Machine Translated and then refined by The Saker’s Team of Translators

Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Russian Security Council, spoke about the tasks of the Russian special operation and the role of the United States in supporting neo-Nazis in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta. And also-about the near future of Europe, the Russian gold and foreign exchange reserves and sanctions, and what changes are waiting for our country in the near future.

Nikolai Patrushev: The West has created an empire of lies that implies the humiliation and destruction of Russia. Photo: Mikhail Sinitsyn / RG

Nikolai Platonovich, today, perhaps, the term “Cold War II” no longer seems an exaggeration. The Americans do not hesitate to declare that they won the confrontation with the USSR and now they will also win. How do you assess these views?

Nikolai Patrushev: Washington has been and is causing crises in its quest to consolidate its hegemony, resisting the collapse of the unipolar world. The United States is doing everything to ensure that other centers of the multipolar world do not even dare to raise their heads, and our country not only dared, but publicly declared that it will not play by the imposed rules. They tried to force Russia to give up its sovereignty, identity, culture, and independent foreign and domestic policy. We have no right to agree with this approach.

In an attempt to suppress Russia, the Americans, using their proteges in Kiev, decided to create an antithesis of our country, cynically choosing Ukraine and trying to divide essentially a single people. Having failed to offer anything positive to Ukraine, even before the 2014 coup d’etat Washington promoted the idea of exclusivity of the Ukrainian nation and hatred of everything Russian. However, history teaches that hatred can never become a reliable factor of national unity. If there is anything that unites the peoples living in Ukraine today, it is only the fear of the atrocities of nationalist battalions. Therefore, the result of the policy of the West and the Kiev regime controlled by it can only be the disintegration of Ukraine into several states.

Europe, as you warned a year ago, ended up facing an unprecedented crisis, including one caused by the flow of Ukrainian refugees. How can this affect the internal situation in the European countries themselves?

Nikolai Patrushev: Europe is facing a deep economic and political crisis for their countries. Rising inflation and declining living standards are already taking a toll on the wallet and mood of Europeans. In addition, large-scale migration adds new challenges to old security threats, such as illegal drug distribution and transnational crime. Almost five million Ukrainian migrants have already arrived in Europe. In the near future, their number will grow to ten million. Most of the Ukrainians who have come to the West believe that Europeans should support them and provide for them, and when they are forced to work, they start to rebel.

Representatives of the criminal community who have escaped from Ukraine will try to occupy niches that are favorable to them, put local criminal groups under control, which will undoubtedly be accompanied by an increase in crime in Europe. We will see a revival of the widespread sale of orphaned children taken from Ukraine for subsequent illegal adoption in Europe. The West is already facing a revival of the shadow market for purchasing human organs from socially vulnerable segments of the Ukrainian population for clandestine transplant operations for European patients.

The flow of migrants from Ukraine began long before 2022, and now it reminds Europe of long-forgotten diseases. After all, only a tenth of refugees from Ukraine are vaccinated against coronavirus infection, viral hepatitis, tuberculosis, rubella and measles. Because in this former prosperous republic of the Soviet Union, the system of sanitary and epidemiological control and primary health care was almost completely destroyed.

The goal of denazification is to destroy the neo-Nazi foothold created by the West’s efforts on our borders

But this, apparently, only flowers?

Nikolai Patrushev: You’re right. This is just the beginning. Against the background of anti-Russian sanctions, the world is gradually plunging into an unprecedented food crisis. Tens of millions of people in Africa or the Middle East will be on the verge of starvation because of the West. To survive, they will rush to Europe. I am not sure that Europe will survive the crisis. Political institutions, supranational associations, the economy, culture, and traditions may become a thing of the past. Europe will howl in helpless frustration but America will be freed from its main geopolitical fear – the political and economic union of Russia and Europe.

America has long divided the entire world into vassals and enemies. We are a testing ground for them. Photo: Getty Images

The United States and its allies ignore the neo-Nazis and open fascist ideology in Ukraine, pumping it with the most modern weapons. Isn’t it time for us to recognize a number of unfriendly countries as countries that support fascism, with all the consequences that follow from this?

Nikolai Patrushev: Europe is already facing an increase in officially banned manifestations of fascism and neo-Nazism, as Bandera-fed criminals with neo-Nazi views are fleeing the inevitable criminal prosecution along with migrants from Ukraine. This will lead to the revival of Nazi ideas in Europe, to phenomena that were considered impossible not so long ago. The growth of ultra-right sentiment is probable, fueled by tens of thousands of trained and combat-experienced Ukrainian radicals who have already found a common language with European fans of Hitler.

History is repeating itself. After all, the West almost until September 1939 denied the danger of the Nazi regime. In 1938, Time magazine generally recognized Hitler as the Man of the Year.

Nikolai Patrushev: In the 1930s, the West not only did not deny, but actively contributed to the formation and building up of the power of fascism in Germany. Especially big business. It was later, after the war, that Western historians created the myth of German industrialists who allegedly made the main contribution to the creation of Hitler’s war economy. Some American companies even collaborated with the Nazis until 1943, that is, until the decisive turning point in the war.

There is even a theory that the Zyklon B gas used by the Nazis to kill people in death camps was created using Western technologies.

Nikolai Patrushev: And you can read about how the Nazis built this whole process. Everyone knows, for example, IBM. It was on her counting machines that the Nazis kept records and planned the processes of extermination of people in concentration camps. Its CEO, Watson, received a state award from Hitler. And this is just one of many examples. Now history is indeed repeating itself. The West still provides the most active support to Ukrainian neo-Nazis, continuing to pump Ukraine with weapons.

The American and European military-industrial complex is exultant, because thanks to the crisis in Ukraine it is flush with orders. It is not surprising that, unlike Russia, which is interested in the speedy completion of a special military operation and minimizing losses on all sides, the West is determined to fight even to the last Ukrainian. For some reason, the world still thinks that militarists and aggressors must wear uniforms. But don’t be deceived by Anglo-Saxon respectability. No fancy clothes can mask hatred, anger, and inhumanity.

If all the instructions of the head of state in the field of import substitution were fulfilled on time, we would be able to avoid many problems in the economy

Many of our opponents in the world claim that they do not understand or do not recognize the goals of a special military operation, considering that they are far-fetched.

Nikolai Patrushev: The special military operation has specific goals, on the achievement of which depends not just the well-being, but the lives of millions of people, the salvation of the population of the LPR and DPR from the genocide that Ukrainian neo-Nazis have been creating for 8 years. At one time, Hitler’s fascism dreamed of destroying the entire Russian population, and today its followers, according to the precepts of Hitler, are blasphemously trying to do this with the hands of the Slavs. Russia will not allow this to happen.

Speaking of denazification, our goal is to destroy the neo-Nazi foothold that the West has created on our borders. The need for demilitarization is caused by the fact that a Ukraine that is heavily armed poses a threat to Russia, including from the point of view of the development and use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Do you think that the United States can really stage such provocations in Ukraine?

Nikolai Patrushev: You are talking about a country whose elite is not able to appreciate the lives of others. Americans are used to walking on scorched ground. Since the Second World War, entire cities have been obliterated by bombardments, including nuclear ones. They flooded the Vietnamese jungle with poison, bombed Serbs with radioactive ammunition, burned Iraqis alive with white phosphorus, and helped terrorists poison Syrians with chlorine. I do not think that the lives of Ukrainians are concerned about the United States, which has repeatedly proved its aggressive anti-human nature. As history shows, NATO has also never been a defensive alliance, but only an offensive one.

Why do American elites need all this?

Nikolai Patrushev: America has long divided the entire world into vassals and enemies. In the United States, people are taught from childhood that America is a shining city on a hill, and the rest of humanity is just a testing ground for experiments and a resource appendage. Four hundred years ago, settlers from England robbed and killed the Indians because they thought they were uncivilized savages. Now all this has been replaced with democratizing and human rights-based rhetoric and the piracy continues on a global scale. American elites remember how the United States managed to become a superpower after two world wars, but now they do not want to accept that the American global empire is in agony.

Is the collapse of the American-centric world a reality, in your opinion?

Nikolai Patrushev: This is the reality in which you need to live and pursue the course of action. In this regard, Russia has chosen the path of full protection of its sovereignty, firm defense of national interests, cultural and spiritual identity, traditional values and historical memory.

Our spiritual and moral values allow us to remain ourselves, to be honest with our ancestors, to preserve the individual, society and the state. Europeans, for example, made a different choice. They have adopted so-called liberal values, although in reality they are neoliberal ones. They promotes the priority of the private over the public, individualism that suppresses love for the Fatherland, and the gradual withering away of the state. It is now obvious that with such a doctrine, Europe and European civilization have no future. Apparently, they will repeat the lessons they haven’t learned yet.

Which ones?

Nikolai Patrushev: There are quite a few of them. Don’t forget that all historical upheavals start with the spread of popular but potentially destructive ideas. Think of the French Revolution. From its misinterpreted slogans emerged the tyranny of Napoleon, who drowned half of Europe in blood but broke his teeth on Russia.

What has our country done? Dismembered France, burned Paris? No, Emperor Alexander I restored French statehood and in 1815 initiated the creation of the Holy Alliance in Europe. The Union aimed at respecting the territorial integrity of States, suppressing nationalist movements, and ensuring Europe’s forty years of peaceful existence.

A little over a hundred years later the ideology of Nazism appeared. The Soviet Union did everything possible to destroy it, but at the same time initiated the revival of an independent German state. Stalin insisted on this at the Yalta Conference. The USSR was the first to support the unification of Germany in the late 1980s. Our country has historically played a special role in shaping not only the geopolitical, but also the moral climate in the world.

You have figuratively described the Anglo-American style of interaction with the world as piracy. Now the West is making a similar pirate raid on Russia. And in this connection, the question arises as to how justified was the decision to place gold and foreign exchange reserves abroad?

Nikolai Patrushev: This decision turned out to be unjustified from the point of view of the state’s financial security. Another thing is that by doing so, the West is hitting not only Russia, but also itself. The current global financial system is built solely on trust, including in the United States as the issuer of the world’s reserve currency. Half a century ago, the gold factor was present, but in 1971, the United States untied its currency from its quotes, which made it possible to issue money in a virtually uncontrolled fashion.

Trying to support its economy in a constant pre-crisis state, the United States is actively pumping its banks, businesses and the population with money secured by government obligations. The result was high rates of inflation in America and Europe. At the same time, the US external debt exceeded $30 trillion. Yet for some reason Americans are discussing a possible default of Russia. It’s time for them to default. To overcome the negative consequences of past policies and create new opportunities for enrichment, United States is creating a global crisis. That is, they want to solve their problems at the expense of the rest of the world, by the way, primarily at the expense of Europe.

In my opinion, this doesn’t bother the Europeans.

Nikolai Patrushev: Moreover, they are happy to step in the direction of the abyss that the United States has dug for them. In this sense, much has changed since the Cold War. Then the Europeans resisted Washington more confidently. Apparently due to the fact that the old generations of realist politicians have not yet become a thing of the past. At that time, the wall was in Berlin, and the current European elite has a wall in their heads.

I do not think that the lives of Ukrainians are a concern for the United States, which has repeatedly proved its aggressive inhuman nature. NATO has also never been a defensive alliance, only an offensive one

In the 1980s, in an effort to weaken the Soviet economy, the United States tried to ban European companies from buying hydrocarbons from Moscow. At that time Europe did not go along with Washington. The United States also banned its own companies from selling offshore drilling technologies to the USSR, which resulted in dozens of American and Japanese firms being affected. Washington used disinformation to delay the Soviet Union’s construction of a gas pipeline to Europe. Does it remind you of anything?”

And what do we need to do to ensure the ruble’s sovereignty?

Nikolai Patrushev: For any national financial system to be sovereigntized, its means of payment must have intrinsic value and price stability, without being pegged to the dollar. Our experts are working on a project proposed by the scientific community to create a double-circuit monetary and financial system. In particular, it is proposed to determine the value of the ruble by having it be backed by both gold and a basket of commodities, and to put the ruble exchange rate in line with the real purchasing power parity.

Similar ideas were raised before. But many experts claimed they run counter to economic theories…

Nikolai Patrushev: They do not contradict the economic theories but rather Western economics textbooks. The West has unilaterally established an intellectual monopoly on the optimal structure of society and has been using it for decades. Let me remind you that the shock reforms of the 1990s in our country were carried out strictly according to American guidelines.

The fascination of our entrepreneurs who emerged from that era with market mechanisms alone, without taking into account the specifics of our country, is a risk factor. We are not opposed to a market economy and participation in global production chains, but we are clearly aware that the West allows other countries to be its partner only when it is profitable for it. Therefore, the most important condition for ensuring Russia’s economic security is to rely on the country’s internal potential, structural adjustment of the national economy on a modern technological basis.

How successfully is this task being solved today? Now again, there is a lot of talk about import substitution, but it is no secret that a decisive breakthrough has not yet been achieved.

Nikolai Patrushev: The tasks and priorities are set absolutely correctly, and we will continue to implement them. Another thing is that it is necessary to significantly tighten the discipline of their implementation, including among the relevant departments.

If all the instructions of the head of state in the field of import substitution were fulfilled on time, we would be able to avoid many of the problems that the Russian economy is facing today.

I’ll give you an example. The creation of a plant in St. Petersburg for the production of high-quality insulin was opposed by a number of Russian entities. Today, this is a serious enterprise, where the production of medicines is completely independent of imports, with the exception of packaging. However, that should also be produced by ourselves, as we are told, for example, by food manufacturers. Of course, we should not turn a blind eye to significant achievements. Significant success in import substitution was achieved by Rostec Corporation enterprises, primarily those that produce defense industry products.

To cite another example, thanks to the Food Security Doctrine developed by the Security Council, we were able to increase the self-sufficiency of our country with basic types of food. This is a very serious achievement, which our country completely failed to achieve throughout the entire XX century. Therefore, all attempts by Westerners to shift responsibility for the global food crisis provoked by them to Russia are obviously doomed to failure.

Russia will have to expand the range of domestic high-tech products. It is important to promote domestic developments in production as soon as possible. We will pay special attention to qualitative changes in the selection of scientific personnel and assessment of the effectiveness of their activities. Russian science should become a leading productive force, one of the driving forces of our country’s development.

I am confident that we will solve all the problems that have arisen as a result of the sanctions restrictions. Russia is moving from the European market to the African, Asian and Latin American markets. We give priority attention to the Eurasian Economic Union whose importance is growing in the current conditions. We are stepping up cooperation with the BRICS and SCO countries, which bring together about three and a half billion people on the planet.

You mentioned science, but in modern conditions, I think it is necessary to rebuild not only it, but also higher education and schooling.

Nikolai Patrushev: I am sincerely convinced that we cannot develop successfully without a clear understanding by the whole society of our national goals and objectives, the full depth of our spiritual and historical identity. Therefore, every citizen of our country, every Russian, from the very childhood should know and understand what we all live and work for as a single people, and what we strive for.

The West continues to act in line with the inhuman doctrine of the “golden billion”, which implies a significant reduction in the world’s population in various ways. To do this, the West has maliciously created an empire of lies that implies the humiliation and destruction of Russia and other undesirable states. They spit in our eyes and say it’s God’s dew.

Washington and Brussels do not hide the fact that their sanctions are aimed at both material and spiritual impoverishment of Russians. Destroying our education by imposing so-called progressive models of education is as strategic a task for Westerners as, for example, bringing NATO closer to our borders.

In fact, there is nothing progressive there. In the United States, for example, many people already say that you should sing and dance in math classes, because solving problems and equations oppresses and discriminates against someone. We don’t need such” progress”. The current situation proves the need to defend traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, reform the education and enlightenment system with the return of historically justified advantages of the national school. I am still convinced that the Soviet school of education has historically been the most advanced and progressive in the world, and moving forward should take this into account.

What exactly should be done?

Nikolai Patrushev: It is necessary to pay more attention to the development of logical thinking, to form stable knowledge and the ability to make independent decisions, and not just put fill in blanks in tests. Develop the applied application of fundamental sciences.

It is impossible to rely solely on the digitalization of education since the Internet can be not only a source of encyclopedic information but also of politicized misinformation. At the heart of everything lies the development of personal intellectual and spiritual qualities. Properly educated, well-rounded, physically and morally healthy children who know and understand the history and culture of their Homeland are our wealth and guarantee the guaranteed successful development of Russia. For the sake of the future of our children, for the sake of a prosperous and prosperous country in which they will live, we are working today.

 

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