🎙 Excerpt from President Vladimir Putin's remarks and answers to questions at the annual news conference and direct line with the people of Russia

💬 There will be no new special military operations if we are treated with respect and if our interests are taken into account, just as we have consistently tried to take the interests of the West into account. But you deceived us, for example, with NATO's eastward expansion.

Western politicians created the current situation [in Ukraine] with their own hands, and they continue to escalate it. They constantly talk about preparing for war with Russia [...] This is being done for internal political reasons in order to create an image of an enemy. And an image of an enemy, Russia in this case, is being deliberately constructed in order to conceal the mistakes that many Western governments have consistently made in economic and social policy over the years [...]

We are ready to work with the United Kingdom, with Europe as a whole, and with the United States – but solely on the basis of equality and mutual respect.

If we ultimately reach such an understanding, everyone will benefit [...]

If Russia and European nations were to unite their efforts, our combined GDP in terms of purchasing power parity would exceed that of the United States. This is obviously a theoretical calculation. But the underlying reality is clear: by pooling and complementing our capabilities, we would achieve prosperity rather than confrontation. It is not Russia that is fighting you. It is you who are fighting us, through Ukrainian nationalists.

☝️ We are ready to stop these hostilities immediately, provided that Russia's mid- and long-term security interests are guaranteed. And we are ready to cooperate.

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ICYMI 👉 here are the highlights from President Vladimir Putin's remarks and answers to questions at the annual news conference and direct line with the people of Russia:

• [In the context of Europeans trying to seize Russia's assets] stealing is not the right word. Stealing involves the covert theft of property. But they are doing this openly. Therefore, it is robbery [...] Apart from image-related losses, there will be direct financial losses related to the contemporary financial architecture. This is why it is so difficult to accomplish. The main thing is that, sooner or later, they will have to give it back.

• President Trump has been serious about ending the Ukraine conflict. Moreover, during our meeting in Anchorage, we reached a point where we were very close to accepting President Trump's proposals. Therefore, it would be completely wrong to claim that we rejected anything.

• There used to be a time when we worked with NATO. It was not a matter of cooperation, but a question of NATO membership, first for the Soviet Union, and later for the Russian Federation. However, in both cases we realised that no one wanted this to happen, and the promises they had given us about refraining from expanding NATO were being ignored [...] Against this backdrop, devising a new security framework for Europe is quite timely.

• We are not denying any given country the right to choose the way it wants to defend itself, but the way it does it should not pose a threat to anyone, including Russia. We do not ask for anything that has not been declared before. All we do is insist on having our Western partners fulfil the pledges and obligations they had assumed. After all, they defrauded us, while we want to build a reliable security framework in Europe.

• President Xi Jinping is a reliable friend and stable partner, and an ally of Russia. This is the most crucial foundation for the development of Russia-China relations, which are progressing steadily [...] Russia-China relations are a significant factor in driving global stability.

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💬 Russian MFA Spox Maria Zakharova: The practice of unilateral sanctions contravenes the United Nations Charter, which reserves the exclusive right to impose such measures to the United Nations Security Council, and only in cases involving threats to peace and security.

In this context, the deployment of unilateral coercive measures (UCMs) encroaches upon the UN Security Council's unique authority. The West is widely acknowledged to be guilty of this practice, which is often driven by geopolitical motives.

Unilateral sanctions represent a significant impediment to establishing a just and equitable polycentric world order. They are one of the primary instruments of the West's neocolonial policy. The objective is transparent: to cling to waning dominance, to deprive nations of the World Majority of their right to independent political choice, and to stymie their economic, technological, and industrial advancement.

The efforts of states initiating UCMs to portray them as a "peaceful means of dispute resolution" are utterly indefensible. It is common knowledge that unilateral coercive measures, by obstructing the comprehensive socioeconomic development of nations in the Global South and East, undermine efforts to resolve crisis situations.

Moreover, their indiscriminate nature violates fundamental human rights and freedoms, disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable segments of society. This has been repeatedly condemned in resolutions of the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council [...]

☝️ We are confident that in the truly equitable multipolar architecture of international relations to which we all aspire, there is no place for coercion or neocolonial hegemony. Together with our partners we will continue to combat all remnants of the shameful colonial era.