Russian President Vladimir Putin has a tradition of holding a year-end press conference for Russian and foreign journalists. This time he met with media representatives on December 23rd to make the event 17th in a row. All the anti-COVID measures were observed in the course of it. In particular, each participant had to pass three PCR tests, while the number of journalists invited was halved to account for 507 people. At that, representatives of the media on the list of foreign agents were invited either, as their status does not imply any ban on working at press conferences and briefings.
Just a reminder: last year the pandemic recalibrated the conference format, making Vladimir Putin to communicate with journalists via video link from his Novo-Ogarevo residence outside Moscow. In 2020, the event lasted 4 hours and 29 minutes, during which the head of state answered 60 questions. This year, it took him 3 hours and 56 minutes. Moreover, Vladimir Putin preferred to start the press conference without delivering his traditional opening speech, and started responding to questions right away.
Like it was last year, COVID-19 and issues of overcoming pandemic consequences were given the highest priority. President Putin emphasized that the country's authorities are still focused on providing secure favorable environment for national development under these trying circumstances, and on making every citizen better off.
Of course, most of the press conference was devoted to internal problems, although some journalists were also concerned about international issues. Thus, a correspondent with China's Xinhua news agency asked President Putin to provide insight into the current state of Russian-Chinese relations in the light of recent talks between the two countries' leaders. Answering this question, Putin said Russia and China were actively cooperating in the field of security, carrying out joint development of high-tech weapons. " We cooperate in space and aviation, on both airplanes and helicopters," he said. The President also noted that Moscow and Beijing are developing cooperation between their armed forces. "These are joint military exercise and international military games, joint maritime and air patrols," he added, summing up that the two countries have an "overarching partnership of strategic nature."
Answering a question regarding Nord Stream 2, President Putin agreed with the reported that the gas issue is dominating minds. He called accusations against Gazprom for allegedly monopolizing the market and failing to book capacity for gas supplies to Europe via the Yamal – Europe route " totally out of line." "What is there to transit if Gazprom has not received purchase requests? What did they do then? They turned on this route in reverse mode and have been pumping gas from Germany to Poland for several days now," the Russian leader explained. Russia, as Putin stressed, supplies gas under long-term contracts, with the price being 4 to 7 times cheaper than on the spot. He admitted that part of the gas is being sent by the recipients to Ukraine "in an effort to help someone tide over," instead of supplying it to Germany and thus reducing spot prices.
Touching upon the decision by Washington and a number of its allies to diplomatically boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, Vladimir Putin dubbed this erroneous and unacceptable. In his opinion, the reason is attempts to restrain PRC's development. "Sport, like art, should unite people, not create problems between peoples and states", Putin said. "And when sport is deprived of its core value, the entire international community is harmed. Getting rid of the remaining options of maintaining and developing relations among countries would be a mistake."
The President of Russia could not help dwelling on the situation in Ukraine. Speaking about the 2014 merger of Crimea, Vladimir Putin said the following: "We were simply put in a situation where we could not have acted differently." According to him, the aggravation between Kiev and Moscow began as early as after the coup in Ukraine the same year. "We never even thought about doing anything about Crimea. But what happened in 2014? A bloody coup, people were killed and burned alive," the President stressed. He also said that the only possible option for resolving the Donbass conflict are the Minsk agreements, but Ukraine has no desire to implement them.
Commenting on the information disseminated in the Western and Ukrainian media regarding a possible war between Russia and Ukraine, the Russian leader said: "We hear: war, war, war. You could get the impression that maybe a third military operation is in the making." And answering a question from a Sky News correspondent about guarantees for non-aggression against Ukraine, Putin said Moscow's actions would depend on the West to ensure Russia's security, which makes NATO's further expansion eastwards unacceptable. According to Putin, it is not the course of negotiations that is important to Russia, but their result. "You promised us in the 1990s that [NATO] would not move an inch to the East. You cheated us shamelessly: there have been five waves of NATO expansion, and now the weapons systems I mentioned have been deployed in Romania and deployment has recently begun in Poland... And you are demanding guarantees from me. It is you who must give us guarantees, and you must do it immediately, right now, instead of talking about it for decades!" he noted.
The Russian President said he sometimes gets the feeling Russia and the West live in different worlds. "In the 1990s, we were completely open to cooperation – and what's the result? Why did they [the West] have to support terrorists in the North Caucasus... in attempts to break the Russian Federation apart? This continued year after year, every time we showed our teeth and tried to prevent something and voice our concerns. But no: they did not want to hear anything, saying that they would do what they considered necessary," the Russian president said.
The constant pressure can only be explained by the fact that Western countries consider Russia too big even after the USSR collapse, the head of state said. In1991, the country got divided into many parts, but this was "not enough for our partners. They believe that Russia is too big as it is today. This is because the European countries themselves turned into small states... However, even after the Soviet Union collapsed, and we were left with just 146 million, it is still too much for them. I believe that this is the only way to explain this unrelenting pressure," Putin said.
He also noted the following thing: "...our opponents have been saying throughout the centuries that Russia cannot be defeated, but can only be destroyed from within." Answering a question from BBC, he said this was successfully accomplished during World War I, or rather, after it ended, and then in the 1990s, when the Soviet Union was being dismantled from within. According to President Putin, such things were done by those "serving the interests of others that run counter to the interests of the Russian and other peoples of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation today..."
