🤝 More than 900 agreements were signed at St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (#SPIEF2023) for total worth of 3.86 trillion rubles

This refers only to those agreements that are not protected by non-disclosure agreements.

💼150 delegates from 25 “unfriendly” countries took part in the #SPIEF, many of them participating incognito, as everybody is interested in the development of Eurasian cooperation.

Anton Kobyakov, Advisor to the Russian President, said this at a press conference on the SPIEF results.

❗️In total, 17,000 persons from 130 countries took part in the forum, with the most numerous delegations coming from:

🇦🇪 the UAE;
🇨🇳 China;
🇮🇳 India;
🇲🇲 Myanmar;
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan;
🇨🇺 Cuba;
🇺🇸 the USA.

👉🏻 The forum was attended by 150 high-ranking officials from foreign countries, with the President of the UAE leading the guest country delegation at SPIEF. The President of Algeria and the Prime Minister of Cuba were also in attendance, and six African leaders arrived for talks with President of Russia Vladimir Putin.

🔗 https://t.me/RoscongressDirect/4406

🎥 Foreign Minister Sergey #Lavrov’s interview with RT TV Channel on the sidelines of the 26th St Petersburg International Economic Forum

📍 St Petersburg, June 16, 2023

🔗 Read in full: https://is.gd/eUGYd5

Key talking points:

🔹 We can no longer rely on the promises and the agreements signed with the West which were presented as a foundation for developing constructive partnership. <...> The West has “lost” Russia at this point of history.

🔹 The dominant trend today is the awareness of the need to regionalise the development processes. This includes the #SCO and, in a wider sense, the Greater Eurasian Partnership, which President Vladimir Putin mentioned at the #RussiaASEAN Summit a few years ago.

🔹 The Anglo-Saxons and their ilk are bringing pressure to bear across the board, including on our closest #CSTO allies. The Gulf Arab countries are not an exception. I would say that the Western methods are boorish. I cannot think of another word.

🔹 Our relations with the Africans and our other partners are not based on money. What we are trying to do is identify projects that meet the interests of both sides.

🔹 #BRICS will expand, with the countries representing major Arab, or Islamic civilisation in a broader sense, joining it. This will strengthen the multipolar principles that we are discussing now and that are objectively taking shape.

🇷🇺🇨🇳 On June 20, the first Russian-Chinese consultations on biological security in an inter-agency format took place in Moscow .

An exchange of biological security threat assessments was carried out.

☝️ Particular attention was paid to the military and biological activities of the United States and strengthening the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). The issues of bilateral cooperation in the field of biosecurity were discussed.

🤝 The meeting confirmed the unity of approaches of Russia and China to the biological security. The need for further close coordination and constructive interaction both in bilateral format and at relevant multilateral fora, primarily within the framework of the BTWC, the UN and the SCO was noted.

🔗 https://is.gd/FRQXhT

🇷🇺MFA Spokeswoman Maria #Zakharova on organ trade in #Ukraine:

💬We have talked many times at our briefings and provided facts to show that Ukraine is quickly becoming a global hub for illegal #organ harvesting. A recent documentary titled "Tanks for Kidneys" provided more evidence of Kiev using its wounded service personnel as organ donors.

❗️These horrible procedures would have been impossible without the consent of the Kiev regime’s top leaders because they have been formalised by law. Ukraine has become a bonanza for criminals. Illegal transplantology specialists are raking in huge money, and they are not planning to stop.

Read the briefing in full👉 https://is.gd/aPLboe

📽WATCH the documentary in full: https://rtd.rt.com/films/tanks-for-kidneys/

❗️22 июня - День памяти и скорби.

В 1941 г. в этот день германские войска перешли границу СССР и атаковали советские вооруженные силы на всем её протяжении. Война продолжалась 1418 дней. Общие безвозвратные потери СССР составили около 27 млн человек, из которых 18 млн приходилось на гражданское население, а около 8,7 млн - на Вооруженные силы. В концлагерях были убиты и замучены 4 млн советских граждан, в плену погибли более 2 млн из 4,5 млн советских военнослужащих.

🇷🇺22 июня на территории России приспускают государственные флаги. Всем учреждениям культуры, каналам телевидения и радиостанциям рекомендовано не включать в программу развлекательные передачи. Руководители страны возлагают траурные венки к Могиле Неизвестного Солдата в Москве. Во многих городах проводятся минуты молчания.

🕯В День памяти и скорби, 22 июня, по всему миру проходит акция «Свеча памяти». Зажжённые свечи символизируют то, что россияне помнят каждого ушедшего из жизни.

Ничто не забыто, никто не забыт.

❗️Day of Remembrance and Sorrow

June 22, 1941 is one of the saddest dates in the history of Russia. On this very day 82 years ago in the early morning, without declaring war, Nazi Germany and its allies invaded the Soviet Union. So the Great Patriotic War began, which lasted 1418 days and nights, where the USSR lost about 27 million people, but was able to hold out against the fire of the enemy.

Eternal glory to the fallen heroes who fought for the Motherland resisting deadly Nazi invasion during the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945.

🕯We remember millions of Soviet people who lost their lives as a result of this war. This day reminds of all those who were killed in battles, at the expense of their lives, fulfilling their sacred duty to defend their Motherland, were tortured to death in Nazi captivity, who died in the rear from hunger and hardship. We mourn for all of them.

In this severe bloody war, the multinational people of the Soviet Union made a decisive contribution to the defeat of Hitler’s troops and liberation of the peoples of Europe from Nazism.

No one is forgotten, nothing is forgiven.

Посол Израиля на Украине Михаил Бродский (уроженец, между прочим, пережившего блокаду Ленинграда) в интервью израильскому интернет-порталу ITON-TV на чистейшем русском, кстати, заявил следующее:

«Наш взгляд на такие личности, как Бандера, Шухевич, Мельник и так далее сильно отличается от взгляда большинства украинцев. Действительно, эти люди поддерживали идеологию нацизма. В рамках своей борьбы за независимость Украины они хотели видеть Украину без евреев, так же, как без поляков, без коммунистов и ещё, наверное, много без кого. <…> И Украина находится, конечно, в поиске своей идентичности, в поиске своих героев. Нам, конечно, не нравятся эти герои, но для большинства украинцев – это герои, которые боролись за независимость. <…> Но я думаю, что остановить этот процесс, если реально смотреть на вещи, сегодня невозможно. <...> Неправильно было бы обуславливать нашу поддержку Украины и нашу помощь Украине тем, что Украина перестанет переименовывать улицы или перестанет называть героями Бандеру или Мельника. Потому что, если реально смотреть на вещи, то этого, конечно, не произойдёт».

Ни одна организация в защиту памяти жертв Холокоста и бровью не повела. Эй вы, получающие миллиарды на своё содержание для сохранения темы на плаву, точно ничего не пропустили? Про Холокост надо помнить не только потому, что он был тогда, но и чтобы его не было никогда. И не только в отношении одной национальности или религии, а в отношении всех.

Раз защитников жертв Холокоста кроме нас больше нет, я напомню господину Бродскому о национальной политике Организации украинских националистов, которую возглавлял Степан Бандера. Из второго постановления Большого сбора ОУН(б) в апреле 1941 года: «ОУН борется с жидами как опорой московско-большевицкого режима». А вот, например, цитата Ярослава Стецько, сподвижника Бандеры и Мельника: «Стою на позиции уничтожения жидов и целесообразности перенесения на Украину немецких методов экстерминации жидовства, исключая их ассимиляцию».

Евреи в оккупированной нацистами Украине, которым эти герои нелюди активно помогали, были действительно в массе своей уничтожены, сожжены и закопаны без могил и опознавательных знаков. Всего – около 1,4 млн человек.

О каких «героях» может говорить Михаил Бродский?

Так же и в Германии в конце 20-х – начале 30-х годов немецкое общество находилось в поиске своей идентичности и своих героев. И вместо великой немецкой культурной традиции гуманизма выбрало два слова: «кровь и почва» (нем. Blut und Boden). И соответствующих героев, устроивших Холокост, создавших концлагеря, убивавших женщин, младенцев и стариков. Следующие 90 лет Германия пыталась в основном отмыться от такой идентичности. Но от этого никогда не отмыться.

Если, по мнению Михаила Бродского, Киев имеет право на таких героев и идентичность, то это уже проблема МИД Израиля.

Никто не имеет право на таких героев. Потому что это не герои, а исчадия ада, и не идентичность, а позор народа Украины. Это прославление нацизма.

Ну и про то, что с этим ничего нельзя сделать. Это вообще кощунственно. Так рассуждали те, кто спонсировал Гитлера в 1930-е годы. Кстати, в основном англосаксы.

Если бы так рассуждали советские солдаты, то сейчас никакого Бродского просто не было бы, как и памяти о Холокосте.

Как пел Высоцкий, «наш комбат, оттолкнувшись ногой от Урала», изменил ход истории и вернул человечеству его истинный облик. Правда, как оказалось, на время. Сейчас вот снова.

#Opinion by Maria Zakharova:

💬 Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Brodsky, who is by the way a native of Leningrad, the city which survived a siege during the Great Patriotic War, told ITON-TV, an Israeli website, in pure Russian:

“The way we view people like Bandera, Shukhevich, Melnik and the like is different compared to the way most Ukrainians view them. In fact, these people supported Nazi ideology. While fighting for Ukraine’s independence, they wanted Ukraine without Jews, or Poles, or communists, and probably many others. <…> And Ukraine, of course, is searching for its identity and its heroes. Of course, we do not like these heroes, but most Ukrainians view them as independence fighters. <…> However, in all objectivity, there is no stopping this process today. <…> It would be wrong to demand that Ukraine stop renaming streets or calling Bandera or Melnik heroes as a condition for our support for Ukraine or our assistance to Ukraine because, if you look at things the way they do, this is not going to happen.”

Not a single organisation for protecting the memory of Holocaust survivors raised an eyebrow. Hey! You receive billions in funding to keep this topic in the public space! Haven’t you missed something? The Holocaust must be remembered not only because it happened in the past, but also to make sure that it never happens again, and not just against a single ethnic group or religion, but against any of them.

Since there is no one else to defend the victims of the Holocaust but us, let me remind Mr Brodsky about the ethnic policy of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, with Stepan Bandera at its helm. Here is a quote from the second resolution of OUN B’s General Assembly in April 1941: “The Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists combats Jews as supporters of the Russian Bolshevik regime.” And here is a quote by Yaroslav Stetsko, a Bandera and Melnik accomplice: “I therefore support the destruction of the Jews and the expedience of bringing German methods of exterminating Jewry to Ukraine, barring their assimilation and the like.”

In fact, there was a massive effort to exterminate, burn and bury, without any burials or markers, Jews in Nazi-occupied Ukraine, and these inhuman heroes were proactive in assisting this effort. About 1.4 million people perished this way.

What kind of heroes was Mikhail Brodsky referring to?

German society of the late 1920s and early 1930s was also searching for its identity and heroes. Instead of humanism, a great tradition in German culture, it chose two words: blood and soil (Blut und Boden). And the heroes lived up to this slogan by initiating the Holocaust, creating concentration camps, and killing women, infants and the elderly. For the next 90 years, Germany tried to wash itself clean of this identity. But this is something that leaves a permanent stain.

If Mikhail Brodsky believes that Kiev has the right to these heroes and identity, this is the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s business.

No one has the right to have such heroes. These were not heroes, but demons, and this was not an identity, but a disgrace for the people of Ukraine. This is an act of glorifying Nazism.

As for the idea that there is nothing anyone can do about it, how blasphemous of him to say that! This was the logic of those who sponsored Hitler in the 1930s. Most of them were Anglo-Saxons, by the way.

If this was the logic of Soviet soldiers, Brodsky would not have existed today, and there would be no memory of the Holocaust to preserve either.

In one of his songs, Vladimir Vysotsky wrote: “But our squadron commander corrected its course, as his boots sent the Urals spinning.” This meant the Soviet soldiers changed the course of history and enabled humankind to recover its true face. But this did not last, as it turns out. Here we go, all over again.

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey #Lavrov’s interview with the Znaniye Society on the sidelines of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum

Key talking points:

🔹 The exasperation with which the #West is telling everyone to punish the Russian Federation and not to talk with us betrays its realisation of the fact that there will never again be such a thing as a unipolar world. The convulsions that we are now witnessing, the agony to some extent, could last for many years. I see this as a historical era of transition to a multipolar world.

🔹 Statistics shows that one in every four countries in the world is under sanctions, primarily sanctions imposed by the US, Europe, and those who collaborate with them. Currently, there is a movement towards isolation from these risks in order to continue trading, investing, promoting economic ties, and creating joint ventures and logistics chains in such a way as to obviate dependence on the West-controlled structures and mechanisms. Objectively, this process is laying the foundation of #multipolarity.

🔹 If all states comply with the requirements of the #UNCharter, the role of the United Nations is far from being exhausted. It would be enhanced if all states were guided by the principles of the UN Charter.

🔹 The voices demanding that the West pay for 500 years of its rule and global dominance are becoming louder. Unfortunately, it continues to act in an absolutely colonial way.

🔹 It is impossible to kill Russian culture no matter how hard one might try to do so. Such attempts are made by people who have no culture of conduct and co-existence in our world, who do not truly represent their nations. Look at who heads the European Union now.

Read in full👉 https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1888902/

⚡️Russian MFA Spox Maria Zakharova on organ harvesting in Ukraine:

💬On December 16, 2021, the Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament] adopted Law No. 5831 Regulating the Issue of Transplantation of Humans Anatomical Materials, which lifted the requirement for a written and notarised consent for a transplant surgery by a living donor or his/her relatives. Do you see what this was done for, how this law is being used now and for what purpose? There is no need to notarise a donor’s signature.

❗️Moreover, they have permitted the removal of children’s organs. The procedure for removing organs from the dead who did not sign an organ donation consent has been simplified and formalised. <...> A consent for the removal of tissues and organs from a dead body can now be issued by a person who is responsible for the burial. <...> For example, a chief hospital physician or a miliary unit commander can give this consent. Not only state but also private hospitals are allowed to conduct transplant operations.

⁉️ Do you understand what this means?

Read in full👉 https://is.gd/aPLboe

🗓 On June 22, Russian Ministry of Energy 🇷🇺 took part in the 14th #ASEAN-Russia Senior Officials' Meeting on Energy (#SOME-Russia) in Jakarta 🇮🇩.

🔹️The meeting approved the ASEAN-Russia Work Plan on Energy Cooperation for 2023-2025 that outlines specific steps aimed at intensifying substantive interaction between Russia and ASEAN Member States in six areas: oil and natural gas; coal and clean coal technologies; electric power; nuclear energy, renewable energy, alternative and low-carbon energy technologies.

🔹️Parties also discussed new projects under the ASEAN-Russia Dialogue Partnership Financial Fund tabled by the Russian side.

#ASEANRussia #RussiaASEAN #SOME

Embassy Comment on SPIEF-2023

On June 14-17, 2023, Saint Petersburg hosted the 26th International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

On the background of growing sanctions pressure and the campaign led by the US and their satellites to isolate Russia, SPIEF confirmed its status of a flagship event of congress and exhibition activities on a global scale. Success of the forum clearly showed that a new block of countries seeking for sovereignty, is ready to build bridges of mutual understanding and cooperation all over the world.

Over 17 thousand people were guests of SPIEF-2023 from 130 countries. The largest delegations arrived from the UAE, China, India, Myanmar, Kazakhstan, Cuba and the USA. Business was represented by 6 thousand participants from more than 3 thousand companies from 75 countries and territories. The delegation of the UAE that received the honorary status of guest country this year, was headed by President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The presidents of Algeria, Armenia and South Ossetia, Vice Premiers from Azerbaijan, Abkhazia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Cuba, Myanmar and Uzbekistan were also among the distinguished guests of the forum. 32 ministers from foreign states and 52 heads of diplomatic missions attended the event.

Over 200 events were included in the SPIEF-2023 program. They were grouped in five thematic blocks: "The World Economy at a Global Turning Point"; "Building Technological Sovereignty": "Russian Economy: From Adaptation to Growth"; "Protecting the Population and Quality of Life as the Main Priority"; "The Labour Market: A Response to the New Challenges".

The central event was the Plenary Session (June 16) with the participation of V.V.Putin, President of the Russian Federation. In his keynote speech, the Russian President highlighted successful adaptation of the country's economy to the new geopolitical reality after February 2022. Despite huge external pressure, “plunder reminiscent of the Middle Ages” launched by the West in regard to the Russian foreign exchange reserves, Moscow managed to preserve economic stability of the country, prevent the growth of inflation (2.9% in 2022) and reduce unemployment to the lowest level in history (3.3%).

The President confirmed that Russia would keep the course to open economy and continue to strengthen economic ties with promising global markets. The volume of commodity turnover with a number of such countries has already increased several times in the recent months. Concerning the current state of the global financial system, V.V.Putin pointed out that Russia does not seek for de-dollarization of the world economy. Reduction in the share of the dollar in payments around the world is a reflection of objective tendency for the strengthening of multi-polarity.

Significant progress in the use of national currencies in foreign trade has been reached with the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) - 90% of payments are made in rubles; with China - more than 80%) in rubles and renminbi. The Russian leadership set an objective to create a model of the economy which does not just respond to external and internal challenges, but also generates demand itself (“supply economy").

A keynote of the entire agenda of the forum were the ideas of building a multi-faceted sovereignty in Russia, as well as fostering a new fairer multipolar world order despite active opposition from the West.

During the year of Russia’s chair in the EAEU, a number of meetings at the forum were devoted to the sectoral aspects of integration processes. The important role of trade agreements of the EAEU with "non-bloc" partners for building an effective external integration contour was noted.

At the session on promotion of Russia’s contribution to the Official development assistance, it was stated that the Russian mechanism, unlike the Western model, is aimed at strengthening national development strategies of the partner countries and does not set a primary goal of achieving national military and political priorities or getting economic advantages.

The session "The Language of Diplomacy in a Multipolar World" with a written address to it by Sergey Lavrov, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, was useful for domestic and foreign audience. It analyzed modern realities based on a historical retrospective, set the tasks of diplomacy for building a fair and democratic world order.

SPIEF-2023 hosted a number of country and regional business dialogues on relevant issues of world politics and economy: "Russia-UAE", "Russia-Algeria", "Russia-India", "Russia-China", "Russia-Kyrgyzstan", "Russia-Arab world", "EAEU-ASEAN", "Russia-Latin America".

The business results of the forum were also impressive. More than 900 agreements for a total amount of 3.86 trillion rubles were signed (according to open data that do not comprise a trade secret).

In general, the discussions at SPIEF-2023 confirmed the failure of attempts to isolate Russia on the international arena. Russia has preserved its status of a reliable constructive partner for all forces standing for the development of equal interaction, building of a fair world in which there is no room for the “right of the strong”, dictate and arm-twisting.