The President held, via videoconference, a briefing session with permanent members of the Security Council to discuss the updated version of the Russian Federation Foreign Policy Concept and other current issues.
Taking part in the meeting were Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko, State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Anton Vaino, Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, Director of the Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov, Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin, and Special Presidential Representative for Environmental Protection, Ecology and Transport Sergei Ivanov.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues.
We will begin our meeting today with a discussion on the Concept of the Russian Federation Foreign Policy.
Radical changes in international affairs have forced us to seriously revise our main documents on strategic planning, including the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, which sets out the principles, tasks and priorities of our diplomacy.
The Foreign Ministry, working together with the Presidential Executive Office, the Security Council Staff, the Government and many ministries and departments, has completed a large-scale and meticulous job to update and adjust the concept to modern geopolitical realities.
Today I have signed an Executive Order approving the updated Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation.
I would like Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to report on its key provisions.
Mr Lavrov, go ahead, please.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov: Thank you.
Mr President, colleagues,
Mr President, as you said, this is a strategic planning document drafted by our Ministry in conjunction with other federal executive bodies. It builds on foreign policy provisions that are included in the National Security Strategy approved by you in 2021.
The concept shows a high degree of continuity with the previous version of 2016 in terms of the fundamental principles underlying our foreign policy, primarily its independence and focus on creating favourable external conditions for Russia’s progressive development, ensuring its security and improving the well-being of our citizens.
Mr President, you said earlier that the logic of the document reflects the changing geopolitical reality, in fact, revolutionary advances in the international sphere which have received a sizable boost with the start of the special military operation.
In particular, the unprecedented level of international tension over the past decade is a fact of life. The existential nature of threats to our country’s security and development that are being created by unfriendly states has been recognised. The document designates the United States as the main originator and vehicle of the anti-Russian policy. Overall, the policy of the West that is aimed at the all-out degrading of Russia is described as a new type of hybrid war.
A description of the key long-term international development trends is provided, including the crisis of economic globalisation, which until recently was following the American rules.
The fact that the global economy is undergoing a major structural overhaul on its way to a new technological basis is among the factors. The redistribution of growth potential in favour of new centres of growth is leading to the creation of a multipolar world order, which is the key trend in current international relations.
In the Concept, we presented our vision of the principles of a more balanced and fairer world order, such as polycentricity, sovereign equality of countries, ensuring their right to choose development models and upholding the cultural and civilisational diversity of the world. Assistance in establishing a multipolar world order is defined as a framework task for all areas of foreign policy.
It emphasises the need to ensure the rule of law in international relations and declares that the progressive development of international law must consider the realities of today’s world. In the face of acute external threats, our readiness to observe the principle of indivisible security is reaffirmed, but only in relation to those countries and their associations that show reciprocity in this matter.
The approach to work at the UN focuses on increasing the effectiveness of this organisation and reaffirming its fundamental goals and the principles of its Charter, which the West is trying to undermine with its practical actions.
Important innovations are envisaged in the conditions for the use of force in self-defence as part of unconditional adherence to the relevant requirements of Article 51 of the UN Charter.
The Concept provides for the possibility of taking symmetrical and asymmetrical measures in response to unfriendly actions against Russia.
There is a paragraph on the use of the Armed Forces to repel or prevent an armed attack on Russia and its allies. Thus, we unequivocally declare that we will defend the right of the Russian people to existence and free development.
The Concept elaborates on provisions that affect the protection of Russian traditional spiritual and moral values, and the building of cooperation based on a single spiritual and moral compass, common to all world religions.
It absolutely rejects neocolonial practices and any kind of hegemonism.
The unconditional priorities include ensuring the rights of our people and organisations abroad, providing support to compatriots, countering Russophobia, strengthening the position of the Russian language in the world, fighting for historical truth, protecting our culture, depoliticising sports, and establishing new forms of sports cooperation.
The regional section of the Concept places an emphasis on Russia’s strategic interests in the context of deepening Eurasian integration based on the Union State of Russia and Belarus, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, the CIS, the formation of a greater Eurasian partnership, and the further strengthening of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and BRICS.
The policy on unlocking the potential of strategic partnership with our great neighbours – the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of India, the countries of the Islamic world, as well as countries of ASEAN, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean – has been enshrined as a vital resource.
The commitment to a peaceful solution to all issues that may arise in the Arctic region has been confirmed.
The Concept provisions state that unfriendly states’ anti-Russian moves will be consistently and, if need be, firmly stopped.
The idea that we are not isolating ourselves from the Anglo-Saxon countries and continental Europe and do not have hostile intentions towards them has been clearly conveyed. However, they must realise that pragmatic interaction with Russia is possible only if they realise the futility of a confrontational policy and refuse to pursue this kind of policy in their practical actions. It will be up to us to decide to what extent the West is ready to follow these recommendations.
Overall, Mr President, we have a difficult job ahead of us to implement our foreign policy in fundamentally new circumstances. We will spare no diplomatic effort to accomplish what we set out to achieve in close coordination with other agencies and will report to you regularly on progress based on the Executive Order that you signed on possible additional steps in individual areas.
Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: Thank you.
I think the above Concept serves as a robust doctrinal basis for further activities in the international arena.
In practical terms, I would like to ask our colleagues who engage in implementing the single foreign policy to pay special attention to expanding ties with our constructively-minded partners and to creating the conditions for unfriendly states to abandon their hostile policies towards our country.
Importantly, our long-term planning should include the entire array of factors and trends in international relations, enhance Russia’s sovereignty and increase our country’s role in addressing global issues and shaping a fairer multipolar world order.
Without a doubt, the Foreign Ministry should, in a collaborative effort with other agencies, play a coordinating role in implementing the Concept.
In closing, I would like to thank everyone who was directly involved in drafting the Concept. What we got in the end is a balanced document that will underlie our practical actions in the medium and longer term.
“In this Grayzone exclusive, reporter Jeremy Loffredo visits the Donbas Express, a musical instruction camp for youth from the war torn regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, and reveals the reality of a program described by State Department-funded researchers who inspired the ICC arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin as a “re-education” camp.”
By Jeremy Loffredo and Max Blumenthal, The Grayzone, 3/31/23
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children to a network of camps inside Russia. The warrant was based on a report by the Yale HRL center, which is funded by the US State Department.
US journalist Jeremy Loffredo visited one of Russian government-sponsored camps in question. At The Donbas Express, located just outside of Moscow, Loffredo met youth from war-torn regions who were flourishing thanks to free music instruction, and grateful to be in a secure environment. This article features his exclusive video report.
A Grayzone review of the Yale HRL report found the paper’s content contradicted many claims contained in the ICC warrant. It also undercut incendiary statements its director, Nathaniel Raymond, issued during media appearances.
In an interview with Loffredo, Yale HRL’s Raymond further contradicted allegations he made in a CNN interview about a massive “hostage situation” underway in Russia, acknowledging that most of the camps he researched were “teddy bear”-like cultural programs. He also disclosed his collaboration with US intelligence.
From producing reports and analysis for U.S. policy-makers, to enlisting representatives to write op-eds in corporate media, to providing talking heads for corporate media to interview and give quotes, think tanks play a fundamental role in shaping both U.S. foreign policy and public perception around that foreign policy. Leaders at top think tanks like the Atlantic Council and Hudson Institute have even been called upon to set focus priorities for the House Intelligence Committee. However, one look at the funding sources of the most influential think tanks reveals whose interests they really serve: that of the U.S. military and its defense contractors.
This ecosystem of overlapping networks of government institutions, think tanks, and defense contractors is where U.S. foreign policy is derived, and a revolving door exists among these three sectors. For example, before Biden-appointed head of the Pentagon Lloyd Austin took his current position, he sat on the Board of Directors at Raytheon. Before Austin’s appointment, current defense policy advisor Michèle Flournoy was also in the running for the position. Flournoy sat on the board of Booz Allen Hamilton, another major Pentagon defense contractor. These same defense contractors also work together with think tanks like the Center for Strategic and International Studies to organize conferences attended by national security officials. On top of all this, since the end of the Cold War, intelligence analysis by the CIA and NSA has increasingly been contracted out to these same defense companies like BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin, among others — a major conflict of interest. In other words, these corporations are in the position to produce intelligence reports which raise the alarm on U.S. “enemy” nations so they can sell more military equipment!
And of course these are the same defense companies that donate hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to think tanks. Given all this, is it any wonder the U.S. government is simultaneously flooding billions of dollars of weaponry into an unwinnable proxy war in Ukraine while escalating a Cold War into a potential military confrontation with China?
The funding to these policy institutes steers the U.S. foreign policy agenda. To give you a scope of how these contributions determine national security priorities, listed below are six of some of the most influential foreign policy think tanks, along with how much in contributions they’ve received from “defense” companies in the last year.
All funding information for these policy institutes was gathered from the most recent annual report that was available online. Also note that this list is compiled from those that make this information publicly available — many think tanks, such as the hawkish American Enterprise Institute, do not release donation sources publicly.
1 – Center for Strategic and International Studies
$200,000-$499,999: General Atomics (energy and defense corporation that manufactures Predator drones for the CIA), Lockheed Martin, SAIC (provides information technology services to U.S. military)
$100,000-$199,999: Bechtel, Boeing, Cummins (provides engines and generators for military equipment), General Dynamics, Hitachi (provides defense technology), Hanwha Group (South Korean aerospace and defense company), Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (largest military shipbuilding company in the United States), Mitsubishi Corporation, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (provides intelligence and information technology services to U.S. military), Qualcomm, Inc. (semiconductor company that produces microchips for the U.S. military), Raytheon, Samsung (provides security technology to the U.S. military), SK Group (defense technology company)
$65,000-$99,999: Hyundai Motor (produces weapons systems), Oracle
$100,000-$249,000: Huntington Ingalls Industries, Neal Blue (Chairman and CEO of General Atomics), Qualcomm, Inc., Raytheon, Boeing
$50,000-$99,000: BAE Systems, Booz Allen Hamilton, Intel Corporation (provides aerospace and defense technology), Elbit Systems of America (aerospace and defense company), General Dynamics, Palantir Technologies
I normally pay very little attention to Russian television journalist Pavel Zarubin, who is best known as the co-host of a Sunday evening program called Moscow, Kremlin, Putin, which is broadcast in between two of the best known weekend shows on Rossiya 1, News of the Week with chief of all news programming Dmitry Kiselyov and Evening with Vladimir Solovyov, a political talk show that in the past I have often cited as an indicator of views held by Kremlin elites.
In general, my attention span for the two lead programs has suffered greatly in recent weeks. Kiselyov has extended his program to over two hours. It is simply too long and unfocused. Moreover, the war coverage, particularly the coverage of the material damage and injuries caused by Ukrainian artillery and rocket strikes on Donetsk city and nearby settlements, is painful to watch and very repetitive week after week. No one in the West cares at all about these Ukrainian inflicted atrocities, while for the Russian audience this raises embarrassing questions as to why, after more than a year of war, the Russian Army has been unable to destroy the Ukrainian positions within firing range of the capital of the Donetsk Republic.
As for Solovyov, he has become insufferable because of the way he bullies some of the very respectable experts who are his panelists. I think in particular of his hectoring one dean of international affairs at Moscow State University, an expert on the USA, whom he interrupts and loudly contradicts, not letting him finish a sentence. Meanwhile, Solovyov is very deferential to others of his guests, most notably RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan and Mosfilm general manager Karen Shakhnazarov. Solovyov is perpetuating the worst traditions of Russian talk shows, which were always a blood sport, though in the past it was foreign guests, from Ukraine or Poland or the USA, who took the fist on their chins. Solovyov should be taken off the air and his place should be ceded to the hosts of Sixty Minutes, who are more informative and more civilized. Many of the panelists on both shows are the same; indeed being a television panelist is probably a major source of income for these experts and would explain why they agree to suffer indignities on air.
As for Zarubin, I have systematically skipped his programs because he regularly plays the clown, telling the audience with a smirk that he will take us all behind the closed doors of the Kremlin to see how the President does his job. It is patently obvious that the substantive content of what goes on in the Kremlin is kept under seven seals and that Zarubin will present only useless tidbits, such as how Putin knots his tie or enjoys his breakfast. These crumbs from the table can only serve a personality cult, which I thought Putin had better judgment to discourage.
Be that as it may, today Rossiya 1 has broadcast a self-standing twenty-six minute interview that Zarubin conducted with Putin yesterday. Lo and behold, we see that this journalist can perform as a real professional when it suits him and his paymaster. His questions to Putin are important and obviously were reviewed with Vladimir Vladimirovich before they went before cameras because the answers have been meticulously prepared.
https://smotrim.ru/video/2586445
There is much here that our political and military leaders in the West would do well to study.
In what follows, I will first provide an abbreviated transcript of the interview in which I summarize the essence of the questions and answers. The translation is, of course, my own.
Second, I will point to one mainstream newspaper and a couple of television broadcasters who have presented to their audiences a commentary on an item of particular interest in this interview.
Finally, I will offer my own analysis of what is especially newsworthy in the interview.
*****
Question: The West keeps saying it is supplying weapons to Kiev in response to what they call Russian aggression and to prepare Ukraine for a counter-attack. What is your evaluation of the military supplies being sent to Ukraine by Europe and NATO: the tanks, the one million artillery shells; and what about their plans to send fighter jets? Does this pose a real threat to Russia?
A: Of course, these present a threat to Russia. But let’s look in detail. One million shells for Ukraine. Is that a lot or little? Of course, it is a lot. But, in the leading NATO country, in the USA, according to the data we have, they have monthly production of 14,000-15,000 artillery shells. Meanwhile the Armed Forces of Ukraine are using up to 5,000 shells every 24 hours. Next year, in the USA they plan to produce 42,000 per month; and in 2025, 75,000. Still, in this year it is 15,000. As for us, the military industry of Russia produces much more. I don’t want to comment on the intentions of the Western suppliers. But here in Russia the military industry is expanding at a very fast rate, much faster than the West expected. So in the period during which the West supplies to Ukraine 1 million shells, we will produce more than three times as many. The Western supplies are an attempt to draw out the conflict. They are planning to send to Kiev 460 tanks, but here too the same story as with artillery shells. Russia will in this time produce 1,600 new and modernized tanks. The total number of tanks which Russia has will be more than 3 times what the Ukrainian army will have. I don’t talk about planes, because there the difference is several orders of magnitude. The result of the new shipments of arms to Kiev will only be to prolong the fighting, which is what they want, but as for outcomes they just exacerbate the tragedy.
Q : Guns or butter?
A: In the USA and in some NATO countries this will be the choice they face, but here in Russia we have budgeted to cover all of our preexisting infrastructure development, civilian residential construction, healthcare, education – we are not cutting back on anything. We have organized our economy so that there is no excessive militarization.
Q: the Ministry of Defense has announced they will supply to Kiev artillery shells with depleted uranium. Then in your meeting with Xi you said that in response Russia is considering sending tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. Then the British insisted there is no danger in the depleted uranium munitions, they leave no radioactive traces.
A: That is not the case at all. These artillery shells are, of course, not weapons of mass destruction. But they do create radioactive dust and in this connection they belong to the category of most dangerous weapons. Experts agree that after use of these weapons in Yugoslavia, in Iraq the incidence of cancer in the civilian population rose many times over. And if we look at the use of these in Ukraine, where the residents are supposedly considered to be their own, they will nonetheless be exposed to these agents, and that will have an impact on the soil in the areas where they are used. So these weapons are very dangerous not only for combatants but also for the environment and for ordinary people living in these territories. Russia has the means to respond to this. We have literally hundreds of thousands of such artillery shells. Up to now, we have not used them.
As regards my talks with Alexander Grigor’evich Lukashenko, the decision to send tactical nuclear weapons there was prompted by the announcement from Britain on depleted uranium artillery shells. But without any reference to this latest development, he has long requested that we provide to Belarus tactical nuclear weapons. There is nothing unusual about this. The USA has done precisely the same for decades, supplying such weapons to its allies, NATO members: Turkey, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy and Greece. And so we decided to do exactly the same, without violating in any way our obligations under the Non-ProliferationTreaty. We have helped the Belarus colleagues to reequip their jets to carry these tactical weapons. We have given over to Belarus our very effective missiles Iskander, which can also be a delivery vehicle. On 3 April we will start training the flight crews. And on 1 July we will complete the construction of a special storage base for these weapons.
Q: In your meeting with Chinese President Xi you announced that Russia will be trading in Yuan not only with China but with other countries. In the West, this was seen as an attack on the global status of the dollar. Are you doing that?
A: No. It is not true that we are attacking the dollar. We would use the dollar, but they do not let us have them. So we have to settle accounts in a currency that is acceptable to our business partners, and the Yuan is one such acceptable currency, all the more so as it is used by the IMF. They [the USA] themselves sawed away the branch on which they were sitting. By restricting the use of dollars on the basis of momentary considerations of a political nature, they have done harm to themselves. The fact that they froze our gold and currency reserves: the whole world was watching and thought about this, about just how reliable their American partner is. And they all came to the same conclusion: America is not reliable. And so we are pleased to agree with our commercial partners to trade in Yuan. The oil exporting countries in the Middle East also have said they want to settle accounts in Yuan. So we will gradually extend this, extend the use of all currencies that are reliable. Yes, we understand the present-day advantages of the dollar. There are limitations on all the currencies we use today, not only the Yuan. But all countries are interested in strengthening their national currency and all countries will move in this direction. So, without a doubt, this was a great mistake on the part of the American authorities.
Q: On the first day, we in the press pool were waiting outside the Kremlin for you and Xi to come out. It grew dark and only at 9 pm you emerged, after more than 4 hours together. What did you talk about for so long on that first day?
A: First we had a working supper. Then I invited Xi to come to my rooms in the Kremlin. Recently I have been spending time and spending nights in this Kremlin apartment. So we moved there and sitting next to the fireplace, we drank tea and talked about everything without being in a rush. We talked about the situation in world affairs, in their most varied aspects. The Chinese Chairman devoted a good deal of attention to the positive elements in the Chinese peace plan for Ukraine. By the way, it was at this time that we learned about the EU plans to send one million artillery shells to Ukraine. And the next day, as we were standing before the press we learned about the British plan to send depleted uranium shells to Kiev. It is as if this was done especially to interrupt our agreement. And so we see on one side the aggressive intentions of the West and on the other the peaceful resolution promoted by China. During these four hours we discussed Russian-Chinese relations in all aspects, above all in the economic sphere. China and Russia can complement one another. For China this is first of all with respect to hydrocarbons. China needs a reliable supplier and we can assure that. Since import from the dollar zone is closed to us, we don’t have any particular need for dollars.
We spoke a lot about economic cooperation and with the Chinese we will combine our efforts in technological areas, where each of us has well developed competitiveness in world markets.
The Chairman of the PRC is a very interesting talking partner. He is deeply immersed in international affairs, in the economy, in his own country and others including ours. He was well prepared. It is interesting to talk to him. I think we each got a lot of satisfaction out of this.
Q: Denmark has found an unidentified object near one of the gas pipelines and invited Gazprom to take part in investigation. Are we certain there will be a real investigation of the destruction of Nord Stream?
A: It will be difficult, very difficult to conduct a real investigation, though in the end what happened will be known. However, an American journalist who has become quite well known now in the world conducted an investigation and came to the conclusion that the explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines was organized by American intelligence agencies. I completely agree with such conclusions.
What has just happened with respect to Denmark: Gazprom found that 30 km from where the explosions took place, at a connection point of pipes, another vulnerable location, there is an unidentified object. This was photographed by our people who suppose it is an antenna for initiating an explosion. We informed the Danish authorities and asked to investigate this object together with other international experts in the supposition that maybe some more explosives are in the area which for some reason were not detonated. We were told that our participation was not necessary. Then we eventually got a diplomatic note from them that they studied the object, that it is not explosive. They could have added that “it is no longer explosive.” But at any rate there will not be further explosions.
They have invited the Nord Stream consortium to come and see, but not invited Russian specialists. However, there would not be any benefit for us now to be present. To be sure, our intention was not to find material to expose anyone but to ensure that there will be no further explosions.
Q: There have been massive demonstrations in France over the raising of the pension age. How do you view this considering that we also raised the pension age in Russia?
A: Firstly that is their internal affair in France. But of course we understand that many countries carry out reforms of this nature. It is hard to think of a country in our modern day world where this is not done given that life expectancy is rising everywhere and the number of pensioners is growing.
But there is a big difference between what we did in Russia and how they have proceeded in France. Firstly, we retained the five-year difference in the pension age of women and men. In France there is no such distinction. Second, we set a long time period for the transition – 10 years. This significantly relieves the burden on citizens. And finally, most importantly, we preserved all the privileges of taking retirement early. But in France, as far as I know, they did not do this. They liquidated all such privileges. Citizens of France saw this as excessively tough and unjust, because various forms of labor require different approaches to the question of going on pension.
*****
Out of all the material in the interview, one item was picked up by the world press: Putin’s announcement of the transfer of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. On Euronews and BBC, we heard from retired NATO generals that this would give the Russians no practical advantages and would not affect the West’s readiness to respond to nuclear threats. By contrast, The Financial Times published a lengthy article that contained a lot of material which an objective reader could use to understand why the transfer was decided precisely now, though in its presentation by FT muddled cause and effect, as is very common in the propaganda texts that pass for journalism these days. We read the following:
The Russian president’s comments [on the placement of nuclear weapons in Belarus] came only days after he signed a joint statement with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in which Moscow and Beijing declared: ‘All nuclear powers must not deploy nuclear weapons beyond their national territories and must remove all nuclear weapons they have deployed beyond their borders.’
The FT is presenting this decision as a violation of Putin’s high sounding principles. They intentionally overlook the logic that Putin is preparing the way for eventual pull-back of these weapons by all parties in some future negotiations with the U.S. That is to say, Putin has just bought his own poker chips.
We saw from the interview that Zarubin considered the decision on Belarus as Russia’s asymmetric response to the announcement by the UK Defense Ministry about sending depleted uranium artillery shells to Kiev. Putin seemed to concur on that explanation.
However, we need not take every word from Putin at face value. Stationing the weapons in Belarus puts them just at the border with Lithuania, with Poland, whereas the American nuclear weapons are stationed several hundred kilometers to the West. This puts Lithuania and Poland under immediate nuclear threat because of decisions taken by the USA together with Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands. This could open up fissures in the Alliance.
And quite separately, on the News of the Week program this evening one analyst explained that Russia’s response to the British use of special depleted uranium shells would be to use their own wolframite filled shells, which have armor-piercing functionality similar to depleted uranium but are not radioactive. If indeed, the British will be providing the depleted uranium shells only for use in the fourteen Challenger 2 tanks they are sending to Ukraine, then the decision on weapons to Belarus would seem to be disproportionate.
Otherwise, the interview is particularly interesting for Putin’s remarks on the use of Yuan for trade with third countries, which can promote a mighty shift against the dollar in the Collective South.
I have included Putin’s comments on the flaws of the pension reform in France that have contributed to the rage of so many French demonstrators and may yet bring down the Fifth Republic. It is curious to see this kind of substantive analysis coming from Moscow when we read not a word about it in our Belgian or UK newspapers.
When thinking about Ukrainian democracy under peril, Western observers typically think about the Russian invasion that began last year. But critics and dissidents inside and outside of Ukraine also warn of a different threat to democracy, one coming from within, with the war catalyzing an escalation of authoritarian trends under President Volodymyr Zelensky. One such critic is Olga Baysha, associate professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, and author of Democracy, Populism and Neoliberalism in Ukraine. Starting out her career as a news reporter and editor in Kharkiv, Baysha spoke to Jacobin’s Branko Marcetic about this growth in political repression.
1. Has repression of dissent in Ukraine gotten worse since the outbreak of the war? And are some of the things we’ve heard about in terms of centralising power – banning of media outlets and parties, bans on the Russian language, raids on Orthodox churches – new phenomena? To what extent are they a continuation of trends that were happening before the war?
Zelensky’s war on journalism started one year before the current war. In February 2021, he signed sanctions by the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) against two parliamentary deputies from “Opposition Platform—For Life,” the main political rival of his own party. As a result of this unconstitutional move, three television channels controlled by the opposition—NewsOne, 112 Ukraine, and ZIK—were shut down. This happened after Zelensky’s approval rating, sinking throughout the course of his unpopular neoliberal reforms, fell below 30 percent, for which he blamed oppositional media. Later that year, other oppositional channels were sanctioned and banned as well: Strana.ua, First Independent Channel, UKRLIVE, Sharij.net, and Nash.
In other words, the prosecution of oppositional journalists presented as “enemies of the people” started not because of the war but because of the falling popularity of Zelensky in the course of his neoliberal experiments. In January 2022, one month before the launch of Russia’s “special military operation” (SMO), sociological data showed that 64.7 percent of Ukrainians believed the country was moving in the wrong direction; Zelensky’s presidential approval rating was as low as 17 percent. In fact, it was Russia’s offensive in February 2022 that transformed Zelensky from an unpopular ruler selling Ukrainian land against the people’s will into a transnational hero struggling against tyranny.
The beginning of the current war just marked another level of efforts to crush dissent. As you know, in March 2022, eleven oppositional parties were banned. Along with banning the parties, Zelensky also implemented the NSDC decision to launch a telethon called “United News #UARAZOM,” which all national TV channels were expected to broadcast. Now, they have little choice but to show this telethon reflecting the “only true” version of events–the one approved by the presidential administration. As a matter of fact, the situation is very similar to what has been happening in Russia since the beginning of SMO–here, media are also instructed to present the only “reliable” (i.e., approved by the government) version of “truth.” The only difference is that nobody in the world argues that Russia is a “beacon of democracy”—the way Ukraine is presented for global audiences today.
Meanwhile, all Ukrainian journalists and bloggers who did not want to promote Zelensky’s version of “truth” had to either shut up (voluntarily or under duress) or, if possible, emigrate. Among the latter are Tatyana Montyan, Dmitry Vasilets, Taras Nezalezhko, Ruslan Kotsana, Yuri Podolyaka, and many others. What about those arrested after the beginning of the current war, the problem is that nobody knows their exact numbers, and nobody knows for sure if they are still imprisoned, free, or simply alive. There is no public news about Dmitry Dzhangirov, Yuri Tkachev, Dmitry Marunich, brothers Kononovich, and other oppositionists who were arrested in Spring 2022. One can only judge on what is going on in the dungeons of the SSU (the Security Service of Ukraine) drawing on rare evidence provided by journalists who were detained and later released. One of them is Andrei Wojciechowski, an honored journalist from Kharkiv who was arrested and charged under Article 111 (treason) for alleged contacts with Russian journalists and officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service. His account of what he went through in jail is available on YouTube, and it is terrifying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Umm7kbJIKmA. I know Andrei since 1991, when I started working as a journalist in Kharkiv, and I have no doubt he is telling the truth.
But, to answer your question, the intimidations and prosecution of oppositional journalists in Ukraine, presented as “enemies of the people,” started long before Zelensky’s presidency. Since the victory of the Maidan in 2014, Ukrainian radicals—encouraged and supported by post-Maidan power–have been intimidating those who protested the ideology of integral nationalism, propaganda of Nazism, and the policy of omnipresent de-Russification. The most famous figure in this respect is Oles Buzina, who was killed by radicals in 2015; the names of the killers are well known, but they are still free—in contemporary Ukraine, extremists are considered heroes struggling against Russia and its “collaborators.” It is within this context that we should consider the persecutions of the Russian Orthodox Church. The first attempts of the seizures of its temples were recorded as early in the beginning of the 1990s, after Ukraine declared its independence, but at those times these were isolated cases. Now, we are dealing with a state policy of eradicating any kind of cultural and political “otherness.” This is a political course aimed at creating a unified Ukraine, in which, as Zelensky boasts, “there is no left and right,” “the government becomes the people,” and everybody is “like-minded,”—a rosy dream of any totalitarian ruler.
2. Pro-Russian sympathies or even outright collaboration with Moscow are often cited by the SBU, private blacklists, and even media outlets in claims of treason and collaboration. Should we accept these charges at face value?
To become a “collaborator” in the eyes of Zelensky’s regime, one need not have deep sympathies with Russia or to collaborate with it—it is enough to state anything that would contradict Zelensky’s version of truth. For example, while speaking to the participants of the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in June 2022, Zelensky explained that Russia’s “disinformation thesis” is that its war against Ukraine “is allegedly something about NATO, about the role of America, about the West’s attempts to advance somewhere in Europe.” In other words, anybody who would dare to link the ongoing war with NATO expansion and the interests of the military-industrial complex of the United States would be considered a mouthpiece for Russia and collaborator.
This happened to the British musician Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame, after a CNN interview in which he criticized the role of the U.S. government in the Russia-Ukraine war and argued that the conflict hinged on the action and reaction of NATO pushing right up to the Russian border. Waters was immediately declared an “enemy of Ukraine” and his name was put on Myrotvorets–a website where all the names of “Ukraine’s enemies” are listed, along with their home addresses, telephones, and other personal information. The same destiny awaited numerous other well-known foreign public figures who dared to articulate the conflict not in the way considered “true” by the government of Ukraine. Among them are Oliver Stone, Henry Kissinger, John Mearsheimer, and many others, including hundreds of foreign journalists who have visited Donbas, which was considered by the Ukrainian government as “complicity of terrorism.”
No wonder that the number of Ukrainians accused of being “collaborators” is so big. According to the SSU, from February 24 to the middle of November, it started more than 18,000 criminal proceedings related to “crimes against national security,” which include treason, sabotage, and assistance to the aggressor state. These are official figures, which do not show the real picture; one can only imagine how many people in the territories first occupied and later left by Russian troops were declared “collaborators” with all the ensuring consequences that are not necessarily legal. Extrajudicial killings have become a norm in the war-torn Ukraine. Suffice it to mention the names of Kremennaya Mayor Vladimir Struk, who was abducted and killed in March 2022 because of his pro-Russian stance, or Denis Kireev, one of the negotiators at the first Gomel meeting (the first round of negotiations with Russia after the beginning of the current war) who was killed right in the center of Kyiv as a warning to other collaborators. The most terrible thing is that such extrajudicial executions have been normalized in public discourse; governmental officials do not shun admitting that “traitors” and “collaborators” deserve to be punished without regard to legality. NSDC Secretary Danilov, for example, called all those sympathizing with Russia “rats” who need to be poisoned.
3. Isn’t it true that some parties, opposition politicians, and government critics – like Medvedchuk and Opposition Platform – for Life, and even the Orthodox Church of Ukraine – do have Russian ties and more Russia-friendly positions? So why should we be troubled by the fact that they’re being banned, prosecuted, raided etc.?
Medvedchuk is an odious figure. He is a millionaire, and the godfather of his daughter Daria is none other than Vladimir Putin. Obviously, this may make Medvedchuk loathsome in the eyes of many. However, one should not forget that Medvedchuk’s television channels, banned by Zelensky, represented the views of different groups within Ukrainian society that opposed Ukraine’s war against Donbas, the prosecution of dissenters, or Zelensky’s neoliberal reforms. Among those speaking on the shows of these channels, there were oppositional deputies, economists, political experts, leaders of people’s associations, activists, and more. In other words, these channels represented various strata of the Ukrainian population—their public opinion, with all its variation and subtle shading.
What I am trying to say is that, no matter whether one likes Medvedchuk or not, but his television channels served as public platforms where Ukrainian citizens could voice their grievances. It is this possibility of accumulating oppositional strength through consolidating oppositional public opinion that scared Zelensky. Along with millions of Ukrainians, Medvedchuk was a strident opponent of the land reform, for example, which has nothing to do with “collaborating” with Russia. On the other hand, “a Russia-friendly position,” which you mention, is a sentiment that most people living in the southeastern regions of Ukraine shared (at least before the current war) due to close historical ties between the two states—you can hardly find a family in southeastern Ukraine that does not have relatives in Russia.
As a famous opinion poll made by Kiev Institute of Sociology in April of 2014 showed, more than 75 percent of people living in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, believed that Ukraine and Russia should be independent but friendly states with open borders and without visas. Needless to say, these people did not support the Maidan with its anti-Russian agenda. Most dwellers of other eastern regions of Ukraine shared this view. This is the crux of the issue—the post-Maidan government of Ukraine ignored the opinions of half of the country and, instead of negotiations on which the anti-Maidan Ukraine counted, launched the so-called “anti-terrorist operation” against the rebellious Donbas in April 2014, which manifested the beginning of what later became known as the “Donbas war.” It is widely acknowledged nowadays that during the first stage of the conflict, the rebels were primarily locals; only in August 2014, when they appeared to be facing defeat, did Russia support them with its own troops.
What I am trying to say is that the problem with Ukraine’s struggle against the so-called “pro-Russian agenda” is that this has been an agenda of millions of Ukrainian citizens whose opinions were completely ignored. Of course, many “anti-Maidan others” did not welcome Russia’s SMO, and in this sense public attitudes towards Russia may be changing now (it is difficult to judge because no opinion polls are reliable nowadays). However, we should not forget that the number of refugees moving to Russia—2.8 million people, the highest of any country receiving Ukrainians amid the conflict—suggests that pro-Russian sentiments among many Ukrainians are still high, despite all Zelensky’s talks about the unprecedented unity of the Ukrainian nation during the war, one of the main ideologemes he promotes in his speeches.
4. What kind of impact has this repression of dissident voices and tightening of government control over the media had on the Ukrainian political landscape, and on public opinion over the course of the war?
Even before the war, Zelensky demonstrated intolerance to independent media and the political process in general–I discuss this in detail in my book “Democracy, populism, and neoliberalism in Ukraine.” Political forces that ended up in opposition to neoliberal transformations have been attacked by him and his party members not politically (based on opposing opinions) but morally (based on the accusation of “hampering historical progress”). In place of a struggle of “right and left,” there was a permanent struggle between “right and wrong,” to use Chantal Mouffe’s dictum—this has been the essence of Zelensky’s “politics.” The opponents of his land reform, for example, were attacked on the ground that they ostensibly tried to preserve the Soviet way of life.
“The truth is on our side” has been one of Zelensky’s central messages for the world since the beginning of the current war. The problem with this “truth,” as it should be clear now, is that it is established administratively; anybody who dares to question it is declared a “collaborator” and “traitor”; they are being wiped out of the information space controlled by the government. Another thing is that it is impossible, within the digital environment of interconnected information networks, to close discourse fully and establish meanings that remain forever fixed. This impossibility manifests itself in the revival of oppositional discourse in new discursive-material configurations that cannot be controlled by the government. Oppositional journalists and bloggers who were able to flee Ukraine now run their media channels from abroad; all of those who are still able to work moved to Telegram—a platform beyond the reach of the Ukrainian government. It is noteworthy that the popularity of Telegram among Ukrainians has grown significantly since the beginning of the ongoing war, which reflects people’s dissatisfaction with the one-dimensionality of Ukraine’s official propaganda. With the adoption in December 2022 of the new media law of Ukraine, which, in the opinion of the European Federation of Journalists, “is worthy of the worst authoritarian regimes” because it establishes censorship in the information space, Telegram’s popularity in Ukraine is set to increase further as it will be the only channel offering an alternative to the official perspective while opposition channels on other platforms, such as YouTube and Facebook, have been increasingly blocked in Ukraine.
5. The war has also seen an escalation in what the government has called “de-Russification” of Ukraine. What are the implications of this, particularly since conflict over the role of Russian heritage in Ukraine has been one of the factors that’s fueled civil strife in the past?
I would like to highlight once again that what is called “de-Russification” is in fact Ukraine’s war against its own citizens for whom Russian language is a mother tongue and the Russian Orthodox Church is a religion of their ancestors. Most people in the southeastern regions of Ukraine and the overwhelming majority of Donbas residents, regardless of ethnic origin, use the Russian language in daily communication, with majority also claiming Russian as their native language. In a similar fashion, most people living in these regions, do not know any other religion but Russian Orthodox. I can imagine that the war might have changed the attitudes of many Ukrainian Russophones to many things related to Russia, but what we observe today is not a genuine manifestation of people’s will but a governmental experiment on social engineering—an aggressive de-Russification with an involvement of radicals who intimidate people, discouraging them from fighting for their rights. As mentioned earlier, this tradition of intimidating “others” traces its origin to the Maidan. The power of such intimidation was clearly demonstrated during the tragedy in Odessa, a Russian-speaking city located on the Black Sea, where on May 2, 2014, forty-eight anti-Maidan protesters, encircled by radicals, died in fire; more than 200 survivors were left with burns and other injuries. The horrible death of anti-Maidan activists was publicly celebrated by nationalists, and this became the moment of truth for Ukrainian Russophones. They simply realized that there is no space for them in the new Ukraine. To survive, they needed either to immigrate or to keep silence, accommodating themselves to new realities. What we observe now is just another act of their tragedy that started on the Maidan.
6. Is the Western public aware of these trends, do you think? Has Western media covered this subject sufficiently, and have Western politicians been forceful enough in condemning it or pressuring Ukrainian leadership to change direction?
I have been following the coverage of the Ukrainian crisis by global media since 2013—the beginning of the Euromaidan, which led first to the Donbas war and later to the disaster that we are witnessing today—and I can say with confidence that Western media have not been presenting their readers and viewers meaningful accounts of what has been going on. In an overwhelming majority of cases, Western journalists have not been incorporating the opinions of Ukrainians with alternative, anti-Maidan perspectives. Consumers of global media products had little chance to learn anything valid about the insurgency in eastern Ukraine except that the rebels were “Russia-backed separatists,” “modernization losers,” “barbarians,” “thugs,” and alike. This one-dimensional vision of the Ukrainian crisis, established globally from its very onset, had tremendously significant consequences not only for the people of Donbas, who have been living in a state of war since 2014, but also for the whole of Ukraine, which in February 2022 was plunged into full-scale military conflict.
During the current war, Western journalists overwhelmingly take Zelensky’s words at face value. Zelensky likes telling his global audiences different scary stories, for example, about “hundreds of cases of rape” committed by Russian soldiers, including “small children and even babies.” He provides brutal details of these crimes that—obviously—disgust and shock any human being. The problem with these stories is that many of them (if not all—I am not sure about this) were invented by Ukraine’s ex-Ombudsman Lyudmila Denisova, who was fired for these fabrications in June 2022. You can easily find this information in Ukrainian media (https://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2022/06/27/7354838) but not in Western ones. This is just one example, but there are many of them.
7. What role can Ukraine’s Western partners play here? The US and EU have long used financial aid and the possibility of EU membership as inducements to get Ukrainian leadership to liberalise its economy and advance anti-corruption efforts – could we take the same approach to prevent a slide toward authoritarianism?
I am an ethnic Ukrainian; all my relatives still live in Ukraine; and we have been arguing about the role of the West in the Ukrainian tragedy since the Maidan, which was presented by Western powers and Western media as a fight of “Ukrainians” for democracy and freedom. As it should be clear now, this is an outright lie as there was no unified Ukraine in the name of which Western powers spoke and acted. As I already told you, half of the country, which did not support the Maidan, was disregarded completely, which at the end of the day brough today’s disaster. A similar story happened with the “liberalization of economy” that you mention. This “liberalization” brought nothing else but new neoliberal experiments that have deprived Ukrainians of their land and deteriorated their living conditions. The overwhelming majority of Ukrainian citizens (up to 70%) opposed the “liberalization” of the land market, but has this stopped the reformers supported by Western powers? No, amid the protests of Ukrainians, the adoption of the land reform was celebrated by Western ambassadors lobbying the interests of Western corporations—not Ukrainian citizens. Have any anti-corruption efforts of the West stopped corruption in Ukraine? No, it became rampant, and the recent revelations of corruption in the Ukrainian armed forces are very illustrative in this respect. Why should I or my relatives living in the east of Ukraine expect Western powers to be successful in preventing the country from sliding into authoritarianism if it was the Maidan, encouraged by the West (suffice it to remember Victoria Nuland distributing bread among the protesters), that marked the beginning of Ukraine’s persecution of political and cultural “others”? For me, these questions are purely rhetorical. I have no grounds to greet further “humanitarian interventions” of foreign powers in the name of a better future of Ukraine.
Olga Baysha, associate professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, and author of Democracy, Populism and Neoliberalism in Ukraine. Branko Marcetic is a staff writer for Jacobin.
