“We have lost nothing and are not losing anything,” Vladimir Putin replied when asked what Russia had “gained or lost as a state” since February 24, the day of the all-out attack on Ukraine. The moderator asked a panel at the “Eastern Economic Forum” in Vladivostok, which brought together the President of Russia with the Prime Ministers of Armenia and Mongolia, a high-ranking Chinese representative and the military ruler of Myanmar. The moderator said he didn’t hear “a word about Ukraine” in Putin’s lengthy welcome speech. Putin explained that “this country” is not part of the Asia-Pacific region, and on Ukraine’s “achievements” said the most important thing is “the strengthening of our sovereignty, and that is the inevitable outcome of what is happening right now.”
Actually, Putin did speak of Ukraine in the speech, even if only about its grain: he threatened to export it from the ports blocked by Russia, through which Moscow negotiated with Turkey, the United Nations and the government in Kyiv at the end of July had agreed to “restrict” again.
Putin said that he would “absolutely” talk to Turkish President Erdogan about this and justified this by saying that the grain does not go to “the poorest developing countries, but to EU countries”. However, by virtue of the agreement, all ship shipments will be approved by a Joint Coordination Center in Turkey, with Moscow represented. Grain prices have fallen following the deal, and grain that landed in Djibouti has just arrived in dozens of trucks in Ethiopia, where it is said to help alleviate hunger. But Putin railed against European countries that behaved “like colonizers” and against Ukraine and its government. There are “an enormous number of people who hate this regime,” he said.
Moscow is pushing ahead with the “Power of Siberia” gas pipeline
Putin did not give the impression that he had corrected misperceptions that Russian soldiers would be welcomed as liberators in the neighboring country. Instead, he repeated accusations against a “collective West” that, in the “sanctions fever”, wanted to impose on other countries how they should “behave”.
Putin triumphed that Russia’s inflation, which is currently just over 14 percent, is trending down in contrast to inflation in Western countries, and acted as an advocate for the population there: “The aloofness of the Western elites from the interests of their own citizens is increasing,” said he about. Putin has threatened to stop gas supplies if the EU puts a price cap on Russian exports. If that happens, Russia will “fail to fulfill” its supply contracts, he said. However, Russia is already no longer fulfilling its supply contracts, but claims that the sanctions are to blame. “And we will no longer deliver anything at all if it goes against our interests, in this case economic ones,” Putin said. Those “who want to impose something on us” are “not in a position to dictate their will to us”.
Putin also wanted to emphasize Russia’s “turn to the East”, which had already been propagated in 2014 and is now being pushed with even more pressure. Referring to the Kraft Siberian gas pipeline to China, he said it was working “in full”. It is usually said that the target transmission capacity of 38 billion cubic meters of gas per year will not be reached until 2025; even that would only be a small fraction of the gas previously sold to the EU. Putin went on to claim agreement on the Force of Siberia 2 pipeline, but then conceded that “our Chinese friends are difficult negotiators.” China has so far rejected the planned route through Mongolia, and the fact that Putin advertised this “country that is friendly to us” as “politically stable” indicated that an agreement with Beijing had not yet been reached.
Putin gave the guest from China, Li Zhanshu, third in the power hierarchy there, greetings to “my good friend”, head of state and party leader Xi Jinping. Next week, Putin and Xi want to meet at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. It will be Xi’s first trip abroad since January 2020.
