Russlands Präsident Wladimir Putin nimmt bei Reden vor den eigenen Anhängern kein Blatt vor den Mund. Zum Beispiel bei seiner Frage/Antwort-Runde auf dem sogenannten Selinger-Jugendforum Ende August. Die Antworten sind lang, aber die Lektüre im Wortlaut lohnt sich - weil sie einen Einblick in Putins Vorstellungswelt geben. Und das zu so aktuellen Themen wie die Ukraine, Russlands nuklearer Macht, die Demokratie in Russland und den Nachbarländern, der Politik der USA und der Effizienz der Uno.
Das Presseamt des Kreml hat eine sehr lange Übersetzung ins Netz gestellt, die allerdings noch nicht vollständig ist („to be continued").
Folgende Passage, zitiert nach Reuters, findet sich in der offiziellen Übersetzung allerdings nicht:"Russia is far from being involved in any large-scale conflicts.We don't want that and don't plan on it. But naturally, we should always be ready to repel any aggression towards Russia. Russia's partners should understand it's best not to mess with us. Thank God, I think no one is thinking of unleashing a large-scale conflict with Russia. I want to remind you that Russia is one of the leading nuclear powers."
Ich dokumentiere die Rede in Auszügen, mit Hervorhebungen.
Wer noch mehr lesen will, wird hier fündig: Die offizielle Übersetzung (in Auszügen) gibt es auf kremlin.ru, hier der Text im russischen Original, hier die Videoaufzeichnung der gesamten Runde (ohne Übersetzung).
Frage/Antwort-Runde beim Seliger-Jugendtreffen 2014:ALEXEI MAKARENKO: Good afternoon, Mr President. My name is Alexei Makarenko and I represent the International Graduate School of Management at the St Petersburg State Polytechnic University.
Even though our forum has an education focus, we are actively following current events in the world, and many of the current events concern Ukraine of course. (...) Could you please give your view of the current situation and say something about how it is likely to develop?
VLADIMIR PUTIN: Let's start with the question of our servicemen. I have already said that we have had cases of Ukrainian servicemen ending up on Russian territory, and in far greater number too. In one case there were 450 people, and in another case there were 60. Just recently there were another 60 servicemen with their arms. There were cases when they ended up on our territory and said that they had got lost - in their armoured vehicles and with their weapons.
This is the truth in fact. I am serious here. I believe that they did get lost because there is no demarcated border there. If military operations are underway or our servicemen are patrolling the border, this is entirely possible. I think that this matter is therefore a technical one. Mr Poroshenko and I discussed this issue, and he assured me that the Russian servicemen would be handed back to Russia, just as we have handed over Ukrainian servicemen and continue to do so.
What's more, we provided them with medical assistance, treated them in our hospitals, and so there is every reason to believe that both sides will behave in proper fashion in this matter.
As for the situation overall, it is far more serious of course. To repeat what I have already said about what happened, President Yanukovych postponed the signing of an economic agreement with the European Union because he believed that the document still needed substantial additional work.
Our Western partners, with the support of fairly radically inclined and nationalist-leaning groups, carried out a coup d'état there.
No matter what anyone says, we all understand what happened. There are no fools among us. We all saw the symbolic pies handed out on the Maidan. This information and political support, what does it mean?
This was a case of the United States and European countries getting fully involved in a change of power, an anti-constitutional change of power carried out by force, and the part of the country that does not accept this change is being suppressed with brute military force and the use of planes, artillery, multiple launch rocket systems and tanks. If this is what today's European values are about, then I am more than disappointed.
What happened next? We had numerous discussions with the Ukrainian leadership, the US leadership and the European countries about the need for an immediate end to this fratricidal war and the start of negotiations. What did the Ukrainian government propose three or four weeks ago after all? Unilaterally it all sounded so fine: "We have ended military operations." But then the very next thing they say is that the ceasefire will last for seven days and whoever does not lay down their arms will be destroyed. Is this the road to negotiations? This is an ultimatum.
Of course the people who had taken up arms could not agree to these conditions. After all, they took up arms so as to defend themselves and their lives and dignity. The military operations then resumed once more and what do we have today? The Ukrainian army has surrounded small towns and big cities and are firing directly at residential areas in order to destroy infrastructure and crush the will to resist and so on.
Sad as it is to say, but this reminds me of the events of World War II, when the Nazi troops surrounded our towns, in particular Leningrad - you are from St Petersburg, yes? - and fired directly on the towns and their people.On Nevsky Prospekt, as you know, you can still see the sign "Citizens! Take care: this side of the street is most dangerous in artillery attacks." This is the point things have come to. This is terrible! This is a catastrophe! I can therefore understand the militia in southeast Ukraine, in Donbass and Lugansk, for attempting to defend themselves.
Why do they call their operation a military-humanitarian operation? What are they trying to do today? They are trying to push back artillery and multiple launch rocket systems from the big towns so that they won't be able to kill people. But what do we hear in response from our Western partners? We are told that they do not have the right to do this. They are supposed to let themselves suffer, let themselves be killed, and then they will be considered good guys? We need to sit down at the negotiating table.
It has become clear to me now that our partners' position amounts to saying that yes, we do need to begin negotiations, but first we need to let the Ukrainian government shoot for a while, and then they might be able to swiftly bring some order there.
But it is time to realise that this is not going to work, and we need to make the Ukrainian authorities start negotiations of real substance, negotiations of substance. Not just talk about the technical issues, which are important too of course, as they deal with humanitarian matters such as prisoner exchanges, as they call it, and other issues too.
There need to be negotiations of substance. [Foreign Minister] Lavrov was here, and the diplomats love this term. Negotiations need to work out in substance what rights the people in Donbass, Lugansk and the entire southeast of Ukraine will have. Their lawful rights and interests must be formulated and guaranteed within the framework of modern civilised rules. These are the issues that need to be discussed. From there I am sure it will be relatively easy to settle matters concerning the border, guaranteeing security and so on. But the problem is that they do not really want to talk.
Now concerning my appeal about the humanitarian corridor, I saw in the news reports above all, and also from the reports of our special services what is happening. I saw the reactions of mothers and wives of these Ukrainian servicemen who are surrounded. This is a tragedy for them too. This was why I appealed to the Donbass militia to open a humanitarian corridor so that people could leave. Many of them have been there for several days without food or water. They have run out of ammunition. They should be given the chance to leave.
The latest news is that the Ukrainian military commanders and the leadership have decided not to let them leave this encirclement and are making attempts to push back the militia forces and fight their way out. I think this is a colossal mistake that will lead to much loss of life. This is terrible.
Now, on the substance. This is an immense tragedy, this conflict in Ukraine. There are historians here, and people with their own views on our country's history might argue with me, but I think that the Russian and Ukrainian peoples are practically one single people, no matter what others might say.
Correct me of course if you want, but just listen first. There was no Russian people as such back then. There were Slavic tribes. Some say there were 16, others 32, people have different figures for these tribes, Slavs, Drevlians and so on. And with the baptism of Rus, Vladimir was himself first baptised in Chersonesus, and this makes Crimea a holy place for us too, and he then came to Kiev and had the whole of Rus baptised.
It was after this that the Russian nation began to take shape, but it was multi-ethnic right from the start.
People living in what is Ukraine today all called themselves 'Russian'. Yes, there was Galicia, the territories in the west, close to Western Europe, and it was natural that they developed particular relations with the Catholic world and their neighbours through the intermingling of languages and cultures. But they should not impose their views on their entire Ukrainian people.
My point is that I think that what is happening in Ukraine today is an immense common tragedy for us all. And we need to do everything possible to end this tragedy as soon as possible.
Our political systemYEVGENY CHERNOV: Good afternoon, Mr President. I am Yevgeny Chernov from the Volga Management Institute in Saratov, and have a PhD in political science.
We devoted our first days here in Seliger to politics. Our political system has undergone some substantial transformations over the last 2.5 years, including the new law on elections to the State Duma and the return to direct elections of regional governors. Mr President, would you say that now the political system's foundations have been laid and we can expect only small changes from here?
VLADIMIR PUTIN: Have the political system's foundations been laid? Who can say? Let me explain. Practice is the only true criteria and we now have to see how all that we have developed works in real life. Time will tell if what we have established is in keeping with our country's and society's current level of development.
I think that the main supports have been built though. Russia is a very unique country in some ways. We made our nobles grow long beards, then made them shave them off, then made them grow them long again, then cut them off again. Why do we do this? It's the same with the economy.
If you look around, when individual countries' economies or the global economy goes into crisis, the level of state regulation increases and people say that this is necessary, and that the state needs to take this or take that. As soon as the economy recovers from the crisis, people say that state regulation is just a set of shackles, puts chains on the economy and stops it from moving ahead. They say the market is self-regulating.
And so then you got this liberal movement that did indeed help to speed up development, but crisis phenomena build up even faster and are inevitable, and so some amount of state regulation is then needed again.It is the same too in the way society and the state are organised. We cannot rely only on our past experience of course. We do need to keep hold of our traditional values, but they must not prevent us from moving forward. We need to look at the situation in society, the circumstances of the moment. During the Soviet years for example, for all the criticism of that period there was a time when the economy did grow very fast and the country strengthened rapidly.
Whatever people might say about the number of victims in World War II and the Great Patriotic War, we did win in the end. We can criticise the commanders and Stalin all we like, but can anyone say with certainty that a different approach would have enabled us to win? No one denies that Stalin was a tyrant and that we had the labour camps and the personality cult, but we need to be able to look at issues from every angle.It became clear that our development had reached a stage when rule by one party, the Communist Party in this case, did not reflect the level of our society's development and was preventing the country from moving further. This in large part was what led to the Soviet Union's collapse and to the unravelling of its economy and political system.
Now we have a multiparty system. People criticise it of course and say that we have no real opposition. But I completely disagree here. We have a genuine multiparty system. We have different parties in the parliament and they compete quite intensely in election campaigns when they think they have a chance.
Look at the election campaign in 2012. Was it just a sort of game? Not at all. Any unbiased observer could see that there was a fierce fight between the parties. Then the election took place, and as often happens, with the election over, people know there's no sense fighting further on that front, so the fight moves to other areas. We now have these four parliamentary parties that have developed and taken shape. They have their own views on economic development, social issues, and on the country in general.
(...)
YEKATERINA MITYAGINA: Hello, Mr President. I am from the Vyatka State Humanities University in Kirov. Recently, it's been very fashionable to conduct various polls and ratings. We have been here for seven days now, many of us are sociologists, and so we took it onto ourselvesto do a small study on mentions of you by speakers who spoke to us here -positive and negative mentions. And the results of our small study are as follows. The greatest number of times you were mentioned by a single speaker was six. Combined, all speakers mentioned you in their speeches over 40 times. It is immediately clear that all these mentions were positive. We did not hear any criticism of you from speakers at the forum.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: You just said, and I even wrote it down: "There were positive and negative mentions." And then you said that there weren't any negative ones. So were there or weren't there? YEKATERINA MITYAGINA: Mr President, that was the initial goal. In other words, as objective sociologists, we must take into account both positive and negative mentions. But unfortunately, until today, we were not able to... or rather, fortunately.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: This was an omission by the authorities. These mentions should have been balanced. It's an omission from the organisers.
YEKATERINA MITYAGINA: Mr President, in this regard, we have a question from Kirov, Novosibirsk and Kaliningrad, i.e., researchers from these cities worked on this study. The question is, how do you feel about ratings overall, how do you feel about your high approval ratings today, the Russian and global ratings? Are you afraid of such ratings? And how do you feel about the results of our modest sociological study? Thank you.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: Russia is a nation that is not afraid of anything. But it always analyses everything happening within and around it objectively and sets up its work accordingly. This is fully true of any citizen of our nation, and it is true for me. Y ou know, people who do the work I do must certainly be aware of their ratings and take them into account, but they should never use them as a benchmark. And I have never used them as one.
What are the main criteria that allow for achieving success? A person must be truly convinced of his right cause, of the work he is doing. If it is something that is not yet rated positively in the public consciousness, the goal is not to fall in line with the common point of view; instead, the goal is to honestly and openly explain what he or she is doing.
That is extremely important; if people see that the head of a region, city or state believes in what he is doing, if he is honest and open, then I assure you, I have seen this many times, people begin to trust and support him. This is extremely important.
And even if this is not reflected in the mid-term ratings, so long as there are no mistakes, so long as we are moving in the right direction, then the right and principled position always pays off; people understand and support this. That is how I try to work. (...)
ANNA SAZONOVA: Good afternoon, Mr President. I am Anna Sazonova, my colleagues and I represent the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia. VLADIMIR PUTIN: The one named after Patrice Lumumba?
ANNA SAZONOVA: Yes, it has a different name now. Everybody is talking about nationalism in Ukraine nowadays. However, we are concerned about a different situation, namely the growth of nationalistic sentiments in Kazakhstan, in the south of that country in particular. In our view the acting President, Mr Nazarbayev is the main restraining factor here. An adequate perception by Kazakhs of Russian political rhetoric is also an issue. This is obvious from the internet, from the activities of public organisations and in personal conversations. Our question is should we expect developments in Kazakhstan to follow the Ukrainian scenario should Mr Nazarbayev leave his post? Is there any strategy designed to prevent this? We have some proposals; we would like to join this work, if possible. What are the prospects for Eurasian integration?
And on a personal note, I would like to say you look well, this cardigan suits you very well. Thank you.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: So this is a cardigan? (Laughs) Ok. Thank you for the compliment.
Here is what I can say about Kazakhstan. It is our closest strategic ally and partner. First, President Nazarbayev is alive and well, and, thank god, has no intention of resigning; however, being the wise and experienced leader that he is, he is always concerned about the future of his country.
As for some individual comments on the internet and some discussions with citizens of Kazakhstan - naturally, people are different and they may express different views. In population that country is about ten times smaller than Russia, its population is about 15 million, but by European standards this is a large country. However, I am convinced that a vast majority of the citizens of Kazakhstan favour stronger ties with Russia. We see this and we know it.
As you may know, Mr Nazarbayev is a very wise leader, I believe he is the wisest on the post-Soviet space, and he would never go against the will of his people. He can feel what his people expect of him. Therefore, everything that has been done lately - largely due to his talent of an organiser and his political expertise - is all in the interests of Kazakhstan as a state.
(...)
QUESTION: Good afternoon, Mr President. (...) My question has to do with the United Nations Organisation. We all know that the idea to create the UN appeared after World War II. Countries of the anti-Hitler coalition decided that to maintain peace and accord in Russia and the world they needed an organisation that would take up issues of international law and so forth.However, in the past 20-30 years there have been numerous cases showing that the organisation is not working.
For instance, we have the so-called humanitarian interventions by the USA and western states. The bombing of Yugoslavia, the war in Iraq that took many lives. Of course, there are also positive examples, like Mali, where they seem to have found a solution. In this connection, I would like to ask: do you think it necessary to reorganise the United Nations now that a new multi-polar world has appeared with its specific challenges? Do you think Russia should make the first steps in this direction? Thank you.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: This is a fundamental question pertaining to the current state of international relations and their development and to international law. Yes, the UN was created based on the outcomes of World War II and reflected the balance of forces that existed then. Now this balance has changed significantly, and continues to do so because we live in a turbulent and changing world.
Regarding the efficiency of the UN now. Was it more efficient when it was only set up and the 'Cold War' began? Back then, they used to call Gromyko [USSR Foreign Minister in 1957-1985] 'Mr No' because he always said 'No'. Why did he do so? Because the Soviet Union had its own ideas regarding what met its interests, what was fair or unfair. I can say that present-day critics of the former Soviet leaders are not always right when they say that the Soviet Union was guided in its decisions only by ideology. This was not always the case. On many occasions the Soviet leaders were guided by the geopolitical interests of Russia and the Soviet Union.
What do we see today? The ideological component has gone from our relations, but the competition has not slackened a bit, often it is even fiercer than it used to be. Geopolitics have always been at the basis of the interests of any state, and remain so.
True, as you say, the UN is not always effective. Take, for instance, Yugoslavia or Iraq, which you have mentioned. Yes, we were against the use of force, say, in Iraq, just like France and Germany were. It was a unique situation when such countries as France and Germany joined us in opposing the United States. This alone means a lot. While today's European leaders are far from showing their independence, this does not mean the tendency is not there. In any case, the tendency for independence, for sovereignty, for asserting one's rights is growing and will continue to do so. Unfortunately, not all our colleagues in the West can see this. However, decisions made outside the framework of the United Nations are usually doomed to failure. Look, you mentioned Iraq, and say, Libya. What is going on there? We used to have a joke that whatever we try to make, we always end up with a Kalashnikov. Right now I am getting the impression that whatever the Americans do - they get Libya and Iraq every time.
When issues are being resolved unilaterally, this does not last long. At the same time, it is difficult to achieve a consensus within the UN because frequently we have a collision of opposing views and positions; however, this is the only way to achieving long-term solutions. Why? Because if we have a balanced decision supported by all the main participants in international affairs, then everyone starts making an effort to implement it in the best possible way, and stability evolves. Are the United Nations always effective? Maybe not always.
You have just repeated a cliché our western partners used to bring up say, during the Iraq crisis. Back then, they also said, "The UN is not working, and it is not what it used to be and so forth, we need to replace it with other organisations, like NATO, for instance." I already said how efficient, or rather how inefficient unilateral decisions end up to be.
However, I completely disagree with the notion that the UN is inefficient. One simply has to know how to use the mechanisms and tools it offers, to respect the other point of view and strive for a consensus. Would the United Nations Organisation become more efficient if it served the interests of a single state, in this case the USA or its allies? In that case, we would not need it at all. That is when it would completely lose its intended purpose. Should we develop it? Of course, we should. Such countries as India with its billion-strong population are coming to the fore in global politics; I would also say that the Federal Republic of Germany is not the same country that came out of World War II carrying the tragic load that Hitler imposed on the German people.
Today some are still trying to hold Germans responsible for what Hitler had done. We should not forget what happened and draw conclusions; however, the German people should not be held responsible for whatever Hitler had done for thousands of years on, because an attempt to do so after World War I actually led to the second war. Thus, we have the Federal Republic of Germany, and Brazil, which has confidently come to the forefront of world politics, and India, which I have already mentioned, and some African countries, like the South African Republic - all wish to take up their rightful place among the Security Council permanent members. I believe we should move toward reform on two main conditions.
First - this should be a result of a broad consensus, that is, a vast majority of states involved in international relations should agree with the proposed reform scenario. The second compulsory condition is to maintain the fundamental principles of UN efficiency; in particular, the prerogatives and rights of its Security Council.
It alone can make decisions regarding war and peace, sanctions and especially the use of force. These decisions should be mandatory for all Security Council members. The mechanisms should not be washed out; otherwise, it will turn into the League of Nations, which, as we know, ceased to exist prior to World War I.