancing
ourselves from the West. On the other hand, the West is an extremely
active subject. And, the question arises, we did not expect
it to act this way. That it will support an openly neo-Nazi regime. That, apparently, elections were rigged in
the United States of America, for the first time in the history of the United States. Were we wrong to perceive the West in any
positive way? Or maybe it is being reborn? And the situation is a little like a hor
ror
movie. Do you remember the movie Alien, or Freaks,
when there was a group of people, and suddenly they turn into some kind of monsters. It seems to me that many of us now partly
perceive the West this way. You have extensive experience communicating
with these colleagues. What is your idea of what is happening there? And what can we expect from them next? Have they finally turned into monsters? Or will they go even further down this path? Or will one of them return to the human community,
to
the United Nations? What can we expect from them? And what is the nature of this process? Thank you. Well, about the fact that it is possible that
the West is being reborn. Sergei and I did not direct this story, but
I happened to have a quote in my pocket. It's about rebirth. It had long been possible to predict that
this frenzied hatred, which for 30 years, every year, was incited more and more strongly
in the West against Russia, would someday break loose. The moment has arrived. They simply
offered Russia suicide, a renunciation
of the very basis of its existence, a solemn recognition that it is nothing more in the
world than a wild and ugly phenomenon, an evil that requires correction. There is no need to deceive yourself anymore. Russia, in all likelihood, will enter into
a fight with the whole of Europe. This is 1854. This was said by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev. Here are three verbatim quotes from his letters. He returned to this topic many times. This relates to the question of
whether the
renaissance of the West has begun, or whether it has degenerated. I cannot say that this is the ultimate truth. But it’s a fact that no one ever really
loved us. The fact that they took advantage of us, creating
situational coalitions, the French, the British, and the Germans, naturally, the Austro-Hungarians,
is also a fact. Svetlana is sitting here. This is a man who lives in a very difficult
time in the beautiful country of Bulgaria. How could it have occurred to someone that
in
two years, in three years, it would click like that, and they would start moving monuments
there, insulting priests, and taking away property? How could this occur to anyone? Someone told me that Tyutchev was right. And after him, for almost 200 years, there
were many such examples. And what happened after 1991 was that they
simply decided that we were in their pocket, that this was the end of the story. Liberal ideology prevailed in both economics
and politics. Everyone must now obey the elder.
The eldest fixed everything, he organized
everything. They adopted some beautiful declarations in
the OSCE to divert attention. Charter of Paris for a New Europe, 1990. Read this Charter of Paris, which the French
then promoted with great pride. And look what we have now. Superimpose it on what France is doing, specifically
France, specifically President Macron. OSCE summit in Istanbul, 1999. Indivisibility of security. 2010, summit in Astana. Indivisibility of Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian
securi
ty. Then this promising term was already used. All this is for nothing. Sorry, all this has been thrown down
the drain. They were ordered to get into formation because
the task arose to punish Russia for daring not to allow the Americans to create chaos
on their borders, on their historical lands. Moreover, I will emphasize once again, firstly,
we have been warning them since at least 2007, from Putin’s Munich speech. This was the first warning. And we warned them very specifically immediately
after the coup. But he who had eyes and ears saw and heard. Because Donbass has stood up like a wall. Crimea has gone to its native harbor, as we
say. Nobody listened to us for 8 years. This happened near our borders. When in 2003 it seemed to the Americans that
Saddam Hussein had created some kind of nuclear reactor there, or some kind of nuclear dirty
bomb, did they warn anyone for 8 years? No. In the morning they got up, but the Security
Council does not want to decide this. Well, then they t
hemselves decided without
it. And where is this Iraq now? When they look now, they show us working on
targets in Ukraine, which are military targets that Ukraine is hiding in civilian neighborhoods
and civilian sites. What outcry did they raise about this then? As the same Yair Lapid stated, being the Prime
Minister of Israel, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Israel, read his quotes, that this
is almost genocide. What's there now? The tragedy of war. Compare the pictures. Or take a look at Syr
ia. They simply decided that if such a mess had
started there, then it was necessary to take away the eastern territory, where all the
oil and all the grain was located, from Bashar Assad. That's what they did. They actually razed the city of Masul in Iraq
to the ground. This is the same as the city of Raqqa in Syria. They did not remove hundreds of corpses for
several weeks. This is all documented. They are allowed to do this. Moreover, this threat did not arise on the
border with Mexico. There
are just refugees running there and
that’s all. They will now build a wall there. This is the whole threat. Well, now in Canada they have bred some kind
of super-pigs that are eating all the crops there. Yesterday there was a report about this. These are all threats. They bombed Yugoslavia, which was supposedly
an existential threat to the United States. That's more than 10 thousand miles across
the ocean. They don't warn anyone. They just decided so, and they went there. This is the problem wi
th the Western mentality
and these Western instincts. I have a lot of friends in the West, including
in the USA. Well, there are probably more of them in Europe. We worked with them at the UN. Many of them were ministers. Moreover, we were close friends with them,
the way we usually spend time, even at home. When all this happened, some of them called
me. I also called them when they left a message. But almost all of them have now formed a single
formation, they are pursuing a single party line.
They condemn us because Ukraine is poor. I tell them about Nazism. Do you remember what the Israeli ambassador
in Kyiv said? They asked him, how can you be in a country
where they glorify Bandera and Shukhevych? Have you stopped considering them Nazi criminals? He replied, no, for us they are Nazi criminals. But Ukraine has its own history. It's hard for them. How is this possible? This is all true. But, it’s like one metamorphosis happened. Now, when we come to events, when they are
walking ri
ght next to us in the corridor, they look with their eyes so as not to end
up face to face with us, and they cross to the other side of the street, like in that
novel. But there are also those, I will not name
their names now, so that they would not be ostracized there, those who come up and greet
us. By the way, last year at the G-20 summit,
Blinken asked me to talk to him. We talked to him, we shook hands, and said
goodbye to hands. Nothing special was said there, but at least
there was some k
ind of communication. If someone contacts us, we never run away
or hide. But, I repeat, now Macedonia seems to have
invited us to the OSCE Council of Foreign Ministers, and the country of Bulgaria seems
to have promised Macedonia to open its airspace. If this works out, we will be there. We will see how they communicate with us. There are already several requests for a meeting,
in case we work there, including from Western representatives. Of course, we will meet everyone. But, I want to finish
answering this question,
it got long, but it's an interesting topic, it's true. I want to end with the next episode. In addition to the OSCE, in addition to these
Primakov readings, there are many political science meetings. One of them takes place in December every
year in Abu Dhabi. The forum is called Sir Bani Yas. And I was there for the first time last year. According to tradition, there are 2-3 speakers
from current politicians and dozens of speakers from former politicians. These dozens o
f former politicians are the
most interesting thing. Because after the performance, there was a
break, and we went into some room to drink coffee or tea. There was a crowd there. Everyone knows each other. And everyone just wants to talk. Friendly. Everyone expresses understanding. Well, judge for yourself. There is probably logic in this, if you are
in the service, then you must do what you are ordered. Another thing is that the quality of orders
sometimes, and more and more often, is such that
a normal person wants to resign. Well, that's how they appear. I don’t believe that there is any purpose
for the West to constantly hate Russia. They told us these delicate speeches and assurances
that from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean we have everything the same, this includes
security, the economy, and in general we have a single space. But it all quickly disappeared. But quickly these instincts of uniting Europe
against Russia resurfaced, just as Napoleon united Europe against Russia, j
ust as Hitler
united Europe against Russia. Here we are now carrying out our explanatory
work. We are actively showing the story of Finland,
how Finland was the best friend of Nazi Germany, it actively helped it. We thought that all this would go away, that
after such wars there would be sincere reconciliation. Do you know why this took so long? We have many proverbs
that express the soul and character of our patient people. We will endure everything for the sake of
something bright. But, on th
e other hand, there is a proverb:
God endured and commanded us to do so. But there is also a proverb: measure twice,
cut once. We have been measuring for all these eight
years. It wasn't easy. It is not simple. But, again, the chronicle that they now often
show is when captured Germans and other Europeans in 1944-1945 travel somewhere to Siberia,
through villages, through cities. Grandmothers come out of their houses and
give them bread and water. And mercy called for the fallen. That's what we
said too. I don’t know, I will never claim that there
is any exceptional people. This is the lot of our American and British
colleagues. But this is the quality of the Russians and
all our people; they probably underestimate it there. Or they think it will always be like this. Now they will do nasty things to us again,
and we will again give them bread and water. But we have to coexist with those who exist.
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