Informații actualizate privind CRIZA DIN UCRAINA (din briefing-ul Reprezentantului Oficial al Ministerului Afacerilor Ex…

Informații actualizate privind CRIZA DIN UCRAINA (din briefing-ul Reprezentantului Oficial al Ministerului Afacerilor Externe al Rusiei, Maria Zaharova, 16 martie 2023): Ukraine crisis I would like to wish everyone a happy holiday. This holiday marks the anniversary of Crimea’s reunification with the Russian Federation. Nine years ago today, on March 16, 2014, a historic referendum was held on the status and state affiliation of the peninsula. The reason for the referendum wa…s the refusal of the Crimean authorities to recognise the legitimacy of the government led by the Maidan winners, plus a well-grounded concern for the future of the residents of the Republic of Crimea in the face of rampant radical nationalistic elements in Ukraine, who impacted heavily the decisions made by the country’s government, which led to ignoring the interests of the millions of its Russian-speaking citizens. The residents of Crimea were outraged by the atrocities committed by Ukrainian nationalists and spoke in favour of Crimean independence and its return to the native Russian haven. More than 90 percent of voters cast their votes for this. This form of exercising the right to self-determination was the only possible way to protect the vital interests of the people of Crimea. This position is based on international law and is fully compliant with it. On March 17, following the referendum, the independent Republic of Crimea was declared, in which the city of Sevastopol enjoys a special status. The next day, March 18, a solemn event took place where the Treaty on the Accession of the Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol to the Russian Federation was signed. March 13 marked another important date in the history of our country. Seventy-nine years ago, Kherson was liberated from Nazi occupation as a result of the Bereznegovato-Snigirevsky Operation. The Nazis killed tens of thousands of citizens, shipped thousands of young people to Germany, and built concentration camps for Soviet prisoners over 31 months of occupation. The central town cemetery alone is the resting place for 40,000 Soviet soldiers and 8,000 local civilians killed by the Nazis. During the occupation, Kherson was pillaged to the point where everything of any value was shipped to the West. History repeats itself. Like the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War, the neo-Nazi Kiev regime that is mimicking them now couldn’t care less about the city and its residents. The only thing that is of any value for them is what they can put in their pockets, sink their teeth into and then sell. Ukrainian militants are known to wheel in heavy artillery between blocks of flats, to engage in looting, to destroy cultural sites and to terrorise the remaining city residents. Without a doubt, just like in March 1944, Kherson will be liberated and the criminals will be held accountable. The glorious Russian past of the territories that are called Ukraine now haunts and frightens the self-described leaders of today’s Ukraine, who, in fact, represent a Nazi and neo-Nazi regime. I think historians and political scientists will come up with the proper definition. But this is not just a criminal regime, but also a truly null and void regime. The wave of renaming everything that is connected with our common great history that the regime started has reached crazy proportions. Kiev is seriously pondering renaming Russia into Muscovy. No, this is not a joke or a bad case of mockery or sarcasm. They put this forward as a proposal. These kinds of obsessive ideas make one think that Ukrainian leadership has nothing better to do. In fact, the problem runs much deeper and can be described as a lack of genuine self-identity. This is about an endless attempt to deny everything and use this denial to discover a meaningful narrative. This is the lack of a solid reliance on the historical past, because the past has been canceled by the current Ukrainian regime. Everything they made up to replace it falls apart under the slightest reality test. Clearly, diversion is another goal of theirs where they try to refocus the country residents’ attention from their failed domestic policies. Probably, their next step will be to rename Ukraine into the Muscovy Region. I’m not sure what they will come up with next. That would be very funny. You can either laugh at it or mock it. It’s up to you. But this is a true description of the philosophy that has been maturing there for decades at the West’s behest. After all, people really get used to thinking that way. The collective West continues to get more deeply involved in the conflict with Russia. On March 7-8 of this year, EU defence ministers met in Stockholm to discuss military assistance for Kiev. According to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, total NATO assistance for Kiev has reached 150 billion euros since February 2022. What kind of assistance? Military aid amounted to 65 billion euros. As if it were some bloody game, Help Ukraine, where you help in such a way as to need to help more. EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said 11,000 Ukrainian servicemen would be trained as part of the EU Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine by the end of March, and another 30,000 by the end of the year. On March 14, the European Union announced an increase in the European Peace Facility financial ceiling of 2.2 billion euros, to almost 8 billion euros. The fund is used to finance the supply of weapons to fight our country. We all know that this money is not being used for creation, construction or restoration; it goes for slaughter, for a fight to the last Ukrainian. The absurdity of Western logic is as striking as the hypocrisy and cynicism of using a “peace facility” to sponsor fighting, to bring death and suffering to thousands of civilians. The Zelensky regime is increasingly using martial law to implement corruption schemes with Western military, financial and humanitarian assistance. It is clear why they need money. Many people question or express doubt that corruption is flourishing in today’s Ukraine. In late 2022, the office of the President of Ukraine actually began to eliminate local self-government. Few people in the West have noticed it. They have more important things to take care of, such as awarding strange prizes to each other, inventing honorary names and titles for each other, and glorifying themselves. At the same time, a purge of the regional elite is taking place. Regional capitals are efficiently implementing pilot projects to concentrate city management powers with heads of military administrations appointed by Kiev. The first such project has been completed in Chernigov. Odessa, Lvov, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk and other major cities are following suit. At the same time, regional leaders continue to resign. On March 14 of this year, the heads of the Odessa, Khmelnitsky and Lugansk regional administrations were dismissed (the latter controls the part of the LPR occupied by Ukraine). In fact, what we are seeing is nothing short of an usurping of power by Vladimir Zelensky and his closest associates. What are their reasons and purposes for doing this? It’s obvious. They know what is happening inside Ukrainian society and fear a surge of discontent with the policy they are pursuing, or rather the madness they are implementing. Naturally, they are trying to install loyal Gauleiters in major cities to control the situation on the ground. This is one of the many things they took from the 1940s playbook. They are following their idols in the West. The Kiev regime’s sanctions machine is not slowing down either. On March 10, Vladimir Zelensky signed another executive order sanctioning large Russian betting companies and lotteries. I am not joking. This is true. This is how much he is annoyed by Sportloto and even several hippodromes. Sanctions have been imposed on them for a period of 5 to 50 years. In total, the restrictions affected 120 individuals and 287 legal entities. Not all of them are Russians; some are citizens of other countries. Kiev seems to think that the more sanctions they impose on Russia, the greater the final benefit will be. We have to upset them: it won’t happen. The longer the Kiev regime entertains its unhealthy and painful fantasies, the closer it is pushing Ukraine to the brink of an abyss. The Kiev regime continues its aggressive campaign against the canonical Orthodox Church, the largest in Ukraine, but not only against it. It is crudely violating its international commitments on the freedom of conscience and religion. It’s not a question of certain commitments or agreements. A total purge is going on. In the past few days, the pressure of the authorities reached its peak. You have seen the video address by the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. All of them came out of the church and stood on the steps. They addressed the international community (in fact, they addressed President Vladimir Zelensky) in several languages in the hope of being finally heard although they are facing total isolation and an information blockade. We noted the unacceptable position – the lack of any comment by the UN Secretariat. Stephane Dujarric de la Riviere is an experienced employee of the Secretariat. He has held this position twice over a long period and now works as Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General. He said he had no information on what is happening with the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. I don’t think that the UN Secretariat in New York has no internet connection, that its computers don’t work, telephones and TV are switched off and newspapers do not arrive. No, everything is up and running. It is enough to look for the latest news on the internet to see what was happening with the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra over many months. It would be useful to read a statement by Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya at one of the UN Security Council meetings, in which he spoke about total Russophobia that extends to religion. It is also possible to read the statement by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his address to the UN Secretary-General. This is not the first statement by the heads of our diplomacy and country. Detailed explanations were given at all levels, starting with President of Russia Vladimir Putin. When we hear that the UN has no information, we are tempted to ask whether the UN Secretary-General was, in fact, in Kiev on March 8? What was he doing there if literally a couple of days later his Press Secretary did not have any information about one of the most tragic events in present-day Kiev? I am always ready to help when there is no information. Mr Dujarric, listen to me. The Ukrainian leadership is going to take the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church before March 29. The use of force is not ruled out. It should be said that this place is a shrine for millions of Orthodox believers but not for the current rulers of Ukraine, which are making such illegal and soulless decisions. Even more sacrilegious is their intention to do something that is even hard to hear, hard to believe and impossible to understand. We find it hard to process it all, though the monks, representatives and parishioners of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have been living with this for many years. The Kiev authorities actually want to inventory the relics of the saints kept in Lavra. I did not misspeak. I haven’t invented anything. They said it themselves. In its Russophobic hysteria, Kiev is ignoring the fact that these are not museum display items but relics of the holy, including Nestor Letopisets, Ilya Muromets and other saints that are revered and prayed to in the entire Orthodox world. This is quite a story. Zelensky probably has said everything himself. At first, he said he didn’t understand people who were trying to make Russian speakers speak Ukrainian. We heard him mocking the Ukrainian authorities and the regime when he was not yet president. We remember how he kneeled before the people of Ukraine with the express purpose of being elected. When he was elected we heard from him many interesting statements on his vision for the development of civil society and democracy in his country. But then a horrible thing happened. He not only renounced his own words but started doing the exact opposite. It would be interesting to know if his current hatred, in part, of the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra is due to a mental affliction or he’s being slipped this hatred, or is a result of his failure to understand anything about faith and its embodiment in religion? He doesn’t hear the appeals of the brethren and priests to stop this outrage and give them an opportunity to continue their service to God in the Lavra. The goal of these moves is cynical, simple and pathetic: to ensure the Kiev regime’s all-round support for a political project known as “the Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” which the patriarch of Constantinople and the US are promoting. Do you remember Victoria Nuland with a candle in 2013-2014? Do you think she did that because she loves God? Not at all. It was a meme they created to make people believe that the US supported Orthodoxy in Ukraine. Zelensky held a candle too, even if we are not sure about his faith and affiliation. He has trampled everything he declared to be his values, traditions and sacred sites. In the past, such people as he were described as heathens, and not only in the religious sense. People said about such persons that they would sell out their mothers. This is what we see Zelensky and his team doing now. We have noticed that the attack on the Lavra Monastery and increased persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church took place several days after US President Joe Biden visited (on February 20) the St Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery in Kiev, which has been taken over by the schismatics. We strongly condemn such infringements on the rights of and discrimination against millions of Orthodox Christians. We urge the concerned international organisations to influence the Kiev’s regime in order to put an end to the persecution of and lawlessness against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Zelensky and his regime have shown in word and in deed that they hold nothing sacred. They are Western puppets who are selling Ukraine at their handlers’ bidding, treating Ukrainian citizens as expendables, destroying Ukrainian history and memory, using holy sites for mercenary purposes, and inventorying the holy relics. When Zelensky made his promises and launched a new policy, he began with de-communisation. He tore down monuments that venerated the Red Army soldiers who perished during the Great Patriotic War, renamed streets in honour of Nazi collaborators, and cancelled our common holidays which people of different ethnicities in Ukraine hold dear. He did all of that under the guise of de-communisation. Do you remember them trying to erase the Soviet Union’s emblem or paint over everything associated with that period? They did that and much more. But they have not succeeded, because the people did not understand and did not accept their motives. The final revelation is that Zelensky himself has morphed into those he was fighting. The inventory of the holy relics, which they have decided to do, is exactly what those they are waging a crusade against now did a century ago. After the October Revolution, tombs, graves and reliquaries with holy relics were opened and mocked, taken around the country to show that nobody had risen from the dead, and that it was nothing more than ashes and dust. Zelensky and his team are doing the same as part of the de-communisation campaign. I know that this will be difficult to do, but there is still time to stop, wake up to reality and preserve at least a grain of humanity. I don’t think I need to remind you about the goals and tasks of the special military operation. Our leaders have spoken about them again and again.