On March 25 and 26, 2023, the answers of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin to the questions of the author and co-host of the program "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin" by Pavel Zarubin, concerning the Russian special military operation in Ukraine and a number of other military and political issues. The recording of V. Putin's answers is of undoubted interest.
(c) VGTRKQuestion: "The supply of weapons by the West to the Kiev regime: a million shells a year has now been promised by the European Union, and how many have already been sent!"
Vladimir Putin:
"The supply of weapons by the West to the Kiev regime: a million shells a year has now been promised by the European Union, and how many have already been sent! Is a million a lot or a little? This is a very decent amount. That's a lot. But. And that's what follows after that but, it's very important. Firstly, in the leading NATO countries, for example, in the same United States of America, based on the sources that we have, about 14-15 thousand shells of this caliber are produced monthly, yes. The Armed forces of Ukraine, according to the calculations of our military, use up to 5,000 shells per day of combat operations. And in the States, 15 per month are only produced this year. Next year, also according to the data we have, they may be inaccurate, of course, but in general they correspond to certain parameters that we know about, next year they plan to produce 42,000. And in the 25th - 75,000. Well, we don't know what will happen in 2025, but now, this year, it means 14-15. Despite the fact that the APU spends up to 5,000 per day of combat operations. This is the first.
Now what concerns us. Well, we, the Russian Armed Forces, spent much more. I don't want to give an assessment of the rationality of decision-making at different levels of military administration, but now, as you know, the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff are forced to introduce even certain limits. At the same time, Russian production, the military-industrial complex of Russia is developing at a very fast pace, such as many did not expect. And we are the instigators of this conflict over the same period of time, namely, they will supply these munitions to Ukraine, as they plan, over the same period of time, the Russian industry itself will produce three times as much ammunition as we are talking about. Even more than three times. So in this sense, we are concerned about all this only from the point of view that this is an attempt to prolong the conflict.
But you mentioned there about other equipment, for example, about tanks. We also know about this. The arsonists plan to send about 400-odd, 420 or 440 tanks to Ukraine. All the same as for ammunition. During this time, we will produce new ones and upgrade existing ones, too, over 1600. And the total number of tanks of the Russian army will exceed three times the number of APU tanks. Even more than three times. I'm not talking about aviation, there's a difference at times just. Ten orders of magnitude.
Therefore, from the point of view of the logic of those who provoked this conflict and are trying to preserve it at any cost, well, this is probably the right decision from their point of view. In my opinion, this will only lead to more tragedy and nothing more."
Question: "A separate topic is depleted uranium shells. Britain decided to transfer them to Zelensky. In Western capitals they say: international law is not violated."Vladimir Putin: "Of course, they do not belong to the category of weapons of mass destruction, it's true.
But the cores of shells with depleted uranium, there may be different materials used, it is used for armor-piercing purposes, it still somehow generates so-called radiation dust. And in this sense, it certainly refers to weapons of the most dangerous nature. Well, experts, experts confirm that after use in the former Yugoslavia, after use in Iraq, oncological diseases in local citizens increased many times, I repeat, many times. This is the first.
Second. If we are talking about Ukraine, then those who will use it must understand: they consider those people who live on this territory to be their own, how will they use it against people who are actually their own, bearing in mind that these remnants will dust, including polluting acreage in the regions where they will be applied. And, of course, in this sense, it can be attributed to the most harmful and dangerous weapons for humans. Not only for the combatants, for the combatants. For the environment and for the people living in this area.
I must say that Russia, of course, has something to answer. We have, without exaggeration, hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands of such shells. We haven't used them yet."
Question: "Belarus borders with Ukraine, with which Russia has created a union state. Minsk cannot remain indifferent to the military activity of the opposing side. As in this situation - Moscow."V.
Putin: "Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko has long raised the question of deploying Russian tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus.
But there is nothing unusual here either. First, the United States has been doing this for decades. They have long placed their tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of their allies, NATO countries, and in Europe. In six states. This, if memory serves me correctly, is the Federal Republic of Germany, Turkey, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Greece. Well, not in Greece right now, but there is a vault.
And we agreed that if Belarus is really right in this sense, Alexander Grigoryevich says: "Well, listen, we are your closest allies. Why do the Americans do this to their allies, place their crews and their pilots on their territory, by the way, teach them to use this type of weapons if necessary." We agreed that we will do the same without violating our obligations, I want to emphasize this, without violating our international obligations on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. We have already helped our Belarusian colleagues to refit their planes, the planes of the Belarusian Air Force.
10 aircraft are ready for the use of this type of weapon. First. We have already transferred our well-known, very effective Iskander complex to Belarus. And he can also be a carrier. On April 3rd we will start training crews and on July 1 we will finish the construction of a special storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus. So everything that the President of Belarus asked, all the questions he raised in this regard, they are being implemented and all our agreements will take place in the very near future."
Question: "And when and under what conditions can the weapon itself be transferred?"
Vladimir Putin: "But we don't transmit. Neither the United States does not transmit to its allies. They just, we basically do all the same things that they have been doing for decades. They have allies in certain countries and prepare their carriers and their crews prepare them. We are going to do the same. This is exactly what Alexander Grigoryevich asked for."
Question: "The event of not only this week is Xi Jinping's state visit to Russia, the first after his re-election as President of the People's Republic of China. The economic ties of our countries are of global importance. Russia proposes to move away from the dollar in calculations to the Chinese yuan - in the West it was called almost an encroachment on American money."Vladimir Putin:
"No, this is not true. So we would use the dollar. They won't let us. And how do we make calculations? In the currency that is acceptable to our trading partners. The yuan is one of these currencies. Moreover, it is also used in the IMF. It means that they themselves are sawing the branch on which they are sitting, I have already said this many times, limiting the use of the dollar, based on momentary, opportunistic considerations of a political nature, they are harming themselves. You can say that they are also shooting in the leg. It's not us, it's them doing it.
And, of course, here is the very fact that, let's say, they have frozen our gold and foreign exchange reserves. All the countries of the world, I assure you, in any case, those that have gold reserves, yes, they all thought about how reliable the American partner is. And everyone concluded: it is not reliable. Therefore, with pleasure, our partners are happy to agree with us to pay in yuan.
You know that the oil-producing countries of the Middle East have stated that they also want to make payments in yuan. But we will gradually expand it. We will expand those currencies that are reliable. Each country is interested in strengthening its national currency. And all countries will strive for this. Therefore, without any doubt, it is a huge mistake on the part of the American authorities, what they are doing, limiting settlements in dollars around the world in the relations of those countries that for some reason they do not like."
Question: "The quality of Russian-Chinese relations is determined, among other things, by personal contact at the highest level. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have known each other for a long time, they have met many times. What did you remember about the two days of negotiations in Moscow this time?"Vladimir Putin:
"We had a working lunch. And then I invited the chairman out of friendship to move to another room. I have an apartment here, in which I have been spending a lot of time lately, I work here, I spend the night very often. So we moved there and, sitting by the fireplace, drinking tea, talked about everything slowly. We talked about the situation in world affairs. And in a variety of aspects. The Chinese President paid a lot of attention to the disclosure of the positive principles of the Chinese peace plan and the plan for the peaceful settlement of the situation in Ukraine. By the way, on the same day, when President Xi Jinping told me and showed me, proved the positive aspects of the Chinese settlement plan in Ukraine by peaceful means, on the same day we learned about the supply of a million shells to Ukraine from Western countries, from the instigators of this conflict. And the next day, right before the meeting with the press, we learned about this story that the UK is going to supply shells with, therefore, depleted uranium. It's as if the Westerners did it on purpose in order to somehow, well, disrupt our negotiations or somehow influence them. I don't even know why, but it seems that it was done deliberately.
By the way, here are different approaches. The collective West, or rather NATO, on the one hand, with their aggressive rhetoric, and with the supply of weapons, and China's proposal for a peaceful settlement on the other. Well, I don't want to dive in there right now. We talked, of course, during these 4 hours and about bilateral relations in all aspects. First of all, in the field of economics. And the main emphasis was placed on this.
And, of course, we will strive to ensure that in the most promising high-tech industries we combine our efforts where each of us has a certain high, well-developed level of competitiveness in world markets. All this, all this was the subject of our conversations. Of course, we talked about abstract topics. Well, we just sat by the fireplace, drank tea and talked for four hours.
I must say that the Chinese president is a very interesting interlocutor. He is deeply immersed in all the problems, you have to pay tribute. And in world affairs, and in the economy of your country, and in our relations. He knows everything down to the details. He is well prepared. Well, it was just interesting to talk to him. In my opinion, we received mutual satisfaction from these conversations."
Question: "We will return to China in this issue - the reason was given by Joe Biden, who, after the revelations of the eminent journalist Seymour Hersh, was talked about as the author of the order on sabotage on the "Northern Streams". And these days also as the organizer of a worldwide disinformation campaign using the German Chancellor Scholz. A new circumstance is a certain object found by the Danes at the bottom of the Baltic."Vladimir Putin:
"Quite recently, on Thursday, in my opinion, we received a response from the Danish authorities in the form of a diplomatic note, which says that they examined this object and believe that it is non-explosive. I think they should have been more honest to say that it is already non-explosive. If they examined us and we weren't allowed in there, then we don't know what was going on there. Well, in any case, it was said that the Nord Stream organization itself, and it is the only one there, is a shareholder of Gazprom. But it is still considered international, foreign, because it is registered in Switzerland, they are ready to invite this organization, but they do not need the services of Russian specialists. Well, I think it makes no sense for us to get in there now, because we have one of the countries, in this case Denmark, said that they have already examined, well, they have already examined, so this situation is already non-explosive. But for us, frankly speaking, the point was not to convict someone of something, but to make sure that there were no other explosions. But if the Danes say that it is already non-explosive, well, thank God!"
Vladimir Putin also spoke about the pension reform in France - about what Macron came up with and how he embodies it, in comparison with the experience that exists in Russia.Vladimir Putin:
"This is an internal matter of France. First. Of course, we understand everything, and many countries are carrying out reforms of this kind, but I do not know those countries that do not carry out in the modern world, in developed economies, where life expectancy is increasing, the number of pensioners is increasing, I simply do not know such countries. Probably, they exist, but there are practically no such large countries. But still. What we were doing, I see, what is the difference between what is happening in France and here? Firstly, we still have a difference of five years between the retirement of women and men, in France there is no such difference, the retirement ages are the same. This is the first. Secondly, we have a long transition period of 10 years, which significantly reduces the burden on citizens. Well, I think the most important thing is that we have retained all preferential regimes for early retirement, and in France, as far as I know, there is no. There are all these preferential regimes, early exits, after all, and this approach is perceived by citizens as excessively harsh and unfair, because different working conditions still require different approaches in terms of the retirement period. I treat it this way. I understand that our people, of course, remember everything, no one has forgotten anything, yes, but, I repeat once again: what they do in other countries is their business. We look at it from the outside, we do not interfere in these processes."
Question: "Why is the supply of Western military equipment to Ukraine not always stopped at distant approaches? Why are they coming? Why is it impossible, as they say, on the distant approaches, to somehow deal with them?"Vladimir Putin:
"Our military manages to do some things, but not others. It is transported secretly, at night. Well, I manage to get something. What they manage to get, they get. But of course there is such a goal. No one should have any doubt that someone treats this indifferently, carelessly. Of course not."
