✍️ Russia's President Vladimir Putin sent greeting to the participants, organisers, and guests of the 27th St Petersburg International Economic Forum, which will take place in St Petersburg on June 5–8, 2024 (May 27, 2024)

✉️ For more than a quarter of a century, the Forum has provided an opportunity for politicians, experts, business leaders, academics, and media professionals from around the world to hold in-depth discussions on key economic development trends in Russia and the world. Participants in plenary sessions, roundtables and panel discussions exchange views on ways to promote international cooperation, encourage scientific and technological progress and the development of human capital, and to effectively tackle the challenges we face.

The theme of the current meeting, The Foundations of a Multipolar World – The Formation of New Areas of Growth, is highly relevant and meaningful. A growing part of the international community is in favour of building a just and democratic system of international relations based on the principles of genuine equality, consideration for each other’s legitimate interests, and respect for the cultural and civilisational diversity of nations.

It is precisely these principles that underpin the activities of #BRICS, which Russia is chairing this year. It is symbolic that the history of this dynamically developing association, whose members already account for more than a third of the global economy, began at the 10th St Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2006.

🤝 Our country is open to constructive dialogue and interaction with partners and is ready to work together to address the economic, social, scientific and technological challenges of our time.

I am confident that the Forum will jump-start new and promising initiatives and projects, fostering mutually beneficial cooperation between our countries and peoples.

#SPIEF2024

🗓 On May 23-24, Moscow hosted the #ASEAN Regional Forum’s third security workshop aimed at combating the use of information and communications technologies (#ICT) for criminal purposes.

Co-chaired by the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China, and the Kingdom of Thailand, the workshop was attended by over 300 experts from law enforcement agencies, foreign ministries, and academic and business circles of ASEAN countries, East Timor, India, Mongolia and North Korea, as well as specialists from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

🔹 The participants exchanged views and shared best practices on countering terrorism and extremism on the internet, ICT-aided trafficking of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, and online fraud.
🔹 They considered various aspects of utilising advanced technologies, including AI, to combat cybercrime and protect personal data.
🔹 A focus was placed on building up efforts to implement the mandate of the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes.

🤝 Russia, together with its ARF partners, intends to continue holding annual workshops on international cooperation in fighting the use of ICT for criminal purposes to enhance the capabilities of nations in the Asia Pacific Region.

💬 Russia's President Vladimir Putin to President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev at the start of a bilateral meeting:

Mr President, thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to bring such a representative delegation to Uzbekistan. <...> It emphasises the special nature of our strategic partnership and allied relations.

The growth rate of our economic ties is truly impressive. According to your data, the growth was around 30 percent last year. Our statistics show a slightly lower figure, but on the whole, Russia accounts for 15.5 percent of your trade, and this is a significant result. I am confident it will continue to grow, given the current pace: according to our strict statistics, the performance for the first quarter of this year is over 20 percent, which is quite good.

🤝 Thanks to your efforts and those of the Government of Uzbekistan, our trade and economic ties are being diversified and have a good outlook for the future, particularly in industrial cooperation and high technologies. This is of utmost importance. Traditional aspects of cooperation are also being maintained at a high level and are developing rapidly.

You mentioned the forum of the regions, and I believe it is a very important initiative. The key in this regard, as you just mentioned, is not to make things difficult but to create favourable conditions. We will strive to do that, and Russia is committed to this goal. I know that you have the same intention, and I am confident that this will give an impetus to the development of our trade, economic and humanitarian ties. There is no doubt about that.

#RussiaUzbekistan

🎙 FM Sergey Lavrov’s answers to media questions of the Moscow. Kremlin. Putin TV programme (May 26, 2024)

❓ Question: The US & Western elites can't help but realise they're impacting our vital root interests, & that what's happening today has always been unthinkable. Why are they doing this?

💬 Sergey Lavrov: They have realised that it's their goal to prevent Russia from becoming stronger & to contain our country; they're talking seriously that it's necessary to “decolonise” Russia, i.e. to “dismember” it. This is their strategic objective.

They started acting this way after we showed that we'll not put up with this & would not allow them to use Ukraine as a direct threat to our security & as a tool for destroying all things Russian on historical Russian territories. <…>

❓ Question: Do they believe that, by pitting 2 nations against each other & unleashing hostilities between 2 neighbouring nations with blood ties, they'd force us to quarrel for decades & to drift apart? Is this their goal?

💬 Sergey Lavrov: It appears that it is their goal. They have been doing this for over 20 years, if not 30 years, right after the breakup of the USSR. Their goal was to destroy all things Russian, including the Russian language, & to establish their influence over this territory that they wanted to take over. There were plans to establish military bases on the ground & on the Sea of Azov. They also seriously wanted to stake a claim in Crimea.

As usual, the people of Russia rallied, as it always happens when they wake up the Russian bear. <…>

As it often happens with Western strategists, the West has obtained a diametrically opposite result.

❓ Question: The West is making more & more bellicose statements at all levels. Russia is voicing a more specific & cool-headed position. What are the chances that they'll unwittingly cross a boundary when their actions would cause Russia to retaliate & hit them hard?

💬 Sergey Lavrov: I can assure you that they will be unable to unwittingly cross this boundary.

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📅 The Treaty of Jassy was concluded at the end of the Russian-Turkish war in 1791 and through it the entire Northern Black Sea coast was formally recognised as part of the Russian Empire.

In a push to create a port for military and commercial needs on the newly acquired lands, on May 27, 1794, Empress Catherine the Great issued a rescript on founding a city and a harbour on the site of the town of Khadjibey. On August 22, 1794, the first piles were driven into the site that will become Odessa in the future.

The great grandnephew of the famous French cardinal, Duke Armand Richelieu, who had been in the service of the Russian imperial court for many years, played a major role in developing that city. During the Napoleonic invasion, he addressed the people of Odessa calling upon them to give a strong rebuff to the invaders.

☝️ Hero of the Patriotic War of 1812 and Foreign Campaigns of the Russian Army Count Mikhail Vorontsov did much for the city. He turned Odessa into the main trading outpost in southern Russia.

Outstanding Russian writers, artists, musicians and true heroes of the Motherland lived in Odessa in different periods of time. However, today, the regime that took power as a result of the coup in Ukraine is trying to destroy their traces in the history of the city.

In 2014, Odessa residents openly opposed the neo-Nazis who seized power in Kiev. However, radicals drowned in blood the freedom-loving Russian-speaking Odessa on May 2, 2014. Since then, the terror unleashed by the nationalists against proud Odessa residents and all other dissenting residents of Ukraine has been intensifying.

💬 Excerpt from a comment by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on marking 10 years since the May 2, 2014, tragedy in Odessa:

We are confident that the day when Odessa will throw off the yoke of the neo-Banderites and once again become a truly free city and home to people of different ethnicities who will live in peace and accord is not far off.

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🇷🇺🇺🇿 President Putin's remarks at the beginning of Russia-Uzbekistan talks in expanded format (Tashkent, May 27, 2024)

Key points:

• Uzbekistan is our strategic partner and reliable ally. Our close, friendly relations are on the rise, developing dynamically based on the principles of equality, mutual respect and consideration of each other’s interests.

• I would like to note that Russia is one of Uzbekistan’s leading trade partners. The volume of bilateral trade is growing rapidly. It is also worth mentioning that, due to your position, we are creating favourable conditions for direct investment, resulting in increasing direct Russian investment in Uzbekistan each year. Today, it has already reached an impressive figure of almost US$10 billion.

• About 3,000 enterprises with Russian capital operate in Uzbekistan, while about 700 companies with Uzbek capital are active in Russia. We are witnessing positive trends in trade and investment.

• Work is underway on several major infrastructure projects in priority economic areas, such as the creation of a metallurgical cluster and a gas chemical complex, a copper concentration facility, and more.

• The flagship projects are receiving financial support from leading Russian lending organisations, including the VEB state development corporation, Gazprombank and others.

• Uzbekistan ranks among the top CIS countries in terms of the number of students studying in Russian universities – over 63,000, with about 14,000 of them studying free of charge.

📄 Read in full

#RussiaUzbekistan

🎙 Briefing by MFA Spox Maria Zakharova (May 23, 2024)

🔹 Russia's #CIS Chairmanship events
🔹 #AfricaDay
🔹 Ukrainian crisis
🔹 Situation in Moldova
🔹 EU’s denial of their statements about the necessity to defeat Russia “on the battlefield”
🔹 German authorities refuse to officially recognise crimes against humanity, perpetrated by the Third Reich in the USSR
🔹 Norway restricted entry rules for Russian citizens

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📺 Watch

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#EU #DoubleStandards

It’s hard to believe, but EU members are now claiming they never expressed a desire to defeat Russia “on the battlefield.” They assert that anyone referencing such statements is supposedly misleading the public.

Official Brussels asserts that the EU maintains a supposedly peaceful stance regarding the Ukraine conflict. This position involves direct fabrications & manipulations, which have become a hallmark of EU diplomacy. For instance, during a European Commission press briefing on May 13, 2024, when a journalist inquired about the EU’s intention to resolve the conflict on the battlefield, the spokesperson, Eric Mamer, responded with a question: “Who started this war, who wants to resolve this on the battlefield? It’s Russia, it’s not the EU.”

The internet remembers everything, & so do we. That’s where we get direct quotes.

#Germany #LeningradBlockade

German authorities stubbornly refuse to officially recognise crimes against humanity, perpetrated by the Third Reich in the USSR during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, as acts of genocide, primarily the siege of Leningrad. This ensues from the recent reply by the German MFA to a respective demand from the Russian side.

The German side is displaying open hypocrisy & duplicity. I believe that it violates everything, including ethics, morals & legality. Earlier, the German side confirmed at political level that such terrible acts of the German state as the annihilation of the Jews during World War II & the methodical extermination of the Herero & Nama peoples in 1904-1908, amounted to acts of genocide.

Russia 🇷🇺 makes significant contribution to promotion of UNESCO #IFAP Programme priorities.

On 18–20 June, the Russian #IFAP National Committee organizes VI International Conference “Tangible and intangible impact of Information and Communication in the Digital Age” within the framework of XV International IT Forum in Khanty-Mansiysk.

The conference is organized in co-operation with the Government of Khanty-Mansiysk - Yugra and with the support of the Russian Federation Commission for UNESCO Affairs and the Permanent Delegation of the Russian Federation to UNESCO.

More than 150 experts from more than 40 countries are expected to participate in the conference.

🗓 On May 27, 1703 Peter the Great founded the Peter and Paul Fortress to protect the lands recovered during the Great Northern War. He chose the construction site — a small Zayachy Island in the mouth of the Neva.

Since that this date has been considered the day St. Petersburg was founded.

The legend says that when first Russian ships docked at the island an eagle started flying over them. Taking this as God’s blessing, Peter the Great cut two strips of turf with a trowel arranged them as a cross and “having made a cross of wood and sticking it in the turf said: ‘In the name of Jesus Christ this is the place for a church to be built in the name of supreme apostles Peter and Paul ….’”

⚔️ The fortress was founded according to the plan of Peter the Great and French engineer Joseph-Gaspard Lambert de Guerin. Six curtain walls link six powerful bastions. The defense system is closed by Ioannovsky and Alexeyevsky ravelins in the west and in the east. Two bridges, Ioannovsky and Kronverksky, connect Zayachy Island with Petrogradsky Island.

The fortress was consecrated on October 1, 1703. St Andrew’s flag was raised at the Gosudarev Bastion and 300 artillery guns were installed on the fortress walls. A small wooden church in the name of Peter and Paul was founded inside the fortress on June 29, 1703, and a stone cathedral was built in its place in 1712–1732.

☝️ Peter the Great attached great strategic importance to the city in order to secure the waterway from Russia to Western Europe. St Petersburg was the first city in Russia to develop according to a pre-designed plan.

Since 1712 the city was proclaimed the capital of Russia, which it was under different names (St Petersburg, Petrograd) for over 200 years until 1918 with a short break in 1728-1732.

👏 St Petersburg of today is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and a tourist destination for the lovers of Russian culture from all over the world: its historic centre and associated monument groups were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1990

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s answer to a question from Izvestia (Tashkent, May 27, 2024)

❓ Question: Could you comment on the decision to remove the Taliban from the list of terrorist organisations?

💬 Sergey Lavrov: The Taliban are the ones holding real power [in Afghanistan]. Just as the People’s Republic of China, we have never closed down our embassy there. The Afghan Ambassador presented his credentials to Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing along with other ambassadors. Kazakhstan has recently decided to remove them from the list of terrorist organisations. We are going to do this, too. The UN Security Council did not declare the Taliban a terrorist organisation. There are twelve to fifteen specific persons on the list.

But the main point is that they are the real power. We, like our allies in Central Asia, care about Afghanistan. This process reflects accepting reality.

🇷🇺🇺🇿 President of Russia Vladimir Putin and President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev took part in the first meeting of the Council of the Regions of the two countries (Tashkent, May 27, 2024)

Key talking points:

• Regions play a key role in strengthening relations of comprehensive strategic partnership and alliance between Russia and Uzbekistan and make a significant contribution to expanding the entire range of our relations.

• The agenda of the Council of the Regions is quite extensive. It includes such topical issues as the deepening of industrial cooperation, cooperation in agriculture, as well as introduction of innovations and digital technology.

• Overall, 78 out of the 89 constituent entities of the Russian Federation are engaged in mutually beneficial partnership with regions of Uzbekistan.

• The contractual and legal framework of interregional cooperation and interaction is being continuously expanded and supplemented. The governments of the two countries’ regions have several dozen agreements. Over 20 agreements and commercial contracts, including those aimed at developing trade and mutual investment, are ready for signing in the Council.

• To fund promising projects implemented in Uzbekistan with the participation of the two countries’ regions, they are establishing a special investment fund with a total amount of US$500 million. <...> The Russian Side is ready to put in its share that amounts to US$400 million.

• We maintain diverse regional cooperation in the cultural and humanitarian area. Every year musical festivals and concerts, theatre guest performances, film screenings and museum exhibitions take place with the regions’ participation.

• Naturally enough, the regions’ cooperation is giving an additional boost to the development of tourist exchanges between the two countries. The tourist flow doubled last year to reach 1.2 million trips. Russians are eager to visit historical and cultural centres of Uzbekistan – Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva.

📄 Read in full

#RussiaUzbekistan

According to media reports, during his speech at the Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day, US President Joe Biden stated that, during World War II, it were the American soldiers who liberated Europe and “literally saved the world.” The US leader has not uttered a word regarding the role of the Soviet Union and other countries in achieving Victory over Nazism.

Indeed, time has not been kind to the US presidents. The generation of leaders who fought in World War II, including Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, has passed away. They would have never allowed the Soviet Union’s decisive contribution to defeating the Third Reich to be ignored. They still remembered Franklin D. Roosevelt’s words of admiration and gratitude regarding the Red Army and its efforts.

Half of the contemporary US presidents suffer from historical revisionism syndrome.

Only four years ago, the leaders of Russia and the US, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, issued a Joint Statement on the 75th Anniversary of the link-up on the Elbe. At that time, they emphasised that this history-making event was the culmination of tremendous efforts of many nations who had united in line with the Declaration of the United Nations of 1942. This joint struggle required the sacrifice of millions of soldiers, sailors and civilians on numerous theatres of war.

The current US President is obviously unable to repeat the words of his predecessor, who said that we pay tribute to the valour and courage of all those who fought together to defeat Nazism, and that their heroic feat will never be forgotten.

It would be ironic to expect gratitude from those funding the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev and supplying it with weapons towards the peoples of the Soviet Union for Victory over Nazism. The current-day policy of US exceptionalism is a betrayal of America’s own antifascist past.

In these conditions, Russia demonstrates its commitment to preserving the memory of the Allied Victory (the UN often used this term at that time) in 1945. On May 9, the entire world witnessed this during the Russian President’s speech at the Victory Parade on the Red Square:

“Russia has never belittled the significance of the Second Front or that of Allied assistance. We honour the valour of all members of the Anti-Hitler Coalition, the Resistance Movement, the underground movement and guerrillas, as well as the courage displayed by the peoples of China fighting for their independence against militarist Japan's aggression. We will forever remember and we will never forget our joint struggle and the inspiring traditions of alliance.”

#NoStatuteOfLimitation #UScrimes

◾️ On May 28, 1830 the US Congress passed the infamous #IndianRemovalAct, which provided for the forced relocation of thousands of Native Americans from the wealthy southeast of the nation to the then wild lands of the Great Plains.

This campaign went in history as the #TrailOfTears — an ethnic cleansing and forced relocation of American Indians from their native lands in the southeastern United States to the Indian Territory (current-day Oklahoma). The "Five Civilized Tribes" — the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw — traversed 9 states. Thousands of the Native Americans died on the Trail: the number of casualties suffered by the Cherokee alone is in the area of ~15'000 people.

👉 Timeline of crimes committed by the United States and Great Britain

🎙 Russia's President Vladimir Putin made press statement following Russia-Uzbekistan talks (Tashkent, May 27, 2024)

Key talking points:

• We have reviewed virtually all important political, economic, cultural and humanitarian issues of Russia-Uzbekistan cooperation.

• The Joint Statement that we signed following the talks defined long-term guidelines for expanding bilateral contacts and set the corresponding goals.

• A number of intergovernmental agreements and commercial contracts were concluded during the visit. Many of them are aimed at intensifying practical cooperation primarily in the economy.

• Our countries are in the process of switching to settlements in national currencies, which we believe is vitally important. Cooperation between lending and banking institutions in financial settlements is expanding. The share of the ruble in mutual commercial transactions reached 58 percent as of late 2023 and continues to grow.

• Over 3,000 companies with Russian participation are operating on the Uzbekistan’s market, which is a good start. More broadly, Russian capital investment in Uzbekistan’s economy has exceeded US$9 billion.

• Interaction on a large-scale project to create an International North-South Transport Corridor from Russia and Belarus to the Indian Ocean coast looks promising. One of its routes will pass here, next to Uzbekistan or across the territory of Uzbekistan.

• The Russian authorities are doing and will continue to do everything necessary to ensure decent working conditions and social protection for the citizens of Uzbekistan working in Russia.

• Bilateral cultural and humanitarian ties are traditionally multifaceted. We are grateful to the leadership of the Republic of Uzbekistan for caring about the Russian language and Russian culture in general. We believe it is important that Russian is used as a language for interethnic communication in Uzbekistan.

📄 Read in full

#RussiaUzbekistan

🎙 President Putin's answer to a media question regarding the legitimacy of the current Ukrainian authorities (May 28, 2024)

💬 The Constitution of Ukraine only extends the duration of powers of the Rada [parliament]. It says nothing about extending the term of office of the president.

Ukraine's <...> martial law reads that presidential elections are not held during martial law. However, this does not mean that they are extended. <...> The Constitution says nothing about this. But Article 111 of the Constitution of Ukraine reads that in this case the powers of the supreme authority, actually the presidential powers are transferred to the Speaker of Parliament. <...>

In essence, the Ukrainian statehood is based on the idea of the parliamentary-presidential republic rather than the presidential republic. The main levers of power are concentrated in the representative state body. <...>

☝️ Therefore, speaking strictly, in a tentative estimate – I am just talking about a tentative estimate – the parliament & the Rada Speaker remain the only legitimate authorities. And so, basically, if they wanted to hold presidential election, they should have simply repealed martial law at that time & proceeded with the voting. But they did not want to do this for a number of reasons.

I think, & this is not linked with the Constitution in any way, that maybe the current bosses of Ukraine, those residing overseas, would like to place the burden of making all unpopular decisions on the executive branch currently in power. This includes the adoption of yet another decision to further lower the conscription age.

❗️ The final say should be made by the political & legal system of Ukraine. It should formulate & explain what is happening in Ukraine. I believe, this is not too difficult, indeed.

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🎙 Russia's President Vladimir Putin answered media questions following his state visit to Uzbekistan (May 28, 2024)

Key talking points:

#RussiaUzbekistan

💬 The composition of [Russia's] delegation was impressive; it included nearly half of the Russian Government members, all the key ministers. Naturally, a meeting that involved heads of regions & Cabinet ministers from both sides featured a wide-ranging & fulfilling discussion.

• Our economies are aligning & developing, & numerous joint projects are emerging. We will gradually chart our mutual interests in the sphere of subsequent cooperation and involvement in integration associations.

• We know that pressure [from the US] was exerted on Central Asia as well. So far I haven’t seen people kneeling ready to blindly obey any edicts from across the ocean. They – the Americans and the Europeans – certainly take certain steps that deal damage to our partners but eventually this is also a sovereign choice of any country

#Ukraine

• As for the fact that there may be mercenaries in Ukraine, we are well aware of that, there is nothing new about it. The fact that the military in Ukraine are now saying that they [the French] may come is because they have been there for a long time. We hear English, French, or Polish on the radio. We know that these mercenaries are there. But there are specialists there under the guise of mercenaries.

• It wasn’t us who stopped the talks [with Ukrainian side]. We were told: that’s it, we will no longer have talks with you. <...> They were ordered to throw it into a rubbish can and try to beat Russia on the battlefield, to inflict strategic defeat on it.

• We have never refused to talk on this basis and we are ready to continue the negotiating process. But we do not know what and who will offer us at some other stages, in view of the legitimacy of Ukrainian representatives.

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🎙 Excerpts from FM Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at the meeting with participants of the Time of Heroes programme (Solnechnogorsk, May 28, 2024)

💬 A special military operation started in conditions that did not emerge overnight. For many years, we had been warning the West that this situation was unacceptable. We were left with no choice, about which the President of Russia talked in detail.

🤝 The scale of unity of our people is unprecedented. This is unity against injustice. The President and the Government are working to make sure that we will never depend “on one nail” from the West in such critical areas of our life as security, food, energy and military equipment and that we will be able to produce all this ourselves. The economy must become independent of anyone.

The term suggested by President Vladimir Putin – “the time of heroes” – is about you, about those who fight together with you, who fought upholding our vital interests and the rights of people whose ancestors had lived for centuries on the territory of Donbass and Novorossiya, who were building cities and roads, and creating industrial enterprises that some people are trying to declare alien.

It's a holy job. Life has arranged it so that now you are heroes. Now you are role models. Young people should look up to you.

❗️ The West tried to turn Russia into a middle power. They have not given up this idea. They are fighting against us because they see that we are becoming independent. They really want to cut us to size.

Russia is one of the leading, great powers of the modern time – this place belongs to it by right. It will retain this place. The World Majority countries – Africa, Latin America and Asia – realise well that this is not only about the destiny of the Nazi regime in Ukraine but about the West’s reluctance to give up its hegemony.

🌐 By will of fate, we have found ourselves on the edge of struggle for a new equitable and fair world order. It will be based on the principle of sovereign equality of states.

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