Russia wants to avoid a conflict with Ukraine and the West, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday (23), but needs an immediate response from the United States and its allies to its demands for security guarantees.
The statement came at the Russian leader’s annual year-end press conference, a marathon of questions that Putin answered for nearly four hours, sitting alone in front of an audience of masked reporters on a stage at the Manezh Exhibition Centre, near the Kremlin.
Ukraine is at the center of tensions after Washington and Kiev accused Moscow of considering a new attack on its southern neighbor.
Russia, however, rejects accusations that it may be preparing an invasion of Ukraine as early as next month by tens of thousands of Russian soldiers stationed near the former Soviet republic’s borders.
“This is not our choice [preferida], we don’t want that,” Putin said.
The leader also said that Russia had received an overall positive response to the security proposals it handed over to the United States this month, with the aim of defusing the current crisis, and said he was hopeful about the prospect of negotiations, which should begin at the beginning of the next year in Geneva.
In a separate response, however, Putin was more heated when he recalled how NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Western military alliance) “blatantly fooled” Russia with successive waves of expansion since the Cold War.
“You [a Otan] you must give us assurances, and immediately — now. We just posed directly the question that there should be no further movement by NATO to the east. The ball is in their court, they should answer us with something.”
These guarantees would be a promise not to conduct NATO military activities in Eastern Europe, because Russian security would be threatened by Ukraine’s ties with the West, as well as by the possibility of NATO missiles being launched into Russian territory from Ukraine.
“What is not clear here? Are we placing missiles close to the borders of the United States? No, it is the United States that came to us with its missiles, they are already at our doorstep.”
Tensions with Ukraine have brought East-West relations to their worst point in the three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The United States, the European Union and the G7 have warned Putin that he will face serious consequences, including harsh economic sanctions, in the event of any further Russian aggression.
Putin also made it clear that he did not see President Volodimir Zelenski as a negotiating partner, accusing him of falling under the influence of “radical nationalist forces”.
pandemic and russian values
According to The Moscow Times website, due to restrictions imposed by the pandemic, the media could not register for the accreditation of the event for the first time since it began to be held, in 2001.
Instead, the Kremlin chose around 500 international and national journalists to participate. Several independent critics, including Novaya Gazeta — whose editor-in-chief shared the Nobel Peace Prize this year — said they had not received an invitation, reported The Moscow Times.
Putin was also asked about other topics, including the pandemic, the presence of foreign media on Russian soil and the culture of cancellation.
On the first, he stated that Russia’s collective immunity is now at 59.4%, but it needs to reach 80%, which should be achieved by the middle of next year. He also defended the rapid distribution of vaccines around the world, so that humanity does not have to live with the virus “all the time”.
Russia has only 45% of adults fully vaccinated, a factor that Putin attributed to the country’s high mortality from Covid, one of the highest in the world, at around 600,000. However, Putin reaffirmed his position against mandatory inoculation, saying that anyone who does not want to receive the injection must be treated “respectfully”.
Regarding the presence of foreign media in Russia, he stated that he does not prohibit the activities of outside organizations, but added that he wanted to know the origin of the financing of vehicles that engage in coverage of Russian politics.
He also echoed his well-known disdain for Western liberal values ​​and defended traditional ideas, in response to a question by state broadcaster RT about culture of cancellation and the controversy surrounding “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling’s comments about people transgender. She was recently accused of making transphobic comments.
“I take the traditional approach: a woman is a woman, a man is a man, a mother is a mother, a father is a father,” Putin said, adding that he hoped the Russians would have sufficient defenses against the “obscurantism” of the fluidity of genres.
He also compared the cancellation culture to coronavirus, stating that “new variants appearing frequently”. Following traditional values ​​is the “antidote” proposed by Russia, he said.
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