⭐️ President of Russia Vladimir Putin took part in commemorative events dedicated to 8️⃣0️⃣th anniversary of breaking siege of Leningrad

Russia's Head of State visited the Nevsky Pyatachok Memorial Military-Historical Complex in the Leningrad Region, where he laid flowers at the Landmark Stone monument. Later the President took part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Motherland monument at the Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery.

Later Vladimir Putin met with Great Patriotic War veterans, residents of besieged Leningrad and representatives of patriotic public associations at the State Memorial Museum of the Defence and Siege of Leningrad.

💬 President Putin: First of all, I would like to address the veterans and to congratulate you on the landmark event, namely, the 80th anniversary of breaking the siege of Leningrad.

This is a major event for all of us – not only for the people of Leningrad, not only for the city, or for the heroic defenders and residents of besieged Leningrad, but for the entire country.

We must ensure that future generations know about and cherish the memory of that page in our history.

President Vladimir Putin at the meeting with Great Patriotic War veterans, residents of besieged Leningrad and representatives of patriotic public associations:

📍January 18, 2023, St. Petersburg

💬 The tragedy linked to the events in Ukraine began in 2014 with the unconstitutional, anti-state, armed coup in Ukraine. As we know, this required Russia to provide assistance to the residents of Crimea, followed by the events in Donbass.

❗️ Everything we are doing today, i.a. within the special military operation, is an attempt to stop this war. That is the gist of our military operation, as well as to protect the people, our people who live on this territory.

🛡 We couldn’t but respond to the events after the coup, when, in fact, the Ukrainians began to eradicate the people of Donbass solely because they consider themselves tied to the Russian culture, language and traditions of their people and their ancestors.

📑 Full statement

🇷🇺🇧🇾 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey #Lavrov was received by President of Belarus Alexander #Lukashenko in Minsk

#RussianBelarus

🇷🇺🇧🇾🤝 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Foreign Minister of the Republic of Belarus Sergey Aleinik held a tête-à-tête meeting in Minsk, at the MFA of Belarus.

#RussiaBelarus

🇷🇺🇧🇾 Sergey #Lavrov attended the joint meeting of the collegiums of the Russian and Belarusian Foreign Ministries in Minsk.

🎙 Интервью Посла России в Канаде О.В.Степанова телеканалу «Россия 24»

💬 Канадская сторона не хочет ни видеть, ни слышать [аргументы]. У них есть определённые установки, даже не канадские, а общезападные.

Важно обвинить Россию, не важно в чём.

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks and answers to media questions during a joint news conference with Foreign Minister of Belarus Sergey Aleinik following the meeting of the Boards of the Foreign Ministries of Russia and Belarus

📍 Minsk, January 19, 2023

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We share the view that the collective West has actually turned Ukraine into a bridgehead for the continued military-political cultivation of the post-Soviet space and for subversive activities against the Union State. This is creating a direct threat to the vital interests of Russia and Belarus.

☝️ However, in practice this Western blitzkrieg did not succeed either in Russia or Belarus.

#OSCE

I mentioned what was done to suppress information about the flagrant violation of international humanitarian law in the east of Ukraine as a result of the Kiev regime’s activities. The West remained silent on this topic, covering up these misdeeds.

The OSCE principles and its institutions are being discredited by the Special Representative on Freedom of the Media who keeps increasingly silent when it comes to obvious infractions on the part of the Ukrainian regime or its Western sponsors.

#NATO

Not only did the West ignore these warnings and start to develop (militarily) Ukrainian territory, but it also widely encouraged, in theory and practice, the neo-Nazi manifestations of the Ukrainian regime following the coup, which (judging by it all) could not have taken place without the consent (or even support) of the United States.

#Ukraine

All of that unfolded against the background of Zelensky’s ensuing moves who, just like Poroshenko, was elected under the banner of bringing peace to Donbass. Instead of following up on his election promises, he instantly did an about-face and declared in August 2021 that if someone identifies as a Russian in terms of culture, language or traditions, they should clear out for Russia. All of that was unfolding amid total silence on the part of the West, or rather, was encouraged by it.

🎙 FM Sergey Lavrov’s remarks and answers to media questions at the news conference on the performance of Russian diplomacy in 2022

📍 Moscow, January 18, 2023

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Key talking points:

🔹 What is happening in Ukraine now is the result of preparations by the US and its satellites for the start of a global hybrid war against Russia.

🔹 The events surrounding Ukraine have brought to light the implicit push by the United States to drop attempts to reinforce its global position with legitimate means and to adopt illegitimate methods to ensure its dominance.

🔹 The European Union has been completely subsumed by this US dictatorship. The signing of the Joint Declaration on EU-NATO Cooperation on January 10 was the high point of this process.

🔹 The West's course on destroying traditional ties between historical partners in different regions and fragmenting and destabilising them has become more salient. We can see this in the Balkans and in the post-Soviet space.

🔹 They used the “either with the West or Russia” choice to identify those who were against the West and proceeded to severely punish them.

🔹 In the so-called “Indo-Pacific region,” the West is out to create bloc architecture against Russia and China. With this aim in view, they have consistently been destroying the decades-old mechanisms and formats of cooperation created around ASEAN.

🔹We regard the policies of the US and the West as a whole as the main problem creating difficulties in all areas. ashington’s policy of dictate in international affairs means precisely that the Americans can do anything anywhere they want.

🔹 In our contacts through the SCO, BRICS, the CIS, and the EAEU, and in our cooperation with associations of Asia, Africa and Latin America, we are doing all we can to create new forms of interaction to avoid dependence on the West & its neocolonialist methods.

🔹 It will take a long time to create a multipolar world order. This will take an entire historical era. We are now in the midst of this process.

#Outcomes2022

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remarks during talks with ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric, Moscow (January 20, 2023)

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💬 We appreciate the contribution by the International Committee of the Red Cross to overcoming humanitarian crises around the world, helping victims of armed conflicts and promoting compliance with international humanitarian law.

🔸 Russia’s cooperation with the ICRC has been gaining momentum in recent years. We have been fruitfully working together on the humanitarian agenda for quite a long time in Syria, Afghanistan, Nagorno-Karabakh and other hotspots, and provide voluntary funding for your programmes.

🔸 We are certain that the well-balanced and responsible policy the ICRC is striving to follow across the world will be critical in the context of developments in and around Ukraine.

🔸 I would like to reaffirm the commitment of the Russian Federation to international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions.

🔸 Once again, I would like to draw your attention to blatant human rights violations by the Ukrainian regime. These violations are backed with evidence.

🔸 We expect the ICRC to further step up its efforts for resolving the issue with visits to captured Russian nationals and ensuring their rights. The Ukrainian regime has been torturing many of them and using other inhuman pressure methods against them.

#RussiaICRC

#Opinion by Maria Zakharova

Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland has stated publicly that Russia’s defeat “would be a huge boost to the global economy.”

Freeland, whose grandfather was a member of Andrei Melnik’s OUN-UPA nationalist group, hit the limelight several times over the past few years by speaking in support of Ukraine’s Nazis and by making Russophobic statements . On January 18, 2023, she said during the World Economic Forum in Davos: “It is not doing Ukraine favours. Supplying Ukraine with weapons, and as President Zelensky very crucially pointed out, supplying Ukraine with the money it needs to win the war is ultimately in our own self-interest. So, I am a finance minister. If you were to say to me, what is the one thing that G7 finance ministers, G7 governments could do this year that is actually in our power – we do not control COVID. We do not control global supply chains. We do not control whether there will be immaculate disinflation or not. One thing where we have real, practical levers is we can help Ukraine win clearly, definitively. If we do that, if that happens this year – you know this as well as I do, Fareed [Fareed Zakaria, panel moderator], that would be a huge boost to the global economy. I do think Ukraine is going to win.”

This is a 21st century war for resources, plain and simple.

Intriguing scenario in development.
🇺🇸 US pushing 🇩🇪 Germany so Leopard2 is the first foreign tank to be destroyed in Malorossiya. But 🇩🇪Germany, weakly resisting, wants 🇺🇸American Abrams MBT take🥇 place.

☝In any case, foreign tanks don’t live long on 🇷🇺Russian soil.

Интересный сценарий в развитии.
🇺🇸 хотят, чтобы первым уничтоженным в Малороссии танком был 🇩🇪Леопард2. Но 🇩🇪, слабо сопротивляясь, хочет уступить 🥇 место 🇺🇸Абрамсу.

☝На заметку: в любом случае, на Русской земле чужие танки долго не живут.

📅 On January 22, 1945, Insterburg, one of East Prussia’s major cities and an important road and rail junction, was taken in the East Prussian Offensive. It had been turned into a powerful strongpoint, with additional fortifications in view of the coming offensive by the Soviet troops.

The Red Army had carefully prepared for the assault. Prisoners had been captured to obtain information, but they did not provide a complete picture. The only thing that helped was a map, which was found on the dead body of a German colonel of the 26th Army Corps stationed in Horstenau. This gave details of the operational situation at the front, with units and defensive lines marked on it. The information obtained led to the conclusion that the city had to be stormed immediately before its garrison was reinforced by other military units.

The assault was further complicated by the fact that the city was protected from the north not only by the erected defences, but also by the natural barriers of the Angerapp and Inster rivers. The Germans had blown up the dam on purpose, so that the water would submerge the floodplains of these rivers and hamper the further advance of the Soviet soldiers.

🎖 The storming and capture of Insterburg became a milestone in the Red Army’s chain of victories during the final stage of the Great Patriotic War. The operation, cleverly thought-out by commanders and bravely carried out by soldiers of the 18th Guards Infantry Division, made it possible to defeat a massive enemy defensive group, thus opening the way to Königsberg for the Soviet troops.

📖 Read more about the assault on Insterburg

⚡️ Remarks by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at an Arria-formula meeting of UNSC Member States "The systematic war of Ukraine against the residents of Donbass: 2014 and onwards"

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💬 Ukrainian propaganda is doing "its best" to prevent spread of the true information that residents of Ukrainian cities and villages most often die from the bullets of those who, it would seem, should protect them - nationalist battalions and units of the UAF. However, the evidence of this fact is so abundant that this truth simply cannot be concealed.

This is when provocations and false-flag maneuvers come to the stage, like the ones in Bucha and Izum that faked a “massacre of civilians” allegedly performed by Russian troops. In their toolkit, they also have provocations of the Kramatorsk type, when the armed forces of Ukraine launched a rocket against evacuees. As you remember, this provocation was so uncouth and it disclosed so much evidence confirming the responsibility of Ukraine that Kiev and its Western sponsors had to stop proliferating this story.

❗️ Ukrainian strikes against the cities of Donetsk and Lugansk republics promise no military advantage. There are no military facilities there, and the contact line is rather far away. Unfortunately, there are such types of Western weapons at Kiev’s disposal that they can only use after they have coordinated the time and the goal of the attack with the states that delivered this hardware. This gives us reason to believe that the US and NATO knowingly and deliberately become accomplices in Kiev’s crimes against the people of Donbas.

🇷🇺🇿🇦 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov holds talks with Minister of International Relations and Cooperation of #SouthAfrica Dr.Naledi Pandor

📍 Pretoria, January 23

#RussiaRSA #RussiaAfrica

🇷🇺 Statement of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service:

⚡️ Sergey Naryshkin, Director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, said that his agency getting reliable reports that the Ukrainian armed forces have been using nuclear power stations to store arms and ammunition supplied by the West. This includes the most expensive and rare systems the Ukraine Armed Forces are receiving for the HIMARS MRLs and foreign air defence systems, as well as large-calibre artillery shells. Several train cars carrying the deadly cargo from abroad transited through Rafalovka station to the Rovno NPP in the last week of December 2022 alone.

The plan of the Kiev regime is clear. The Ukrainian Armed Forces command hides the ammunition in the rear, using nuclear reactors as their shields, just like when the Banderites shell cities in Donbass and other borderline Russian regions from behind the backs of innocent Ukrainian civilians. The idea is that the Russian Armed Forces would not target NPPs with their strikes, fearing a nuclear disaster. If the warehouses detonate or a nuclear power station is destroyed by yet another Ukrainian air defence missile after it veers off course, they can always blame Moscow for the tragedy. Kiev is confident that this would be the case, considering the tacit approval by the West of the Ukrainian artillery strikes against the Zaporozhye NPP.

❗️ International terrorists often use methods of this kind. However, instead of taking just a few civilians hostage, the Kiev regime uses tens or even hundreds of thousands of civilians in its own and neighbouring countries as hostages. It is our hope that it does not occur to anyone in Kiev to deliberately set off explosions at these warehouses with the expectation that this would enable them to get even more weapons and ammunition from the United States and its allies.

🎙 Address by President of Russia Vladimir Putin to heads of Eurasian Economic Union Member States (January 23, 2023)

💬 On January 1, 2023, Russia took over the chairmanship of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council and the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission.

It is obvious that the Union has every opportunity to become one of the strong, independent, self-sufficient poles in the emerging multipolar world.

Developing the technological potential of EAEU member states, attaining genuine independence and self-sufficiency in this sphere should become one of the most important strategic priorities of our joint work.

🌐 I would like to specifically stress the importance of building mutually beneficial and equal cooperation between the union and external partners and international associations.

Expanding the geography of the EAEU’s international links and contacts with countries in the Asia-Pacific Region, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America would help boost exports of the union’s products and build new logistics chains.

☝️ We count on close cooperation and support from the EAEU member states in the practical implementation of the priorities of Russia’s presidency in 2023.

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#Opinion by Russian MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova

💬 The American mainstream media has once again provided a platform for the “Russian opposition.” This role has traditionally been played by Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Garry Kasparov. This time, the “collective Garry Khodor” published an article in Foreign Affairs on their plans for “rebuilding Russia.” These marginal figures’ decline is so obvious that the stupidity of Western propaganda is actually embarrassing. Khodorkovsky and Kasparov shared with the world how they would change Russia, after they betrayed Russia.

However, their article is basically plagiarism as it lacks any reference to their source of inspiration or the original creators of the concept.

Compare for yourself.

👇👇👇

Khodorkovsky and Kasparov: “Pro-democracy Russians who reject the totalitarian Putin regime—a group to which the authors belong—are doing what they can to help Ukraine <…>”

A quote from their role model: “There is a growing awareness in the leading circles of the army and the general public of the futility and pointlessness of further warfare, which only leads to millions of deaths and the destruction of material values.”

Khodorkovsky and Kasparov: “Putin’s military defeat would help catalyze a political transformation in Russia, making it possible for those seeking a brighter future to dismantle the old regime and forge a new political reality. The Russian Action Committee has laid out a blueprint for this transformation, aiming to reestablish the Russian state.”

Their inspirer: “To unite the Russian people and lead their struggle against the hated regime, to cooperate with Germany in the fight against Bolshevism for the construction of a New Europe, we, the sons of our people and patriots of our Fatherland, have created the Russian Committee."

Khodorkovsky and Kasparov: “The Russian Action Committee, a coalition of opposition groups in exile that we co-founded in May 2022, aims to ensure that Ukraine is justly compensated for the damage caused by Putin’s aggression, that all war criminals are held accountable, and that Russia is transformed.”

Original author yet to be named: “Taking into account the internal situation of the Soviet Union, the growing opposition against the existing regime, as well as the international situation <...> the Russian army will give legitimacy to the opposition movement and with one blow, will eliminate most doubts and hesitations that exist in the occupied and non-occupied areas and hinder the creation of a new order.” “Therefore, the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia supports all revolutionary and opposition forces.”

Kasparov and Khodorkovsky: “Immediately after assuming power, the state council would conclude a peace agreement with Ukraine”

The founder of this philosophy: “The Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia aims to end the war and conclude an honourable peace.”

Khodorkovsky and Kasparov: “And deeper integration with Europe, coupled with the conditional easing of Western sanctions, could help Russia do the same [overcome a fascist heritage].”

The founder of the idea: “The place of the Russian people in the family of European peoples, its place in New Europe will depend on the degree of its involvement in the struggle <...> The Russian Committee aims to create a New Russia in commonwealth with Germany and other peoples of Europe.”

So, Garry Khodor's inspiration came from none other than Lieutenant General Andrei Vlasov – one of the most eminent traitors to the Russian people and our country.

<...>

❗️ Khodorkovsky and Kasparov with their minions are Vlasov's heirs and propagators of his ideas. They are petty plagiarists as well.

🇷🇺🇸🇿 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was received by Prime Minister of #Eswatini H.E. Cleopas Sipho Dlamini

📍Mbabane, January 24

#RussiaEswatini #RussiaAfrica

🇷🇺🇺🇳 On January 20, the fourth session of the UN Ad Hoc Intergovernmental Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes (hereinafter “the Ad Hoc Committee”), which was set up at Russia’s initiative, concluded its session in Vienna.

During the session, several UN member countries submitted proposals relating to the provisions of the first three chapters of the future document, which are Criminalisation, General Provisions and Procedural Measures and Law Enforcement. <...> An international agreement like this is much needed because of the high penetration levels of information and communications technologies around the world and how quickly it is developing.

<...>

❗️ The Russian Federation, jointly with like-minded [nations] and developing countries, is seeking to secure that the document being drafted can be applied on a broad scale and that it contains the commitment of countries to safeguard their national sovereignty and counter the use of information and communications technologies for terrorist or extremist purposes, or to justify Nazism, or distribute drugs or weapons.

The United States and its satellites oppose this approach as they seek to entrench the West’s technological superiority in cyberspace, untie the hands of their own intelligence services and IT giants, so they feel free to engage in blackmail, sabotage and the uncontrolled collection of user data around the world, and also to scale down international cooperation as much as possible by pushing through purely Western-style human rights standards.

☝️ Russia, in close coordination with like-minded [nations], will continue working to draft an effective and comprehensive document with an eye to national law and the UN Charter principles during the next session in Vienna, which is scheduled for April 11-21, 2023.

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