#Opinion by Maria Zakharova

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Key points

🔹 The report published by the Russian Ministry of Defence today clearly proves that Washington, in close coordination with its NATO partners, has reached the final stage of setting up provocations in Ukraine aimed at convincing the international community that “Russia has been using weapons-grade poisonous substances and biological agents.”

🔹 Their rationale is obvious: the shocking details of the illegal cooperation between the United States and the Ukrainian administration which still remains in power in making bacteriological weapons have been revealed to the world. The realisation that their criminal activities would inevitably be exposed was so patently clear that Washington began to prepare in advance:

👉 Shaped public opinion
👉 Picked the contractors
👉 Worked to influence international organisations

🔹 The Americans and their partners in Europe take no notice of the fact that Russia has had no chemical weapons at all for five years – since September 27, 2017, and this has been verified by the OPCW. The Ukrainians, aided by NATO specialists, are to remedy this flaw in the American plans crudely enough: just as corrupt police officers plant a weapon with prints on an innocent suspect, Washington and Kiev are going to plant chemical weapons at the Russian Armed Forces’ positions in Ukraine.

👉 This is more than serious. Clearly, the original US plan was to step up economic pressure on Russia to make it reconsider its legitimate security interests. That didn’t work. Now the US is going to use WMD; in fact, this is a game that crosses the red line. If this happens, the number of victims will be incalculable. Each of them will be on the conscience of the American strategists sitting in the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon, and on the conscience of their puppets in Kiev, if they still have any left.

#opinion

💬 « Ils s’attendaient … à ce que la Russie s’effondre dans la seconde qui suit, et qu’elle vienne demander pardon. Et il ne s’est rien passé. Et le rouble est revenu où il était avant la crise ».

🎙 Charles Gave, président de l’Institut des Libertés, explique sur #SudRadio pourquoi les sanctions économiques de l’Occident contre la #Russie se révèlent contre-productives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5msN6_y3Oz0

#Opinion by Maria Zakharova:

💬 The United States urged all African states to respect each other’s territorial integrity. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made this statement at a news conference in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

He did not add though that only the Western countries are not required to respect territorial integrity. They isolated Kosovo from Serbia and called this territory a state contrary to the opinion of Belgrade and the Serbian people.

He did not add, either, that local self-rule was introduced in the Comoros in 1968 and a referendum on independence held in 1974. On July 6, 1975, the Chamber of Deputies of the Comoros Parliament proclaimed the country’s independence. Sayyid Ahmed Abdallah was elected President. In the same year, the Comoros joined the United Nations.

After the Comoros received independence, its former coloniser, France, refused to recognise Comorian sovereignty over the Island of Mayotte, referring to the 1974 referendum at which 63 percent of its population voted for preserving its French colony status. In 1976, Mayotte was granted the status of a territorial unit of the French Republic. Since 2011, Mayotte has been part of France as its overseas department.

In 1976, the Comorian government addressed the UN with a request to take measures to preserve the territorial integrity of the state. On December 12, 1979, the UN General Assembly recognised the rights of the Comoros to Mayotte by Resolution 34/69. Subsequently, the UN General Assembly passed several resolutions on the need to return this island to the Comoros. However, the status of Mayotte is still outstanding.

Meanwhile, the Comoros are part of Africa.

Therefore, it is not the West that should urge Africa to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other states.

#Opinion by Russian MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova

💬 On Thursday, January 26, 2023, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on Countering Russian Aggression,
"Senator Cruz, like you, I am, and I think the administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to
say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea".

❗️ Nuland’s words are proof of the Biden Administration’s approval of a terrorist attack to destroy civilian infrastructure as well as evidence of Washington’s motive to undermine global energy security.

#Opinion by Russian MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova

MSM quotes Kirill Budanov, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, from an interview with Yahoo News when asked about about Kiev's possible involvement in the murder of Darya Dugina:

“All I will comment on is that we’ve been killing Russians and we will keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine.”

💬 Maria Zakharova: This is a direct blow to the White House. The Kiev regime has basically announced that the Biden administration is sponsoring terrorism.

#Opinion by Maria Zakharova

💬 Destructive minorities

PACE continues to favour illegitimate resolutions, this time demanding a total ban on the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in the Olympic Games. Obviously, they are violating:
- the Olympic Charter (the IOC Charter);
- the 2013 UNESCO Berlin Declaration;
- several UN General Assembly resolutions;
- and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

At the same time, the absolute global majority continues adhering to Olympic principles. Thus, the Non-Aligned Movement (120 states and another 20 observers) adopted a Special Declaration at the initiative of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in Baku at the Ministerial Meeting of the NAM Coordinating Bureau urging all members to ensure the participation of all national teams at the Olympic Games in Paris.

IOC President Thomas Bach has already made an official statement: “The IOC warmly welcomes the support by the 120 member states of the Non-Aligned Movement. We are greatly encouraged by this strong commitment to the unifying mission of the Olympic Games. Thank you to the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, for taking the initiative for this important resolution.”

If the West stands for democracy, it should accept the will of the majority based on international law.

#Opinion by Maria Zakharova

💬 All hell seemed to break loose the instant Russia withdrew from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, or the Grain Deal as the journalists labelled it.

Josep Borrell predicted a “major global food supply crisis”, while President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen described Russia’s refusal to extend the deal a “cynical step”. As for Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, she went as far as to refer to Russia’s withdrawal as an “act of cruelty”.

How ludicrous of them to talk about cruelty when they are the main arms suppliers to the conflict zone and when they engineered the government coup in Ukraine.

The International Monetary Fund’s chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said he expected grain prices to rise 15 percent, while his very organisation, the IMF, has been pouring its financial resources into the dying Ukrainian economy for nine years to keep the ugly parasites alive.

But what is the true situation?

In fact, the immediate response from the wheat market when Russia announced its decision to withdraw from this so-called deal on July 17 was a minor uptick in prices. However, the wheat futures price returned to its pre-announcement level in a matter of days, and even went down 1.13 percent to $261 per tonne.

As of August 21, 2023, the price of wheat stands at $253 per tonne, or $6.10 per bushel.

Global corn prices have followed a similar pattern. On July 17, 2023, its price dropped 1.51 percent to $199 per tonne, and this commodity currently trades at $188 per tonne or $4.83 per bushel.

True analysts, not politically biased IMF analysts, have been saying in their forecasts that there may be some minor volatility in grain prices in the mid-term due to several factors. However, the International Grains Council believes that grain production and trade are not currently affected by any global crises with global prices rapidly falling compared to the previous season. In fact, the price of wheat is down 35 percent, corn is 26 percent cheaper, and barley is down 41 percent.

By the way, Russia is expected to become one of the main wheat suppliers in the 2022/2023 agricultural year with exports of 45.5 million tonnes, while Ukraine could total just 14.5 million tonnes, falling behind Australia.

Analysts from the UK’s Economist Intelligence Unit confirmed this, saying that wheat production in Ukraine would amount to 22.5 million tonnes in the current agricultural year, down 32 percent compared to 2021/2022. In 2023/2024, this indicator will be equal to 19 million tonnes, while exports will fall to 10 million tonnes.

When it comes to agricultural exports, fertilisers, energy resources and other essential goods, our country continues to perform its obligations under international contracts responsibly and in good faith. We understand all too well that this has a major bearing on the social and economic development of countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, as well as for the health, lives and wellbeing of their people.

President Vladimir Putin drove this message home with his initiatives to deliver tens of thousands of tonnes of Russian fertiliser that has been seized in European ports, and also grain to the countries that need them, by promising Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic and Eritrea between 25,000 and 50,000 tonnes of grain each.

#Opinion by Maria Zakharova

💬 Antony Blinken’s lies on the anniversary of the Babi Yar tragedy

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Antony Blinken had the audacity to lie about one of the most appalling tragedies of World War II: the massacre of civilians in Soviet Kiev on September 29-30, 1941, in the Babi Yar ravine. Right after occupying the city, the Nazis began their cleansing operations. Within a few days, tens of thousands of Jews, Roma, and Soviet prisoners of war were executed. On September 29-30 alone, the Nazis brutally butchered 34,000 people: this was what Blinken was referring to as he cynically lied (more on this below) about the memory of this tragedy in the USSR, “forgetting” that the executions continued right up to the liberation of Kiev by the Red Army in November 1943.

But we remember everyone: tens of thousands of people of non-Aryan race, partisans and prisoners: all those whom the Nazis sentenced to die and whose remains were left in the Babi Yar ravine. Everyone who lost their lives. Everyone who fell victim to the German idea of superiority. Those who did not live to see the liberation of the Ukrainian SSR capital by the Soviet soldiers.

The US Secretary of State wrote in his post: “Soviets buried this history” by which he meant that they hushed it up. This is a blatant lie, monstrous in its ignorance and cynicism.

No other country in the world so consistently held Nazism accountable for the crimes of the Holocaust as the Soviet Union.

Perhaps there are still decent people left in the State Department who can convey the following information to Mr Blinken.

Already in March 1945, even before the Victory, Resolution No 378 of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR and the Ukrainian Communist Party Central Committee, On the Construction of a Memorial at Babi Yar, was adopted, in accordance with which work began to create a park and install a monument on the burial site of the victims of the Nazi occupiers. It was unveiled on July 2, 1976, on the territory that was later named the Babi Yar National Historical Memorial Reserve in Kiev. <...>

Yet Blinken had the audacity to write that we don’t or didn’t remember the past, and he did that on the anniversary of the tragedy. On the other hand, what is left to be desired from the US Secretary of State who was declared one of the most influential Jews in the world last year by an Israeli magazine but who found no words to condemn the honouring of a Nazi in the Canadian parliament? What do we want from the US Secretary of State who issues orders to finance the Nazi regime in Kiev, a regime that glorifies the collaborators Bandera and Shukhevich? What do we want from the US Secretary of State who issues an order to vote against the UN General Assembly resolution condemning neo-Nazism, racism and xenophobia? <...>

P.S. Blinken’s stepfather, Samuel Pisar, was a Holocaust survivor who was in several death camps, including Auschwitz and Dachau. He recalled with gratitude the role of the USSR and Soviet soldiers’ contribution to the Victory over Nazism until the end of his life. Here is an almost prophetic quote of his from an interview with RIA Novosti in 2010: “We, Holocaust survivors who went through Auschwitz, are disappearing one after another. Very soon there will be no eyewitnesses of this catastrophe. And history will speak in the impersonal voice of novelists, researchers and historians at best. Remember Yevtushenko’s poem ‘There Are No Monuments Over Babi Yar’? Shostakovich wrote his 13th symphony called “Babi Yar.” At worst, these will be the voices of demagogues, falsifiers, those who say the Holocaust never happened.”

I wonder what he would say today about his stepson’s lies...

#Opinion de Maria Zakharova:
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💬 Joe Biden a qualifié l'aide à l'Ukraine d'"investissement intelligent" qui rapportera des dividendes à la sécurité américaine "pendant des générations".
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Ils avaient l'habitude d'appeler cela se battre "pour la liberté et la démocratie" - mais il s'avère maintenant que ce n'était qu'une commodité pragmatique. En fait, il en a toujours été ainsi, mais Washington a trompé le monde en défendant des valeurs inexistantes.
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Les guerres ont toujours été un "investissement intelligent" pour les États-Unis. Tant qu'elles ne se déroulaient pas sur le territoire américain, ils ne se sont jamais souciés des conséquences de ces guerres sur les autres.
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Rien de personnel, c'est juste du business, comme on dit.
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Maintenant, revenons aux "dividendes".
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Comme l'a fait remarquer Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., juge à la Cour suprême des États-Unis, il y a un siècle, "Le savoir d'un homme meurt avec lui; même ses vertus s'effacent des mémoires, mais les dividendes des actions qu'il lègue à ses enfants vivent et gardent sa mémoire verte."
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Tout semble mort et fané pour ceux qui pensent ainsi aux dividendes du sang.

#Opinion by Russian MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova

💬 The old colonialist ideologies persist; moreover, in the 21st century, indigenous peoples continue to endure increasing hardships under the dominance of European and overseas colonial powers.

Take Greenland, for instance. It’s officially an autonomous territory under Denmark, inhabited by the Inuit. They have their language, beliefs, culture, land, and cities. However, the land was colonised by Northern Europeans, and later the Americans, without consulting the locals, established a military base on the island. In 1968, an American B-52 bomber carrying thermonuclear bombs crashed there, resulting in widespread radioactive contamination.

As a result, Inuit Greenland transformed into a colony and then into an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark with the added presence of American military forces.

Like all Western metropoles, Denmark, and consequently the EU, extracted resources from the island. Recently, Ursula von der Leyen, the gynaecologist-turned-head of the European Commission and recipient of the 'Ms Vaccine Corruption' title for the 2020-2021 season, visited Greenland. Were the locals of any interest to her? Their living conditions, social issues? Despite being formal residents of an EU member state (though Greenland itself is not part of the EU), they were not.

Ursula went to Greenland to assess its mineral resources. According to The Guardian, “the autonomous Danish territory is of strong interest to Brussels, especially for highly sought after raw materials.” Her special adviser affirms his boss’s interest: “Greenland had many of the raw materials – such as rare earth elements and metals – that it needed for its green transition.”

Meanwhile, the Aftonbladet newspaper featured an article detailing the disregard and violation of the rights of the Sami, the small indigenous community of Northern Europe, in Sweden.

Erika Bjureby, head of the local Greenpeace office, and Anna Johansson, Secretary General of Amnesty International Sweden, write, “The enduring hostility toward the Sami people is resurging. Presently, oppression intertwines with the exploitation of the natural habitats crucial to the Sami’s livelihood. Sweden neglects indigenous peoples’ rights, prioritising land exploitation over Sami well-being.” Sweden will continue exploit the Sami land and oppress its population. What future awaits the Sami in such a country?

In Canada, the indigenous residents, the First Nations, the Indians have suffered racism from London and then Ottawa for decades. Tragic stories emerge from boarding schools where numerous Indian children faced abuse and death. Last month, Karen Hogan, the country’s auditor general, criticised the federal government’s mismanagement of Indigenous housing issues. Despite a budget of 45 billion Canadian dollars for housing and communal services, only under 4 billion was allocated. Consequently, indigenous people continue to reside in substandard housing, while their homes remain neglected compared to those of “respectable whites.” Justin Trudeau may talk a lot about reconciliation, but the harsh reality reveals persistent discrimination and banal colonialist racism in Canada. Statistics indicate that over half (54 percent) of respondents became victims of incidents due to their race or ethnicity.

NATO countries exhibit racism and harbour colonialist attitudes towards other ethnic groups.