The version from RT on Twitter is the best one available currently:
https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1dRKZLQDDYDJB
English Soundtrack:
Transcript : http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/62366
Saker Message:
Shooting in KGB building in Moscow (during Putin’s speach?) – one officer dead, several (5?) wounded. Gunner “exterminated”.
Not inside the building. Just outside.
Sorry for misinformation, first news according gazeta.ru were (Google translate):
18:39 According to preliminary data, three attackers opened fire in the FSB reception building.
https://m.gazeta.ru/social/2019/12/19/12874568.shtml
It hasn’t been the KGB building for almost 30 years. Report by RT https://www.rt.com/news/476431-moscow-civilians-fsb-shooting/
All ‘news’ given by the MSM made a point that it ‘was the KGB building’ and that Putin was a former KGB.
Putin made clear that there is no military alliance between Russia and China and no plans for there to ever be one. For the life of me I really don’t understand this. I hope someone here can explain the reasoning behind this and of course if possible an article by Saker on this would be great.
Most of us here when we talk about the resistance to the Empire we often include both Russia and China in the fight. It’s obvious that the two need each other and combined their power is a force to be reckoned with. To me a formal alliance between these two great powers will guarantee successful resistance and even victory but on their own the struggle is and will be much, much harder. In fact, besides a military edge, Russia is the weaker of the two based on its economic limits and the threat of their Euro-Atlanticists. On top of that, imagine if China totally abandoned its “special relationship with Russia, I don’t think Russia would survive. Russia can’t just rely on selling gas and other resources to its neighbor.
Both Russia and China need a formal alliance and invite others to join, notably North Korea, Iran, disillusioned countries of the Balkans, South America etc. this alliance will ensure their survival and prevent regime changes that the Empire s expert at doing.
Also such an alliance doesn’t have to follow the NATO model which is this infinite money pit. Build the alliance on principles and policies that make it economically feasible and morally righteous. Although I believe the policy of an attack on one is an attack on all must be adopted.
Unfortunately I am unable to articulate my desire for a formal alliance between Russia and China clearly but I see it also from a spiritual perspective (war is definitely not spiritual and must be avoided at all costs) in that it will symbolise the struggle between good and evil. Most of us here are waiting for a creation of an alternative to the current world order- alternatives to the Western monopoly of the internet, political domination, Wall Street, Big Pharma etc. but it just doesn’t seem to be coming just year after year of the same.
Such an alliance will ensure greater and more meaningful friendship and bond between the peoples of these countries, especially the young who are now just obsessed with American culture, video games and commercialism. Just look at the bond between the US, AUSTRALIA , the UK – it will never be broken. This is what Russia, China and others must aspire to.
The bond between the UK, US and Australia is based on supremacist Anglo Saxon racism, not a military alliance.
Personally I hope they never create a military alliance. You can try and create some sort of moral structure to try and prevent future leaders from abusing it, but at the end of the day, NATO attacks its victims in the name of “democracy, freedom and human rights”. The moral of the story is, there is no such thing as a righteous, moral military alliance. Corrupt people in power will find a way to use this sword to their advantage.
It would be a colossal mistake to create a new NATO to fight the old NATO, because that’s what it will be, even if much later down the road.
Don’t rush to conclusions:
“NATO Wants to Become the Atlantic-Pacific Alliance”, by Thierry Meyssan
No one stops the Pentagon. While the military deployment project around China mentioned by Hillary Clinton in 2011 had officially been abandoned, NATO had just had it endorsed by the London Summit. The process has been launched and is expected to start with Australia’s accession in 2026″.
@https://www.voltairenet.org/article208535.html:
‘…While from the French point of view, NATO is in a state of “brain death”, the Pentagon has begun its transformation into a global organization. All Member States signed the London Declaration without reflection, which states: “We are aware that China’s growing influence and international policies present both opportunities and challenges, to which we must respond together as an Alliance” . The process is underway’.
Think of a left arm and hand and a right arm and hand, and then think of a single arm with two hands. Not as useful, adaptive or effective is it?
An alliance is for locking in one strength and one unified action, goal and ideology. It has its strengths, but it is also limiting and usually not as effective as a coordinated relationship.
Russia and China have a single adversary that is existentially threatening both of them, the USA. They have fashioned a partnership of coordination that is far stronger than an alliance. They are allies, technically as the word is generally known, but they are free to act independently, also. This makes it far more difficult for the US and its alliances to cope with two superpowers rather than one amalgam.
The goal for the US is made much more complicated. The impossibility of defeating them is clear to any war planner or destabilization planner. The reality is that the US and its massive military with all its alliances simply cannot defeat China and Russia.
Maybe Putin’s secretly wising up to the fact that China is a giant U$ puppet state (their essentially a giant Sweatshop for Wall Street) that is disingenuous about its efforts to have an alliance with Russia and challenge the U$. In reality, the Chinese value their Neocolonial relationship with the U$ empire more then any mutually beneficial relationship with Russia, and before people tell me about the fake Belt and Road initiatives (meant to make Russia subservient to the U$ neocolonial puppet called China) let me tell you that all the Chinese people I’ve ever run into (I live in an area with a large Chinese diaspora) are consumed with the U$-style “Western” culture of consumeristic materialism (all the malls are filled with slutty Chinese women buying jewelry, purses, shoes, etc. so they can get some rich White man) if you’d tell them their from a “Socialist” country they’d laugh in your face and tell you “Socialism don’t work” and “We big Capitalists now”. In addition to this, all the Chinese I’ve spoken to view Russia as “Alcoholic Barbarians met to be slave of Middle Kingdom” and dream of one day in a moment of instability giving Russia the “Genghis Khan treatment” (killing the men, raping the women, and stealing all the resources) in order to punish them for perceived injustices during the “hundred years of shame”. In conclusion, Russia would be wise to keep a watchful eye on the border with “the Middle Kingdom” and not to get to deep into the “belt and road” (the power of Siberia pipeline is okay to replace the lost revenue from the U$ sanctions on Nordstream 2, but anything more then that is foolish), due to the aforementioned fact that China is much closer to the U$ and much farther from Russia (for complicated historical, cultural, economic, ideological, and geopolitical reasons) then most here are willing to admit.
No, dear, not until they have both a common and trecherous enemy.
The existence of this enemy willingly determined to confront them both… is a priceless gift to both Moscow and Peking.
It provides them time to a) grow stronger b) to trim and polish the long existing edges and cultural differences.
I see no point in describing china like this.
Chinese think in the long run… and they think it extremely foolish to make a steady alliance with a declining, corrupt and fading empire. Which in two decades (far from a long run) will represent
5% of world economy.
Now it s a tactical posture connected to the economic side.
Or it is the same as the long ‘alliance’ of Putin from 2000-to 2013 useful salestalk to ”our partners”
By the way if your wondering, I live in Orange County, California (a cesspool of Cosmopolitan Liberalism), and the mall I described was South Coast Plaza, and if you’ve never been their or don’t believe me, research pictures of that mall and see who the shoppers are (hint: their majority Chinese), and tell me that Chinese people aren’t infected with Globalist Liberal Cosmopolitanism. And if you say “Those are Chinese Americans, Chinese in China are totally different”, research pictures of Shopping malls in Mainland Chinese cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, etc and tell me they don’t look Identical to ones in the U$ like South Coast Plaza. They even have the same shops like Louis Vuitton, Channel, Cartier, etc and to make matters worse most Chinese cities are essentially rip-offs of U$ cities with Glass skyscrapers and shit. With all of this in consideration, how can anyone believe the lie that China is a “Socialist” Superpower that’s going to save U$ regime change targets like Russia, Iran, North Korea, etc. from the U$ and create a multipolar world order, when in reality China has the same economic system and cultural values as the U$, with the only difference being that their led by one phony Communist party (it really should be called the Capitalist party, LOL) instead of two phoney parties with circus animal mascots.
Funny how they can come over here and compete price wise for our stuff after we were told they were making 2 cents an hour for all those years.(something had to justify sending all those jobs over there starting in the 80’s).
I guess the only question left is, how deep are your lies.
Good point. China is currently flooding Siberia with loyal Chinese settlers. How does Russia keep the Chinese from having too much influence in Siberia?
It would serve the interests of all concerned parties (Russia, China, USA), if they were to come to an agreement regarding the emerging multi-power world:
The USA has central and south America due to the Monroe Doctrine.
Southeastern Asia can be a Chinese-dominated space.
Russia can reassert influence/control over former Soviet territories.
You may scoff, but geographic spheres of influence should buy peace for the next 100 years….
Strategic minerals change the simple plan for spheres of influence (19th-20th Century thinking). Africa and Latin America possess minerals that high technology requires. Thus, all three superpowers will pursue their interests (needs) in those continent’s natural resources. Also, both continents have scores of nations who buy weapons and the race is on to sell weapons to those countries. Likewise, food is grown on both continents and food is bought on both continents. Russia and US export food. China imports food.
The stakeholding in a global economy is such that none of the developed nations can allow any market or source of commodities go exclusively to any other nation.
This competition for markets and resources, like the competition surrounding weapons and energy, is the game for world power, possible dominance and certain failure and collapse if not engaged in 24/7 to the fullest extent a country can do.
We are not going to have a century of Peace. The Hegemon will be slowly gliding to a second place in the power vector. Could take another four decades. Meanwhile, it will try all out to contain China and Russia and cripple everything they try to accomplish. And if it means war, then the US will do whatever it takes. That’s what it did in the 30’s and how it grew into the hegemon. Global politics is about conflict and wars, not about Peace. Peace is when the wars halt. But there is never even a decade of Peace for the USA. They love war and their economy depends on it. So large or small, wars will persist. That’s the racket the MIC runs.
No, dear, not until they have both a common and trecherous enemy.
The existence of this enemy willingly determined to confront them both… is a priceless gift to both Moscow and Peking.
It provides them time to a) grow stronger b) to trim and polish the long existing edges and cultural differences.
Makedonia:
I thought I had read recently that Russia and China had undertaken maneuvers or some agreemnets or some such to integrate their military hardware. Or perhaps it was that they did military training maneuvers.
They did something to be more integrated militarily.
Maybe someone here can provide reliable info on this.
Katherine
To the Saker.
Have you seen the two recent Books by a Retired Australian Diplomat to Russia
‘Return to Moscow’ and ‘Russia and the West’.
He has been basically blacklisted in Australia, as the Oz MSM will not allow any positive news to be published about Russia. Or any word from representative of the Russian Government .
Buy his books !
http://www.tonykevin.com.au
I watched the whole thing.
Putin’s press conference was a dignified four hour discussion between a President and a broad range of Russian citizens and members of the local, national and international press. They calmly and respectfully entered into a fact based discussion of a broad range of legitimate problems facing the Russian Federation.
Now, compare that to American politics.
Compare that to – say – the impeachment circus.
And now remember the comparison the next time someone calls Russia an authoritarian regime and the United States a glorious democracy.
It is possible Russia has a strong internal media presence for a single party, supporting Putin. Whereas the Americans play theatre with Democrats and Republicans.
The reason these parallels are made is because of the number of viable candidates and opposing ideas being very theatrically debated at the moment. One could make an argument for media freedom and free speech between two countries.
19 or even 15 years is a long time to be leader for a democratic country. This is not to say it is not representative of the population.
Of course it is always nice to see a civil discussion, but could you name the most controversial issue discussed?
How about this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ2NAfXB0rI Putin: Lenin Was Not a Statesman, He Was a Bolshevik Revolutionary Who Made Anti-Russian Mistakes
Karel, they did indeed talk about that but I thought that that was only mildly controversial considering the other issues brought up.
I remember the part where Putin was flatly criticized for over reliance on the infrastructure developed by the former Soviet Union. He didn’t take offense. He pointed out that the Soviets had made remarkable improvements to infrastructure but then he went on to calmly recount all the highways, bridges, ports and other facilities developed since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Compare this with Joe Biden’s response to allegations of corruption involving his son. Biden either refuses to discuss the issue or gets belligerent about it – as he did towards an elderly man in New Hampshire.
In this US, the internet had been an antidote to this type of non-responsiveness, but more and more dissenting voices are being de-platformed and marginalized by large tech organizations. Hopefully sites like this can keep open discussion alive.
There were so many controversial topics discussed it is impossible to single out one above the rest: the allegations of favoritism towards Putin’s daughter, allegations of political murders in Germany, allegations of Russian interference in Ukraine, allegations of inadequate hospital facilities, allegations of inadequate flights by Aeroflot between Kamchatka and the mainland and so on and so on and so on.
I would love to see this type of open discussion in the US.
Why should there be _controversial_ issues to infer there is freedom of speech ?
Also; the “gender-less” toilets are quite controversial, but I would feel very sad if I were to live in a country where that would be the main public debate.
I don’t care about “controversial” issues; I care about “important” issues.
It’s a distinction similar to the one about image and soul.
Of course, MSM is all about image, “controversial” issues, and just keeping our minds busy with whatever they want to avoid that we ever thing about important things.
Pavlo,
You are so right.
I almost laughed out loud about your comment on “gender-less” toilets. That is so on point. I cannot even read the MSM anymore.
It is a Disneyland of irrelevancy.
Mainly because you can take any controversial issue and pander endlessly to a political base. The media nowadays is largely split between conservative and liberal. Anything a politician says or does is reported with bias even though news is meant to be impartial, due to the audience of said news media.
Did any mainstream or large Russian media in Russia cover this as a failure for Putin?
Again if you look at the US in particular, the show put on for Democrats and Republicans is disgusting, but you always have mainstream media coverage with a bias for and against.
I understand this is 4 hours of pretty raw press conference but not everyone has the time to watch it and relies on a secondary msm source for their news. If it was all covered in a positive, non nitpicking manner it’s reason to wonder why the news market has an empty spot, for the “anti-putin” crowd.
Great replies, thanks taking time to answer.
Uhm, I’m looking at the comments here and people should go and spend some time with the transcript. It was a wide ranging 4 hours, from internal and sometimes smaller Russian problems from the various areas brought to the discussion by local people, to really very serious international issues. You know what my favorite comment from Putin is .. upon the question from a Japanese Journalist …
Good afternoon, Mr Putin. Hirofumi Sugizaki from Kyodo Tsushin Japanese news agency.
My question to you is not about the islands, but about your attitude, about your vision, your view of nuclear war. You mentioned that the US is reluctant, at least for now, to extend START-3. When this treaty expires, there will be nothing to deter us from a new arms race and, possibly, an upcoming nuclear war.
What do you think?
Vladimir Putin: Curse the tongue that says it. An ‘upcoming nuclear war.’ What are you saying?
That was quite a moment.
amarynth,
I actually think that looking at the video is better. You really got a much more thorough sense of the proceedings.
For instance, the reporter from the Ukraine was hostile and sarcastic, the Russian woman complaining about the conditions of the hospitals was not hostile, but genuinely upset. The Japanese reporter seemed (for obvious reasons) deeply concerned about nuclear weapons. The German reporter was accusatory.
On the other hand, as people from the various parts of Russia talked about various issues, and you could just imagine the vastness of the land and the unique concerns of the citizens of various areas.
It is a fascinating video.
@Lumpenkönig on December 21, 2019 · at 4:45 pm EST/EDT
China is currently flooding Siberia with loyal Chinese settlers. How does Russia keep the Chinese from having too much influence in Siberia?
This article, published in a Hong Kong newspaper, says things like:
“The most Chinese-populated Russian city is Moscow, not Vladivostok or Khabarovsk.”
“As the economic incentives to work in Russia evaporate, Chinese migrants are starting to seek out other options, including returning home.”
“Local scholars and officials in the Far East say migrants from the former Soviet republics in Central Asia and the South Caucasus are arriving in much larger numbers than Chinese migrants ever have.”
“Fieldwork data from the Russian Far East is supported by studies of migration patterns in China’s northwest: between going to Russia or to rich inland provinces of China, the workers as a rule choose the latter.”
“Shifting demographics in China may turn the reversed flow of its migrant workers into a long-term phenomenon. While China has scrapped the one-child policy to stop the labour force from shrinking, many experts say this has come too late. Most Chinese couples are unwilling to have more children, which means competition for workers will worsen, producing hikes in salaries. If the Chinese can make more money at home, they are likely to further fall out of love with the Russian Far East.”
Incidentally, the authors of the article (Maria Repnikova and Alexander Gabuev) have Russian-looking names and are probably Russian.
to Cyril:
How can a publication in a Hong Kong newspaper be a reliable source ???
Thats the question and not some Russian names who publish their writings in a Hong Kong newspaper.
Foreign Minister Lavrov seems to have given a big interview with forthright perspectives on many current subjects….Tass has some summaries…
Igra (Big Game) program on Russia’s television Channel One.
Could be a post on saker?
One cannot help but like Putin for his finesse and style.
But he does need to sort out monetary issues with the EU before things get out of hand.