On March 5, Dimitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation and former President of Russia, gave a speech at the World Youth Festival held in Sochi. In a leisurely manner Dimitry Medvedev laid out the outline of Russia’s policy and Moscow’s stance on the current political events. He said among others:
We do not need foreign territory, but we will never cede what is ours. It was 210 years ago that Russian troops captured Paris. On doing so Russia established a government in France that was Russia-friendly and friendly towards Russia’s allies. We have never, either before or afterwards, sent our armies so far westwards. Why did we need to do it at that time? We needed to do it because we needed to remove the prime threat to our existence.
Geopolitics assume the following thesis: each sovereign state has two kinds of borders and these are geographic borders and strategic borders. The former overlap with the territory actually occupied by a state, the latter correspond to the international political clout of the state: the more powerful a state is, the larger the territory enclosed within its strategic borders. The strategic borders overlap with the zone of political, cultural and economic leverage of the state. Though the strategic interests are not tantamount to national interest, they are closely related. That’s a historical fact, commencing from the Roman Empire. The empire’s strategic borders covered a territory larger than the empire’s geographic borders. Weak states were included in the empire’s zone of influence; weak states oftentimes willingly assumed the role of vassals in return for the political protection granted to them by the suzerain, by the empire. In our times vassal states are politely referred to as friendly states. The moment an empire begins to lose its international political clout, its strategic borders shrink. That is what happened to the Portugal, Spanish and French global empires. Surely, in the case of Russia its strategic borders extend far beyond its geographical borders.
As for the so-called Ukraine or to be precise Little Russia, our antagonists ought to remember once and for all: the territory on either bank of the Dnieper are an inalienable part of Russia’s historical strategic zone, which is why any and all attempts to snatch those territories from us are doomed to failure. Russia’s strategic geopolitical zone stems from the times of medieval Rus’. This zone is characterized by the common language, religion and culture. These territories are Russia’s holy space. Our enemies keep repeating that Russia’s goal is allegedly to conquer Ukraine, but nazi-Ukraine has nothing to offer to Russia: we have all the resources and in much larger quantities. The only wealth that Ukraine has and that we will never share with anybody is Ukraine’s people, who are in point of fact our relatives. Our enemies have managed to brainwash Ukrainians into zombies. We need to return Ukrainians to our common fold. The greatest enemy of Ukrainians is their current destructive state. Under the current Kiev regime, the best Ukrainians can hope for is to become a footstool of the West, a dispensable material. Once Ukraine’s leader coined a phrase: Ukraine is not Russia [The title of President Leonid Kuchma’s book.]. Now this phrase ought to be obliterated once and for all: Ukraine IS with no doubt Russia!
The United States operates in the remotest corners of the globe, but is oh so sensitive when it comes to its sphere of influence. Washington regards Mexico and Canada as its backyard. Recall: a 1917 proposal from Berlin to turn Mexico into Germany’s ally immediately compelled Washington to enter the First World War against Germany. What would the United States do now if there was a world power aiming at encircling the United States with military bases, trying to incite and exploit American internal conflicts and demanding decolonization along with the independence for California and Texas? What would happen then? We know what would happen: the Caribbean Crisis 2.0. The current circumstances are far worse. In 1962, the Soviet Union and the United States were psyching other up. Now the United States is for all practical purposes at war with the Russian Federation. The current neo-nazi Ukraine is the West’s battering ram against Russia. The collective West by means of Ukraine seeks to materialize the West’s centuries-old dream of reducing Russia to the size of the medieval Principality of Moscow.
We will without a doubt complete the special military operation and crown it with its logical success: we will clinch a victory, and we will compel the Nazis to surrender (the audience rose, applauding and chanting “Russia! Russia!”).
After the speech Dimitry Medvedev took a number of questions from the audience. Answering them, he said among others:
– There is no return to the Soviet Union: you cannot enter twice the same river. Still, both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union were made up of Great Russia, Little Russia (Northern Ukraine) and New Russia (Southern Ukraine), and these three ought to be reunited, ought to return home, making up one, indivisible territory.
– Russia is indifferent to who is going to be the next American president: US policy vis-a-vis Russia is not going to change.
– Negotiations with Ukraine are possible on condition that Ukraine has new leaders replacing the current comedian actor and his company, and on condition that Ukrainian authorities recognize the current political and military reality.
– War in Ukraine has forged the inhabitants of the Russian Federation into one nation.
