President
of Russia Vladimir Putin: Citizens of Russia, citizens of the Donetsk
and Lugansk people’s republics, residents of the Zaporozhye and Kherson
regions, deputies of the State Duma, senators of the Russian Federation,
As you know, referendums have been held in the Donetsk and Lugansk
people’s republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. The ballots
have been counted and the results have been announced. The people have
made their unequivocal choice.
Today we will sign treaties on the accession of the Donetsk
People’s Republic, Lugansk People’s Republic, Zaporozhye Region and
Kherson Region to the Russian Federation. I have no doubt that the
Federal Assembly will support the constitutional laws on the accession
to Russia and the establishment of four new regions, our new constituent
entities of the Russian Federation, because this is the will of
millions of people. (Applause.)
It is undoubtedly their right, an inherent right sealed in Article 1
of the UN Charter, which directly states the principle of equal rights
and self-determination of peoples.
I repeat, it is an inherent right of the people. It is based on our
historical affinity, and it is that right that led generations of our
predecessors, those who built and defended Russia for centuries since
the period of Ancient Rus, to victory.
Here in Novorossiya, [Pyotr] Rumyantsev, [Alexander] Suvorov and
[Fyodor] Ushakov fought their battles, and Catherine the Great and
[Grigory] Potyomkin founded new cities. Our grandfathers and
great-grandfathers fought here to the bitter end during the Great
Patriotic War.
We will always remember the heroes of the Russian Spring, those who
refused to accept the neo-Nazi coup d'état in Ukraine in 2014, all
those who died for the right to speak their native language, to preserve
their culture, traditions and religion, and for the very right to live.
We remember the soldiers of Donbass, the martyrs of the “Odessa
Khatyn,” the victims of inhuman terrorist attacks carried out by the
Kiev regime. We commemorate volunteers and militiamen, civilians,
children, women, senior citizens, Russians, Ukrainians, people of
various nationalities; popular leader of Donetsk Alexander Zakharchenko;
military commanders Arsen Pavlov and Vladimir Zhoga, Olga Kachura and
Alexei Mozgovoy; prosecutor of the Lugansk Republic Sergei Gorenko;
paratrooper Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov and all our soldiers and officers
who died a hero’s death during the special military operation. They are
heroes. (Applause.) Heroes of great Russia. Please join me in a minute
of silence to honour their memory.
(Minute of silence.)
Thank you.
Behind the choice of millions of residents in the Donetsk and
Lugansk people's republics, in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, is
our common destiny and thousand-year history. People have passed this
spiritual connection on to their children and grandchildren. Despite all
the trials they endured, they carried the love for Russia through the
years. This is something no one can destroy. That is why both older
generations and young people – those who were born after the tragic
collapse of the Soviet Union – have voted for our unity, for our common
future.
In 1991 in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, representatives of the party
elite of that time made a decision to terminate the Soviet Union,
without asking ordinary citizens what they wanted, and people suddenly
found themselves cut off from their homeland. This tore apart and
dismembered our national community and triggered a national catastrophe.
Just like the government quietly demarcated the borders of Soviet
republics, acting behind the scenes after the 1917 revolution, the last
leaders of the Soviet Union, contrary to the direct expression of the
will of the majority of people in the referendum of 1991, destroyed our
great country, and simply made the people in the former republics face
this as an accomplished fact.
I can admit that they didn’t even know what they were doing and
what consequences their actions would have in the end. But it doesn't
matter now. There is no Soviet Union anymore; we cannot return to the
past. Actually, Russia no longer needs it today; this isn’t our
ambition. But there is nothing stronger than the determination of
millions of people who, by their culture, religion, traditions, and
language, consider themselves part of Russia, whose ancestors lived in a
single country for centuries. There is nothing stronger than their
determination to return to their true historical homeland.
For eight long years, people in Donbass were subjected to genocide,
shelling and blockades; in Kherson and Zaporozhye, a criminal policy
was pursued to cultivate hatred for Russia, for everything Russian. Now
too, during the referendums, the Kiev regime threatened schoolteachers,
women who worked in election commissions with reprisals and death. Kiev
threatened millions of people who came to express their will with
repression. But the people of Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson weren’t
broken, and they had their say.
I want the Kiev authorities and their true handlers in the West to
hear me now, and I want everyone to remember this: the people living in
Lugansk and Donetsk, in Kherson and Zaporozhye have become our citizens,
forever. (Applause.)
We call on the Kiev regime to immediately cease fire and all
hostilities; to end the war it unleashed back in 2014 and return to the
negotiating table. We are ready for this, as we have said more than
once. But the choice of the people in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and
Kherson will not be discussed. The decision has been made, and Russia
will not betray it. (Applause.) Kiev’s current authorities should
respect this free expression of the people’s will; there is no other
way. This is the only way to peace.
We will defend our land with all the forces and resources we have,
and we will do everything we can to ensure the safety of our people.
This is the great liberating mission of our nation.
We will definitely rebuild the destroyed cities and towns, the
residential buildings, schools, hospitals, theatres and museums. We will
restore and develop industrial enterprises, factories, infrastructure,
as well as the social security, pension, healthcare and education
systems.
We will certainly work to improve the level of security. Together
we will make sure that citizens in the new regions can feel the support
of all the people of Russia, of the entire nation, all the republics,
territories and regions of our vast Motherland. (Applause.)
Friends, colleagues,
Today I would like to address our soldiers and officers who are
taking part in the special military operation, the fighters of Donbass
and Novorossiya, those who went to military recruitment offices after
receiving a call-up paper under the executive order on partial
mobilisation, and those who did this voluntarily, answering the call of
their hearts. I would like to address their parents, wives and children,
to tell them what our people are fighting for, what kind of enemy we
are up against, and who is pushing the world into new wars and crises
and deriving blood-stained benefits from this tragedy.
Our compatriots, our brothers and sisters in Ukraine who are part
of our united people have seen with their own eyes what the ruling class
of the so-called West have prepared for humanity as a whole. They have
dropped their masks and shown what they are really made of.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the West decided that the world
and all of us would permanently accede to its dictates. In 1991, the
West thought that Russia would never rise after such shocks and would
fall to pieces on its own. This almost happened. We remember the
horrible 1990s, hungry, cold and hopeless. But Russia remained standing,
came alive, grew stronger and occupied its rightful place in the world.
Meanwhile, the West continued and continues looking for another
chance to strike a blow at us, to weaken and break up Russia, which they
have always dreamed about, to divide our state and set our peoples
against each other, and to condemn them to poverty and extinction. They
cannot rest easy knowing that there is such a great country with this
huge territory in the world, with its natural wealth, resources and
people who cannot and will not do someone else’s bidding.
The West is ready to cross every line to preserve the neo-colonial
system which allows it to live off the world, to plunder it thanks to
the domination of the dollar and technology, to collect an actual
tribute from humanity, to extract its primary source of unearned
prosperity, the rent paid to the hegemon. The preservation of this
annuity is their main, real and absolutely self-serving motivation. This
is why total de-sovereignisation is in their interest. This explains
their aggression towards independent states, traditional values and
authentic cultures, their attempts to undermine international and
integration processes, new global currencies and technological
development centres they cannot control. It is critically important for
them to force all countries to surrender their sovereignty to the United
States.
In certain countries, the ruling elites voluntarily agree to do
this, voluntarily agree to become vassals; others are bribed or
intimidated. And if this does not work, they destroy entire states,
leaving behind humanitarian disasters, devastation, ruins, millions of
wrecked and mangled human lives, terrorist enclaves, social disaster
zones, protectorates, colonies and semi-colonies. They don't care. All
they care about is their own benefit.
I want to underscore again that their insatiability and
determination to preserve their unfettered dominance are the real causes
of the hybrid war that the collective West is waging against Russia.
They do not want us to be free; they want us to be a colony. They do not
want equal cooperation; they want to loot. They do not want to see us a
free society, but a mass of soulless slaves.
They see our thought and our philosophy as a direct threat. That is
why they target our philosophers for assassination. Our culture and art
present a danger to them, so they are trying to ban them. Our
development and prosperity are also a threat to them because competition
is growing. They do not want or need Russia, but we do. (Applause.)
I would like to remind you that in the past, ambitions of world
domination have repeatedly shattered against the courage and resilience
of our people. Russia will always be Russia. We will continue to defend
our values and our Motherland.
The West is counting on impunity, on being able to get away with
anything. As a matter of fact, this was actually the case until
recently. Strategic security agreements have been trashed; agreements
reached at the highest political level have been declared tall tales;
firm promises not to expand NATO to the east gave way to dirty deception
as soon as our former leaders bought into them; missile defence,
intermediate-range and shorter-range missile treaties have been
unilaterally dismantled under far-fetched pretexts.
And all we hear is, the West is insisting on a rules-based order.
Where did that come from anyway? Who has ever seen these rules? Who
agreed or approved them? Listen, this is just a lot of nonsense, utter
deceit, double standards, or even triple standards! They must think
we’re stupid.
Russia is a great thousand-year-old power, a whole civilisation,
and it is not going to live by such makeshift, false rules. (Applause.)
It was the so-called West that trampled on the principle of the
inviolability of borders, and now it is deciding, at its own discretion,
who has the right to self-determination and who does not, who is
unworthy of it. It is unclear what their decisions are based on or who
gave them the right to decide in the first place. They just assumed it.
That is why the choice of the people in Crimea, Sevastopol,
Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson makes them so furiously angry.
The West does not have any moral right to weigh in, or even utter a word
about freedom of democracy. It does not and it never did.
Western elites not only deny national sovereignty and international
law. Their hegemony has pronounced features of totalitarianism,
despotism and apartheid. They brazenly divide the world into their
vassals – the so-called civilised countries – and all the rest, who,
according to the designs of today's Western racists, should be added to
the list of barbarians and savages. False labels like “rogue country” or
“authoritarian regime” are already available, and are used to
stigmatise entire nations and states, which is nothing new. There is
nothing new in this: deep down, the Western elites have remained the
same colonisers. They discriminate and divide peoples into the top tier
and the rest.
We have never agreed to and will never agree to such political
nationalism and racism. What else, if not racism, is the Russophobia
being spread around the world? What, if not racism, is the West’s
dogmatic conviction that its civilisation and neoliberal culture is an
indisputable model for the entire world to follow? “You’re either with
us or against us.” It even sounds strange.
Western elites are even shifting repentance for their own
historical crimes on everyone else, demanding that the citizens of their
countries and other peoples confess to things they have nothing to do
with at all, for example, the period of colonial conquests.
It is worth reminding the West that it began its colonial policy
back in the Middle Ages, followed by the worldwide slave trade, the
genocide of Indian tribes in America, the plunder of India and Africa,
the wars of England and France against China, as a result of which it
was forced to open its ports to the opium trade. What they did was get
entire nations hooked on drugs and purposefully exterminated entire
ethnic groups for the sake of grabbing land and resources, hunting
people like animals. This is contrary to human nature, truth, freedom
and justice.
While we – we are proud that in the 20th century our country led
the anti-colonial movement, which opened up opportunities for many
peoples around the world to make progress, reduce poverty and
inequality, and defeat hunger and disease.
To emphasise, one of the reasons for the centuries-old Russophobia,
the Western elites’ unconcealed animosity toward Russia is precisely
the fact that we did not allow them to rob us during the period of
colonial conquests and forced the Europeans to trade with us on mutually
beneficial terms. This was achieved by creating a strong centralised
state in Russia, which grew and got stronger based on the great moral
valuesof Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, as well
as Russian culture and the Russian word that were open to all.
There were numerous plans to invade Russia. Such attempts were made
during the Time of Troubles in the 17th century and in the period of
ordeals after the 1917 revolution. All of them failed. The West managed
to grab hold of Russia’s wealth only in the late 20th century, when the
state had been destroyed. They called us friends and partners, but they
treated us like a colony, using various schemes to pump trillions of
dollars out of the country. We remember. We have not forgotten anything.
A few days ago, people in Donetsk and Lugansk, Kherson and
Zaporozhye declared their support for restoring our historical unity.
Thank you! (Applause.)
Western countries have been saying for centuries that they bring
freedom and democracy to other nations. Nothing could be further from
the truth. Instead of bringing democracy they suppressed and exploited,
and instead of giving freedom they enslaved and oppressed. The unipolar
world is inherently anti-democratic and unfree; it is false and
hypocritical through and through.
The United States is the only country in the world that has used
nuclear weapons twice, destroying the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
in Japan. And they created a precedent.
Recall that during WWII the United States and Britain reduced
Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne and many other German cities to rubble,
without the least military necessity. It was done ostentatiously and, to
repeat, without any military necessity. They had only one goal, as with
the nuclear bombing of Japanese cities: to intimidate our country and
the rest of the world.
The United States left a deep scar in the memory of the people of
Korea and Vietnam with their carpet bombings and use of napalm and
chemical weapons.
It actually continues to occupy Germany, Japan, the Republic of
Korea and other countries, which they cynically refer to as equals and
allies. Look now, what kind of alliance is that? The whole world knows
that the top officials in these countries are being spied on and that
their offices and homes are bugged. It is a disgrace, a disgrace for
those who do this and for those who, like slaves, silently and meekly
swallow this arrogant behaviour.
They call the orders and threats they make to their vassals
Euro-Atlantic solidarity, and the creation of biological weapons and the
use of human test subjects, including in Ukraine, noble medical
research.
It is their destructive policies, wars and plunder that have
unleashed today’s massive wave of migrants. Millions of people endure
hardships and humiliation or die by the thousands trying to reach
Europe.
They are exporting grain from Ukraine now. Where are they taking it
under the guise of ensuring the food security of the poorest countries?
Where is it going? They are taking it to the self-same European
countries. Only five percent has been delivered to the poorest
countries. More cheating and naked deception again.
In effect, the American elite is using the tragedy of these people
to weaken its rivals, to destroy nation states. This goes for Europe and
for the identities of France, Italy, Spain and other countries with
centuries-long histories.
Washington demands more and more sanctions against Russia and the
majority of European politicians obediently go along with it. They
clearly understand that by pressuring the EU to completely give up
Russian energy and other resources, the United States is practically
pushing Europe toward deindustrialisation in a bid to get its hands on
the entire European market. These European elites understand everything –
they do, but they prefer to serve the interests of others. This is no
longer servility but direct betrayal of their own peoples. God bless, it
is up to them.
But the Anglo-Saxons believe sanctions are no longer enough and now
they have turned to subversion. It seems incredible but it is a fact –
by causing explosions on Nord Stream’s international gas pipelines
passing along the bottom of the Baltic Sea, they have actually embarked
on the destruction of Europe’s entire energy infrastructure. It is clear
to everyone who stands to gain. Those who benefit are responsible, of
course.
The dictates of the US are backed up by crude force, on the law of
the fist. Sometimes it is beautifully wrapped sometimes there is no
wrapping at all but the gist is the same – the law of the fist. Hence,
the deployment and maintenance of hundreds of military bases in all
corners of the world, NATO expansion, and attempts to cobble together
new military alliances, such as AUKUS and the like. Much is being done
to create a Washington-Seoul-Tokyo military-political chain. All states
that possess or aspire to genuine strategic sovereignty and are capable
of challenging Western hegemony, are automatically declared enemies.
These are the principles that underlie US and NATO military
doctrines that require total domination. Western elites are presenting
their neocolonialist plans with the same hypocrisy, claiming peaceful
intentions, talking about some kind of deterrence. This evasive word
migrates from one strategy to another but really only means one thing –
undermining any and all sovereign centres of power.
We have already heard about the deterrence of Russia, China and
Iran. I believe next in line are other countries of Asia, Latin America,
Africa and the Middle East, as well as current US partners and allies.
After all, we know that when they are displeased, they introduce
sanctions against their allies as well – against this or that bank or
company. This is their practice and they will expand it. They have
everything in their sights, including our next-door neighbours – the CIS
countries.
At the same time, the West has clearly been engaged in wishful
thinking for a long time. In launching the sanctions blitzkrieg against
Russia, for example, they thought that they could once again line up the
whole world at their command. As it turns out, however, such a bright
prospect does not excite everyone – other than complete political
masochists and admirers of other unconventional forms of international
relations. Most states refuse to ”snap a salute“ and instead choose the
sensible path of cooperation with Russia.
The West clearly did not expect such insubordination. They simply
got used to acting according to a template, to grab whatever they
please, by blackmail, bribery, intimidation, and convinced themselves
that these methods would work forever, as if they had fossilised in the
past.
Such self-confidence is a direct product not only of the notorious
concept of exceptionalism – although it never ceases to amaze – but also
of the real ”information hunger“ in the West. The truth has been
drowned in an ocean of myths, illusions and fakes, using extremely
aggressive propaganda, lying like Goebbels. The more unbelievable the
lie, the quicker people will believe it – that is how they operate,
according to this principle.
But people cannot be fed with printed dollars and euros. You can't
feed them with those pieces of paper, and the virtual, inflated
capitalisation of western social media companies can't heat their homes.
Everything I am saying is important. And what I just said is no less
so: you can't feed anyone with paper – you need food; and you can't heat
anyone’s home with these inflated capitalisations – you need energy.
That is why politicians in Europe have to convince their fellow
citizens to eat less, take a shower less often and dress warmer at home.
And those who start asking fair questions like “Why is that, in fact?”
are immediately declared enemies, extremists and radicals. They point
back at Russia and say: that is the source of all your troubles. More
lies.
I want to make special note of the fact that there is every reason
to believe that the Western elites are not going to look for
constructive ways out of the global food and energy crisis that they and
they alone are to blame for, as a result of their long-term policy,
dating back long before our special military operation in Ukraine, in
Donbass. They have no intention of solving the problems of injustice and
inequality. I am afraid they would rather use other formulas they are
more comfortable with.
And here it is important to recall that the West bailed itself out
of its early 20th century challenges with World War I. Profits from
World War II helped the United States finally overcome the Great
Depression and become the largest economy in the world, and to impose on
the planet the power of the dollar as a global reserve currency. And
the 1980s crisis – things came to a head in the 1980s again – the West
emerged from it unscathed largely by appropriating the inheritance and
resources of the collapsed and defunct Soviet Union. That's a fact.
Now, in order to free itself from the latest web of challenges,
they need to dismantle Russia as well as other states that choose a
sovereign path of development, at all costs, to be able to further
plunder other nations’ wealth and use it to patch their own holes. If
this does not happen, I cannot rule out that they will try to trigger a
collapse of the entire system, and blame everything on that, or, God
forbid, decide to use the old formula of economic growth through war.
Russia is aware of its responsibility to the international
community and will make every effort to ensure that cooler heads
prevail.
The current neocolonial model is ultimately doomed; this much is
obvious. But I repeat that its real masters will cling to it to the end.
They simply have nothing to offer the world except to maintain the same
system of plundering and racketeering.
They do not give a damn about the natural right of billions of
people, the majority of humanity, to freedom and justice, the right to
determine their own future. They have already moved on to the radical
denial of moral, religious, and family values.
Let’s answer some very simple questions for ourselves. Now I would
like to return to what I said and want to address also all citizens of
the country – not just the colleagues that are in the hall – but all
citizens of Russia: do we want to have here, in our country, in Russia,
“parent number one, parent number two and parent number three” (they
have completely lost it!) instead of mother and father? Do we want our
schools to impose on our children, from their earliest days in school,
perversions that lead to degradation and extinction? Do we want to drum
into their heads the ideas that certain other genders exist along with
women and men and to offer them gender reassignment surgery? Is that
what we want for our country and our children? This is all unacceptable
to us. We have a different future of our own.
Let me repeat that the dictatorship of the Western elites targets
all societies, including the citizens of Western countries themselves.
This is a challenge to all. This complete renunciation of what it means
to be human, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, and the
suppression of freedom are coming to resemble a “religion in reverse” –
pure Satanism. Exposing false messiahs, Jesus Christ said in the Sermon
on the Mount: “By their fruits ye shall know them.” These poisonous
fruits are already obvious to people, and not only in our country but
also in all countries, including many people in the West itself.
The world has entered a period of a fundamental, revolutionary
transformation. New centres of power are emerging. They represent the
majority – the majority! – of the international community. They are
ready not only to declare their interests but also to protect them. They
see in multipolarity an opportunity to strengthen their sovereignty,
which means gaining genuine freedom, historical prospects, and the right
to their own independent, creative and distinctive forms of
development, to a harmonious process.
As I have already said, we have many like-minded people in Europe
and the United States, and we feel and see their support. An essentially
emancipatory, anti-colonial movement against unipolar hegemony is
taking shape in the most diverse countries and societies. Its power will
only grow with time. It is this force that will determine our future
geopolitical reality.
Friends,
Today, we are fighting for a just and free path, first of all for
ourselves, for Russia, in order to leave dictate and despotism in the
past. I am convinced that countries and peoples understand that a policy
based on the exceptionalism of whoever it may be and the suppression of
other cultures and peoples is inherently criminal, and that we must
close this shameful chapter. The ongoing collapse of Western hegemony is
irreversible. And I repeat: things will never be the same.
The battlefield to which destiny and history have called us is a
battlefield for our people, for the great historical Russia. (Applause.)
For the great historical Russia, for future generations, our children,
grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We must protect them against
enslavement and monstrous experiments that are designed to cripple their
minds and souls.
Today, we are fighting so that it would never occur to anyone that
Russia, our people, our language, or our culture can be erased from
history. Today, we need a consolidated society, and this consolidation
can only be based on sovereignty, freedom, creation, and justice. Our
values are humanity, mercy and compassion.
And I want to close with the words of a true patriot Ivan Ilyin:
“If I consider Russia my Motherland, that means that I love as a
Russian, contemplate and think, sing and speak as a Russian; that I
believe in the spiritual strength of the Russian people. Its spirit is
my spirit; its destiny is my destiny; its suffering is my grief; and its
prosperity is my joy.”
Behind these words stands a glorious spiritual choice, which, for
more than a thousand years of Russian statehood, was followed by many
generations of our ancestors. Today, we are making this choice; the
citizens of the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics and the residents
of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions have made this choice. They made
the choice to be with their people, to be with their Motherland, to
share in its destiny, and to be victorious together with it.
The truth is with us, and behind us is Russia!
