🎙 Statement by Konstantin Vorontsov, Head of the Delegation of the Russian Federation, Deputy Director of the Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, at the Meeting of the States Parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (Geneva, 13 December 2023)

💬 In the context of fulfilment of obligations under the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), the emergence of facts pertaining to the implementation of a military biological programme in Ukraine with support of the Pentagon and affiliated entities, including private companies, warrants closer attention.

❗️ The analysis of available documents indicates the development of bioweapon components in close proximity to Russian borders.

US reporting, provided annually as part of the BTWC's confidence-building measures, which were developed by States Parties "to prevent or reduce the occurrence of ambiguity, doubt and suspicion", continues to lack information on programmes and projects outside national territory and their funding.

The current situation confirms the need for consolidated efforts by the international community to strengthen the BTWC regime.

☝️ We are convinced of the need for the international community to intensify its efforts to strengthen the expert and technical capacity of the UN Secretary General's Mechanism for Investigation of Alleged Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons (SGM).

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🇷🇺 The Russian delegation is ready for the closest cooperation with the Ecuadorian Chairmanship and all delegations to achieve concrete practical results. Russia calls for all the interested parties to get together for a creative work for the sake of strengthening the international security in the interests of ensuring arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation.

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🎙 Russian President Vladimir Putin’s answer to a question from the Moscow.Kremlin.Putin TV programme (December 17, 2023)

❓ Could you have been described as naive in the 2000s?

💬 Vladimir Putin: Yes, there was some naivety <…> I had the naïve idea that the whole world, and above all, the so called “civilised” world realised what had happened to Russia, that it had become a different country, that there was no longer any ideological confrontation, which meant that there were no grounds for confrontation.

If there were any negative elements in the Western nations’ policies towards Russia (among other things, their support for separatism and terrorism in Russia was apparent, I saw it as director of the Federal Security Service), I gullibly believed that this was just inertia in thinking and action: they were used to fighting the Soviet Union and kept on doing it.

<…>

Meanwhile, the reality was (I got a 100 percent confirmation of this later) that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they thought that “we just need to be patient – and we will make Russia collapse, too.”

Such a big country by European standards, with the world’s largest territory and a fairly large population … “is generally redundant.” It would be better, as Brzezinski suggested, to split it into five parts and subjugate them separately, and to use their resources, but proceeding from the premise that all of them will lack weight on their own, they will not have their own voice or the ability to defend their national interests the way the Russian state is doing now.

It was only later that I realised that.