🎙Interview of the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to ASEAN H.E. Mr. Evgeny Zagaynov 🇷🇺 to RT (March 29, 2024) during the Memorial ceremony in Jakarta 🇮🇩 organized by the Russian Embassy in Indonesia and Indonesian NGOs for the victims of the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack.

Excerpts from the interview of the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to ASEAN H.E. Mr. Evgeny Zagaynov 🇷🇺 to RT (March 29, 2024).

💬 On Tuesday, ASEAN Foreign Ministers issued a statement in which #ASEAN condemned in the strongest possible terms the barbaric terrorist attack in Krasnogorsk and extended its deepest sympathy and condolences to the bereaved families of the victims, the people and the Government of the Russian Federation.

It fully supported the efforts of the Government of the Russian Federation in addressing the situation and bringing the perpetrators to justice.

🤝 We highly appreciate this act of solidarity of our ASEAN partners, and especially the efforts of the Chair - the Lao PDR 🇱🇦.

Besides this consensus position that united ASEAN Member States, all of them conveyed bilaterally their messages of solidarity and support.

❗️We are ready to stand together with our ASEAN partners in fighting the absolute evil of terrorism.

🔹️Russia has been steadily developing Strategic Partnership with ASEAN in all dimensions. Security cooperation, including fighting the terrorist threats, is of special importance for both sides.

🔹️In late April, Saint Petersburg will host the next round of ASEAN-Russia Consultations of the High Representatives for Security Issues. This truly unique mechanism allows discussing a wide range of security issues, and combating terrorism is one of them.

🔹️Moreover, we have another special format - the ASEAN-Russia Joint Working Group on Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime, which is going to meet just in a few days on April 3. It will provide an opportunity to discuss how to collectively prevent and combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

🔹️Experts from ASEAN Member States' law-enforcement agencies on a regular basis participate in training courses organized by Russia 🇷🇺 annually.

🎙 Briefing by Russia's MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (Moscow, March 27, 2024)

📰 Read in full: http://tiny.cc/plukxz
📺 Watch in full: http://tiny.cc/rlukxz

***

#CrocusCityHall

• Ignoring this “dancing on the graves” organised by Ukrainian propagandists, people from all continents are extending their heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of the victims, wishing a speedy recovery to the injured and strongly condemning this terrible attack against innocent civilians.
🕯 The Foreign Ministry’s Telegram channel (http://tiny.cc/k5vkxz) features images capturing impromptu memorials, videos, summary clips, and more.
• We thank those who have not remained indifferent.

#KievRegimeCrimes

❗️ In the past, the Ukrainian special services, such as the Security Service of Ukraine and the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, have repeatedly admitted publicly to preparing and committing high-profile terrorist attacks against Russia and its citizens.

🎙 Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's interview with Izvestia MIC (March 28, 2024)

Key talking points:

• The West tries hard to convince everyone that ISIS is behind [the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack] & there is apparently no point in suspecting anyone else, above all... Ukraine. They mention that country directly & regularly to the point of becoming obsessive.

• We will wait for the investigation to complete before drawing final conclusions. <...> The West is suspiciously assertive as it tries to convince us, not only publicly but also in their contacts with our diplomatic missions, that we should not suspect Ukraine, without explaining why.

• The US sent us these signals [regarding talks on strategic stability]. <...> We explained that it was impossible to talk about strategic stability in a situation when we were declared a strategic enemy that needed to be “strategically defeated.”

• The irreparable confidence of the US in its own righteousness, omnipotence and impunity has led to the fact that the US foreign policy is now led by people who do not know how to do diplomacy.

• You know that European ambassadors have refused to attend a meeting with me. <...> We have notified them that, from now on, we will consider every request for meetings with Russian authorities at all levels, on a case-by-case basis to decide if we want to hold such meetings or not.

• Globalisation, which the Americans forced on everyone based on their own terms, has shown that nobody can set it hopes or rely on the US. It can weaponize the dollar, terminate contracts regardless of the presumption of innocence and the inviolability of property.

• If [the West] comes to its senses & sees that it is no longer possible to act as the neo-colonial power, & that there are new centres of power it must respect, it will be able to join these processes [of regionalisation of global development and revival of the global process] on the basis of equality, respect for each other and a balance of interests.

Read in full👉 https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1941530/

⚡️ The brutal terrorist attack committed in Krasnogorsk on March 22, which shocked the whole world, is far from the first act of terrorism targeting our country in recent time. The investigative actions carried out by the competent authorities in Russia indicate that the trails of all these crimes lead to Ukraine.

Other barbaric bomb attacks took the lives of journalists Darya Dugina and Maxim Fomin (Vladlen Tatarsky), seriously injured writer Yevgeny “Zakhar” Prilepin and killed his driver, Alexander Shubin; five people were killed by an explosion of the Crimean Bridge, and 42 were wounded in an explosion in a café in St Petersburg. The killing and mutilation of civilians, including children, was accompanied by raids by the terrorist organisation known as Russian Volunteer Corps.

❗️ In this regard, the Russian Foreign Ministry has put forward a demand for the Ukrainian authorities, under the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings and the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism to immediately arrest and extradite every person implicated in the above terrorist acts.

One of the demands is to arrest head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Vasily Malyuk, who cynically admitted on March 25 that Ukraine was behind the bombing of the Crimean Bridge in October 2022 and revealed details of the organisation of other attacks in the Russian Federation.

☝️ The fight against international terrorism is the responsibility of every state. The Russian side demands that the Kiev regime immediately cease any support for terrorist activities, extradite the perpetrators and compensate for the damage caused to the victims. Ukraine’s violation of its obligations under the antiterrorist conventions will entail international legal liability.

🔗 http://tiny.cc/k8plxz

Information about the new season of the VYZOV Prize for future technologies

We are pleased to inform you that the VYZOV Foundation has started accepting applications for the VYZOV Prize for future technologies.
This VYZOV Prize is designed to recognize fundamental breakthroughs, ideas, and inventions that are changing the landscape of modern science and the lives of every single person. The Prize aspires to encourage the new generation to pursue science and technology.
"Vyzov" means "challenge" in Russian. VYZOV Foundation is a private, independent, non-governmental body, co-founder of the VYZOV Prize for future technologies.
There are five categories of the Prize – four of them are focused on Russia-based scientists. We want to draw your attention to the Discovery category, created in 2024 and open to scientists based in any country, without restrictions on nationality. Discovery is an international nomination, an award for international scientists and research teams credited with making an important discovery that has influenced the development of science and technology. The Prize is given to currently active scientists, for achievements made preferably (but not exclusively) during the last 10 years.
VYZOV Foundation allows three ways to be nominated:
· self-nomination;
· nomination by any colleague;
· nomination by any scientific organization (university, research institute, etc).
Each Award amounts to 10 million Russian rubles (equivalent to ca 110 thousand US dollars).
Applications are accepted from March 3 to May 20, 2024.
More information and nomination forms can be found at: https://vyzovaward.com/en/
VYZOV Foundation encourages scientists from all over the world to apply to push the boundaries of science
and technology for a brighter future together!

Ambassador's Comment

I read another publication by Jonathan Eyal in the Straits Times newspaper, entitled “Nato at 75 is a bigger club but its biggest tests are yet to come.”

Strictly speaking, the impression is painful.

We share the author’s only feeling – there is a crisis of NATO in the year of the alliance’s 75th anniversary.

I have already addressed this topic in my comment dated March 25, 2024.

Let's add a little here. Let's say frankly that all of NATO's problems stem from its own destructive and confrontational nature, which, instead of the promised peace and stability, has brought nothing but suffering and bloodshed to the peoples of Europe and the world. And the current state of affairs on the continent testifies to this. It became the apogee of the hybrid war unleashed against Russia, first with the help of the Kiev Nazis, and then with the participation of other accomplices, relying on the political, military and economic resources of the alliance, the supply of weapons and other equipment. Allegations that NATO's eastward expansion was a response to Russian expansionism are completely groundless. It was the Russian side that initiated the establishment of relations with NATO, giving them a legal basis in the form of the Russia-NATO Founding Act, it was Russia that sought to resolve European security problems on an integrated and indivisible basis, and it was NATO that undermined all these plans, welcoming new members despite the assurances repeatedly given to Moscow about the absence of enlargement intentions.

What is alarming is that the sad experience of NATO’s existence and activities in Europe, which essentially turned the dream of a pan-European home into ruins, is now tried to be reproduced in the Asia-Pacific region, introducing the bloc’s aggressive potential there. We are essentially talking about a kind of NATO 2.0 under the guise of Indo-Pacific strategies. Under this umbrella, numerous minilateral structures such as the Washington-Tokyo-Seoul triangle and the like, the notorious Asia-Pacific Four, AUKUS, Quad are already gathering, framed by the growing military activity of NATO powers in the region and accompanied by the preparation of the anniversary NATO summit in the summer of 2024 in the United States.

We are convinced that the confrontational logic that has led NATO to a dead end in Europe will not lead to different consequences in Asia and the Pacific, depriving the peoples of this vast region of the right to a calm, peaceful life.

We are confident that in order to prevent a confrontational or destabilizing scenario from coming true, the countries of the region need to join hands more closely and actively search for a creative alternative to the military threat. There is good experience for this, gained through an inclusive, non-confrontational regional architecture around ASEAN, which the West and its NATO segment are trying to destroy with all their might. In addition to the experience created on the ASEAN platform, there are other fruitful ideas, such as the Russian concept of the Greater Eurasian Partnership, connecting rather than dividing the countries of the Asia-Pacific region; creating the basis for cooperation rather than confrontation; aimed at the future, not the past.

We highly recommend that readers of the Straits Times read our proposals contained in many speeches by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Then the future will appear in a different positive light, and the ghosts that bother the author of the article will take their appropriate place in the museum of antiquity.

🇷🇺 The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation:

⚖️ A procedural examination has been initiated in response to an appeal from State Duma deputies concerning terrorist activities against Russia.

Following a review of the appeal submitted by State Duma deputies Andrey Krasov, Nikolai Kharitonov, Yana Lantratova, as well as public figures Alexander Dugin and Andrey Derkach, regarding the necessity of investigating into the organisation, financing, and execution of terrorist attacks orchestrated by the United States, Ukraine, and other Western nations against Russia, a procedural examination has been launched at the central office of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation.

🔍 During the examination, the investigation will meticulously analyse the provided information and make a procedural decision.

О встрече заместителя Министра иностранных дел Российской Федерации А.Ю.Руденко с постоянным секретарем МИД Республики Сингапур Альбертом Чуа

1 апреля заместитель Министра иностранных дел Российской Федерации А.Ю.Руденко встретился в Сингапуре с постоянным секретарем Министерства иностранных дел Республики Сингапур А.Чуа.

Обсужден широкий круг актуальных вопросов двусторонней повестки дня с упором на вопросы практического сотрудничества. Призвали сингапурских партнеров пересмотреть свою нынешнюю линию на присоединение к незаконным антироссийским санкциям, которая является главным препятствием наращивания российско-сингапурского взаимодействия в различных областях.

Состоялся полезный обмен мнениями по ключевым международным и региональным темам, включая обстановку в Азиатско-Тихоокеанском регионе, палестино-израильский конфликт. Были детально изложены российские подходы к развитию ситуации вокруг Украины.

https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/1942160/

Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s comment on the occasion of the second anniversary of the staged Bucha massacre

https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/1942147/?lang=en

April 3 marks two years since the Zelensky regime and its Western handlers staged a bloody mass murder of the people in the town of Bucha, Kiev Region, allegedly by Russian servicemen, which turned out to be a botched job. However, following the guidelines provided to them and failing to even make an attempt to double-check the facts and establish the actual state of affairs, Western politicians and the media scrambled to spread this falsehood.

This provocation was a put-up job and a staged provocation which was clear from the onset. The Russian side has refuted these allegations many times. We will now refute them once again. During the time the Russian Armed Forces were in Bucha until March 30, 2022, its residents moved freely around the town and used mobile phones and the internet. There were no complaints about the Russian servicemen’s actions during that period, which was publicly confirmed by the mayor of the town, Anatoly Fedoruk, the day after our units left that town. Moreover, during the time they were in Bucha, Russian servicemen brought 452 tonnes of humanitarian aid for the people in the Kiev Region’s towns and villages.

The first footage showing bodies strewn across the town appeared only after the Ukrainian armed forces and foreign journalists entered the town. Importantly, these were not criminalists or forensic experts, but biased media members, whose role was to tell the public a fabricated story and not to ask unnecessary questions.

The first findings of the forensic examination of the bodies found in Bucha, which were published in the British The Guardian on April 24, 2022, showed that most of the civilians died as a result of artillery shelling from fragments of anti-personnel 122-mm shells, which fit the D-30 howitzers in service of the Ukrainian forces, which confirms the fact that these people were killed not by bullets from small arms allegedly used by Russian servicemen, but as a result of the Ukrainian army’s artillery strikes targeting Bucha.

The propaganda-driven disinformation campaign in Bucha came as a response to our goodwill gesture to withdraw troops from the Kiev and Chernigov regions which was made in the wake of progress at the Russian-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul on March 28, 2022. Clearly, the goal of this campaign was to disrupt the dialogue between the parties and to launch a package of pre-arranged Western sanctions on Russia at the behest of London.

Subsequently, Kiev held multiple events inspired by the “Bucha massacre” in order to distract the international community’s attention from its own crimes and inconsistencies of the provocation it had staged, and to spread the fake theory about the town residents allegedly killed by the Russian military among the public in Western countries. This year, the Kiev officials’ attempts to make a big event out of this anniversary have an extra goal of preventing the international community from focusing on the challenging situation in Ukraine and on the line of contact.

Multiple requests that Russia sent to international organisations, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, to establish the circumstances of the incident and to provide an accurate list of the persons whose bodies were found on the streets of Bucha, as well as other information, remain unanswered. This shows that the organisers of this heinous act have things to hide.

Once again, we demand that international agencies stop covering up for the Kiev regime and ensure a thorough investigation that will finally reveal the names of the victims, the time and the cause of their death, the signs of the bodies having been moved from one place to another, and the individuals responsible for this terrifying crime by the Kiev authorities.

🎙 Excerpts from the interview with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for Izvestia MIC:

🔹 Today, we see the regionalisation of global development. Every region and every country would like to be able to rely on its neighbours, to see what they can do together, among themselves, without depending on the logistics, financial and other instruments which the #West still controls.

🔹 We are paying more attention to our common Eurasian continent, where we have CSTO, #EAEU, and SCO. These organisations are establishing partner relations with other organisations in that part of the world, like #ASEAN, the Arab League, and the GCC. At the same time, we are developing ties with the African Union. <...> We are doing the same in Latin America. We have many partners there.

🔹 We have already dispelled all the far-fetched aspirations that Russia can be isolated by holding the Games of the Future and the World Youth Festival.

Read in full👉 https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1941530/

#Opinion by Russian MFA Spox Maria Zakharova

💬 President of the International Olympic Committee Thomas Bach made a telltale admission to pranksters.

This is what he said:

“Now those who support [the Russian Government] cannot take part [in the Olympic Games]. We have a special review panel at the level of the IOC which is working with an independent company, and they are monitoring the internet, media and public declarations. So, if an athlete said something somewhere, he won’t be able to take part in the Games. We also offered the Ukrainian side, and not only offered but asked them to provide us with their knowledge about behaviour of such athletes or officials. And they cannot take part [in the Games].”

Thomas Bach entered into a political, administrative and apparently criminal conspiracy with one particular side to remove strong sports rivals at international competitions.

His relations with the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine and its officials and his admission about the request to watch Russian athletes must be subjected to thorough investigation.

Such behind-the-scenes agreements based on the good old German tradition of snitching are giving a new look at the scandal fuelled by the same Germans – German “investigators” of the doping scandal which unfairly kicked many Russian athletes off the sports track.

☝️ I hope international sports journalists will not ignore this egregious situation. It seems to me it is a Watergate for the IOC as a whole and personally for Bach.

🔗 https://t.me/MFARussia/19737

⚡️ The Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation strongly condemns the attempts of external interference in the preparation and organization of presidential elections in the Russian Federation, which had begun even before the elections were officially scheduled.

The interference attempts, mostly coordinated by Washington, were made in several directions, including:

adoption in October 2023 by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe of the resolution questioning not only the presidential elections, but also the Constitution of the Russian Federation with amendments approved during the national vote on 1 July 2020,

public statements by senior Western politicians, including the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola, regarding the non-recognition of the results of the election of the president of the Russian Federation, which were made prior to the start of voting,

statements by Western politicians and foreign media based on the data obtained mainly from foreign agents included in a relevant register by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, on more than 1.5 thousand alleged election violations, of which upon scrutiny only two percent were confirmed, and which could not have any bearing on results of the elections,

attempts at creating an illegal digital platform for holding fake "alternative" elections of the president of the Russia Federation from abroad,

violation of the legislative ban on election campaigning on voting days, namely through a protest action at noon on 17 March 2024 that was orchestrated from abroad,

spreading calls for illegal actions at polling stations from abroad, including via social networks, which provoked gross violations of the legislation in a number of Russian regions, such as setting on fire ballot boxes or spilling coloring substances on voting ballots thus spoiling them,

creation by authority officials in unfriendly States of artificial obstacles to the voting of citizens of the Russian Federation abroad,

attempts to put external pressure on the election officials, including the intimidation of the electoral commission members by adding them to the unlawful sanctions lists of a number of countries,

organizing and carrying out more than 12 million cyber-attacks against the Russian Federation Central Election Commission official website, including DDoS attacks,

hampering the arrival in Russia of invited foreign (international) observers.

The Kiev regime, incited by its NATO sponsors, also took actions to disrupt the elections of the president of the Russian Federation. Ukraine's armed formations shelled polling stations in the Russian Federation border regions, actively used unmanned aerial vehicles carrying explosives that were targeted against civilian infrastructure in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation during the election period, and carried out attempts of an armed breakthrough to the territory of the Kursk and Belgorod regions, which were steadfastly rebuffed. As a result of these criminal actions, civilians, including children, were killed.

The day after the results of the election of the president of the Russian Federation President's elections were counted a bloody terrorist act was committed by foreign nationals at the Crocus City Concert Hall (Krasnogorsk, Moscow Region), which resulted in the death of more than one hundred and forty people.

Thus, it can be stated that the generally recognized principles and norms of the international law, the Charter of the United Nations, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 16 December 1966, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 10 December 1948, the Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of Their Independence and Sovereignty 21 December 1965 were grossly violated.

The senators of the Russian Federation welcome the position of the international majority that refused to support the statement, initiated by the United States of America and its satellites condemning the organization of the elections of the President of the Russian Federation.

The Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation calls on the United Nations, international parliamentary organizations and parliaments of foreign States to condemn the actions of the collective West that are coordinated by Washington, interfere in the preparation and organization of the elections of the president of the Russian Federation, obstruct the free expression of the will of Russian citizens, and encourage terrorism and extremism in order to destabilize the situation in Russia during the election campaign.

🔗 https://telegra.ph/Appeal-of-the-Federation-Council-of-the-Federal-Assembly-of-the-Russian-Federation-to-the-United-Nations-international-parliamen-04-03

#Antifake

❌FAKE: Russian intelligence is injuring Western diplomats with a secret acoustic weapon that causes "Havana Syndrome". This fake was disseminated by Western media.

✅FACTS: It would be nice to say that the news about the "secret acoustic weapon" is just an April Fool's joke, but unfortunately too many conspiracy theorists believe it. So many, in fact, that both Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (https://vk.cc/cvV4Tp) and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had to make statements (https://vk.cc/cvV4IQ) saying that the U.S. intelligence community had not drawn any conclusions about Russia's involvement in cases of "Havana Syndrome".

The symptoms of "Havana Syndrome" have been repeatedly analyzed by medical commissions. The main conclusion reached by experts (https://vk.cc/cvV4Uj) is that "the syndrome is caused by a unique combination of characteristics that cannot be explained by known environmental or medical conditions and may be caused by external irritants".

In March 2023, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a report (https://vk.cc/cvV4ZZ) stating that it was "highly unlikely" that Havana Syndrome was caused by the influence of a foreign adversary.

Simply put, the reason (https://vk.cc/cvV50r) for the poor health of diplomats may be factors of their immediate work - frequent climate change, constant stress and individual characteristics of a person.

However, medical findings have never been an obstacle for those who want to demonize Russia. Information about the "evil Russians" began to spread through the American channel CBS, which cited as evidence e-mails from some high-ranking representatives of the Russian Security Council. The CBS "expert" is Christo Grozev, who is recognized as a foreign agent in Russia and was previously exposed for his links to British intelligence.

🔗 https://vk.cc/cvV549