(AGENPARL) – KREMLIN mar 13 giugno 2023

Yevgeny Poddubny: Good afternoon, Mr President.

Thank you very much for finding the time to meet
with us.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: I am very happy to see you all.

Yevgeny Poddubny: Our previous meetings have all taken place in an atmosphere of trust. Our conversations have always been sharp and frank, and we
are very grateful to you for this.

Vladimir Putin: I feel you won’t be able to do that if the cameras
are on; everyone wants to fire up the audience when the TV cameras are on.

Yevgeny Poddubny: No, we will keep things in hand.

We are hoping this talk will also be honest and open, and we are all counting on this.

Vladimir Putin: It will be on my part, I promise.

Yevgeny Poddubny: On our part – as well.

Vladimir Putin: Excellent, this is what it will be.

Yevgeny Poddubny: You have said more than once that all the goals
that you set personally for the special military operation will be achieved.
The special military operation has lasted a fairly long time. The situation is changing,
the position is changing, and probably the goals and tasks of the special
military operation are changing as well. Can you tell us how they have changed if
at all?

Vladimir Putin: No, they are changing in accordance with the current situation but of course overall we are not changing anything. Our goals
are fundamental for us.

All of you here are very seasoned professionals,
especially people like you who have been under fire for more than a year. Your mentality
changes. I know this from my own experience even though I haven’t crawled under
flying bullets like you have, I have known this since the time I flew in a helicopter with tracer fire around us. You know, all this changes your mentality.
So, what is the point of our actions? We
will have to take two steps from the centre of the field. After all, we wanted
and still want to have the best possible relations with all our neighbours
after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is what we are doing. We have accepted
that what happened, happened, and now we must live with it.

And you know, I’ve already said that,
no secret here, we did offer every option to our Western partners, as I used to call them, we thought we were one of them, we wanted to be in the family of so-called
civilised nations. I reached out to NATO suggesting that we look into that
possibility, but we were quickly shown the door; they didn’t even bother to consider
it. I also suggested creating a shared missile defence system.

We are aware that the events of the 1990s – early 2000s stem from a bitter historical legacy in the Caucasus, for instance.
Who were we fighting there? Mostly, Al-Qaeda. And what did our “partners” do? They
supported them by providing financial, information, political and even military
support. They did not give a damn about the fact that they were helping
Al-Qaeda as long as they were able to rock our boat. Everything they did fit the paradigm of rocking Russia. We left no stone unturned in our efforts and finally
agreed that NATO would not be expanded. We came up with every option we could. Still
no. Why? It is just because the country is too big: no one needs a country that
big and with such great potential in Europe. Everyone tries their hand at gradually
breaking Russia into pieces.

Ukraine is part of the effort to destabilise
Russia. By and large, this should have been kept in mind when decisions were
made on breaking the Soviet Union up. But then, apparently, it was expected that
our profound relations would be decisive. But due to a number of historical,
economic and political circumstances the situation took a different path. We
tried everything on this path as well. In fact, we have, for decades, if not
fed, but sustained their economy – you are aware of this, since I have written
and talked about it – with cheap energy, other things, loans and so on. To no
avail. How did it end eventually? They started killing our supporters in the streets and eventually staged a coup d’etat.

Look, this is not the first coup. How
did Yushchenko come to power in Ukraine? Was it as a result of a legitimate procedure?
Do you want me to show you how he came to power? We are aware of it. They came
up with a third round of elections. What was that about? This was not enshrined
in the Constitution. It was a coup, but at least a relatively peaceful one. And we did communicate with them. I went there and they came to us, no problem. But
eventually, they pushed it to a bloody coup. That is, it became obvious that we
were not given any chance to build normal relations with our neighbours and the fraternal Ukrainian people. Not a single chance.

To be
continued.

Fonte/Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/71391