Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
- Vladimir Vladimirovych, we live at tumultuous times.
A terror act in Turkey, many dead, many injured,
what conclusions can be drawn?
what can be done to stop this wave of terror?
- We must unite our efforts in fight against this evil.
What happened in Turkey...
and I will use the opportunity to express my condolences to Turkish people,
to the President of Turkey.
This is a true terror foray...
A terror crime...
with a big number of victims...
and certainly it is an attempt to destabilize in the neighbour, friendly to us country, Turkey.
Moreover, it happened in the course of election campaign.
It is an evident provocation.
But we will be efficient in the fight against this evil
only if we fight together against it.
- We tried to fight together with the world society, but the world society doesn't want to hear us.
We are in Syria.
Whoever and whatever is yelling about us.
What are the real targets of our presence in Syria?
What are the criteria of success?
- First of all, I would like to confirm
the fact which is known:
we informed our partners beforehand,
both American partners, in any case other partners, especially, from countries of this region,
about our intentions and our plans.
Somebody says we did it too late.
But I would like to draw your attention
that we have never been informed by anybody beforehand
while planning and beginning of such operations.
And we did it.
- By good will?
- By good will, on the ground of reasonability
and wish to show that we are open for cooperation.
I will underline again that
we operate in full accordance with the international law
upon request of the official authorities of Syrian Arabian Republic.
And all other countries who took part in similar actions before,
operate illegally, because there is no resolution of the Security Council of UN about it,
there is no official request of Syrian authorities.
I draw your attention to the fact that
at the moment of our operation start
11 countries already took part in various strikes at Syrian territory in a certain way.
And it lasts for more than a year.
Knowing and understanding it, we a) informed our partners,
and b) offered them cooperation.
The simplest thing would be to join our efforts,
and to legalize their own actions on Syrian territory in such a way.
Because if we have the mandate from the official authorities,
the simplest is to join us and to work within the limits of such mandate.
But unfortunately, we haven't agreed about it with our colleagues and partners.
But we still have a hope that this still can be done.
Truely, there is a certain progress.
Draft working groups are created,
both with Israeli, and with Americans on the way now,
and we are on this way with Turkish partners.
There is a proposal from American side,
how to set our cooperation at a military technical level in such a way,
so that we would avoid any accidents.
At the first stage it is better than nothing at all.
Our specialist received inquiries and proposals from American side,
set up their view of this cooperation,
and sent it to the Pentagon.
I hope the next step will be made,
without which it would be impossible to settle the situation,
i.e. a cooperation for searching of a political solution will start.
But if we talk only about a military component,
we talk with our partner.
When we hear reproaches towards us,
that our strikes allegedly hit not ISIS, or other terrorist organizations, like Jabhat al-Nusra,
and others, but good opposition, let's say this way,
and we told them if you know better than us,
the situation on the territory,
we have been there for more than a year,
illegally, but you are present,
if you know better, I personally doubt, but anyway,
give us the targets.
We will work at them.
- Did they refuse?
- Yes, they did. They said: No, we will not work at such level.
I don't know why, if they really know better,
and want to fight against terrorism,
give us the certain places where terrorists hide,
their coordination centers, warehouses with ammunition and vehicles.
Give us the targets.
What could be simplier?
We haven't reached such level of cooperation yet,
but I repeat, the first steps to set contacts at military level have been already made.
- Syrian army started the assault.
How high is the probability of success for them?
- It depends certainly, first of all, on Syrian army itself,
and Syrian authorities.
We can't take excessive obligations and have never taken.
And from the very beginning I told that
the active phase of our work on the territory of Syria will be limited by time,
by the period of assault operations of the very Syrian army.
And our task... I would like to go back to the question you asked,
is to stabilize the legal authority,
and to create conditions for searching of a political compromise.
- To stabilize in a military way?
- In a military way, certainly.
When groups of international terrorists ISIS and others are next to the capital,
then there may be no wish to agree with Syrian authorities,
which are almost besieged in their own capital.
And vice versa, if Syrian army shows its stamina
and most important its readiness to fight against terrorism,
and it shows that the authorities can do it,
then the opportunities to reach political compromises will be much higher.
- Does it mean that you consider the possibility to deploy armed forces of Russian Federation for the land operation in Syria?
- No, it is excluded.
- So, whatever may happen... - No.
- We are not going to do it.
And our Syrian friends know about.
- At the same time, the accuracy of air strikes and the reports provided by the Ministry of Defense,
show that we seem to know the situation better than the coalition with American leadership.
Where have we taken this information?
- We prepared for these military operations.
We arranged preliminary activities which consisted...
we concentrated sufficient forces, means, ammunition
at the necessary place and proper time.
We made a long-term and insistent surveillance from space and air.
We compared different kinds of the received information.
And specialists of the General Headquarters
in coordination with Syrian partners and other countries of the region
created, as you know, the information center in Bagdad.
And as a result of data exchange, we got additional information.
So, it is not spontaneous actions in the air and on the land,
but execution of the plans set before.
- Certainly, what happened on October 7th,
made a huge impression including on military experts,
the strike of the Caspian fleet,
flight over two countries and strike of targets in the third one.
Did nobody expect? Has American intelligence stopped to work?
- I think it works, and American intelligence is one of the best in the world.
Let's not throw stones at it.
It is one of the most powerful, but it doesn't know everything.
And must not know everything.
- What missiles were deployed?
- Kalibr missiles, we have them in the inventory recently.
Since 2012, its range is 1500km.
In general, it was already told.
But this is certainly a high-technology, high-accuracy up-to-date weapon.
And not only these missiles, but also land vehicles, aircrafts of this newest generation
are planned to re-equip all Russian army.
These are really complicated complexes,
as practice of its deployment showed, are very efficient.
- How did they go?
- You said by yourselves, over the territory of two countries...
In the course of the route they made 147 turns.
They flied at the height of 800 up to 1300 meters.
- Is the speed a military secret? - No, it's not.
But the speed could be compared with the speed of a jet.
Everybody knows it.
As a matter of fact, this is not a secret information,
in principal, all our partners, at least at expert level,
know that Russia has such weapon.
One thing is to know at expert level,
that Russia allegedly has such weapon,
and another thing is to make sure that 1) it exists,
and our defense industrial complex produces it,
2) it has high quality,
3) there are people well-trained and prepared who can deploy it efficiently,
and 4) Russia has the will to deploy.
if it corresponds to the national interests of our state and Russian people.
- At the same time, Western analogues are better or worse? Do they have something to be afraid of?
- The same, but... let's say, analogue missiles of American production
sea-based, I can be mistaken, but I guess approximately 4 500km.
But we have analogue missile systems, but air-based, also of 4 500km.
Shooting range.
- It means that we can make strikes from our air dimension?
- Yes, you are correct.
- Arms race?
- No, it is not the matter of arms race, but
modern destruction means, delivering means, are mastered, changed,
and other countries make it quicker than us.
That's why we are forced... I would like to underline, are forced
to keep the pace, first of all, and secondly,
our state program of armament was created several years ago
in conditions when there was no escalation of the world situation.
This program was planned and is fulfilled not because we prepared for some aggressive actions,
but just because former and current main strike systems, defensive systems deployed by Russian army
got outmoded step by step and took a back seat.
And the time to replace them came up.
And we made our decisions in proper time.
- Barack Obama considers that you do it all only because of vanity,
wish to put Russia back on the political map of the world,
and at the same time you drive Russian economy into the ground. This is an accurate citation.
Can we afford such re-armament?
Can we afford such foreign policy?
- It is not the matter of foreign policy.
The foreign policy of Russia is amicable, without any exaggeration.
If you look at the political map of the world,
and look what Russia is, it becomes evident
that we don't need any other's territories,
no other's natural resources,
we have everything in bulk, we are a self-sufficient country.
We don't have a necessity to make war or conflicts with anyone.
Moreover, in 1990 Russia was an initiator of parting ways between republics of former Soviet Union.
IIt was us to show good will, and gave independency to all former Soviet republics.
It happened not as a result of some civil war,
and other conflicts of such kind.
It was a common decision.
And the decision of Russia itself was among this common decision.
We don't have any wish to restore empire, to restore Soviet Union.
But we must defend our independency and sovereignty - Russian.
And we certainly did it and will do it.
What concerns economy, I go back again to what I have just told:
these decisions about re-armaments and equipment of the armed forces in our country
with the newest complexes were made several years ago,
around 10 years ago we thought about it, and initiated these plans and formed these tasks.
I would like to repeat again, it concerns with natural replacement
ammunition which goes out of deployment.
Hold on a second.
And I would like to draw your attention to some other fact.
It is high technology.
And tasks which we solve in this sphere,
make us to develop not only applied, but also fundamental science.
It has positive consequences for the whole economy.
I would like to say some words about import replacement in this concern.
Many things we used in defensive industry were bought abroad.
It has been always evident that it is not far-seeing
to buy some sensitive parts, sensitive technologies or even spare parts
for defense complex.
Put it mildly, it is not far-seeing.
It was easier to do it for oil-dollars.
But we need to develop our own science, our production.
And this import replacement which our partners pushed us to,
gets beneficial to us.
That's why, we speak not about creating problems for our economy,
vice versa, we just put it to new high technology stages.
- I.e. military industrial complex is a driver of growth?
- Exactly, it is in all countries in fact.
In USA, in Europe, in China, in India.
For example, we developed a missile BRAMOS together with Indians.
We created a whole sector for Indian industry.
And Indian scientists worked very actively,
it is really a step to develop a high technology production sphere in India.
Indian partners are very pleased.
They propose to develop this program further.
And we intend to do it.
- But the terror act in Turkey raises the question which many asks in Russia:
we fight against terrorism which threatens us,
try to stop it at the far approaches,
are we ready, inside the country,
to prevent them bring pain and death to our land?
- You know, we got used to this somehow.
exertion there, there...
Unfortunately, we have got rid of this evil.
But at the certain time when I made a decision for active actions against international terrorist gangs,
after the attack at Dagestan,
I was told many times: you mustn't do this, mustn't do that.
That, that, nothing.
Because there is an danger that terrorists will do this or that.
I came to the believe that
if you are afraid that they will do something,
they will do it for sure.
You must act in advance.
Certainly, there is such a danger,
but it existed without active actions in Syria. I would like to underline.
If we allowed... sorry for bad expression, to pig out this Syria,
these thousands of people who run there with Kalashnikov guns,
they would appear on our territory.
And now we will help al-Assad to fight against them at the far approaches.
- But they try to make a fake thesis that you enter the war on the side of Shia Muslims against Sunnites.
- This is a false appeal, false thesis.
We don't make any difference between Shia Muslims and Sunnites.
A significant part of our population, 10%, practices Islam.
I told about it many times.
They are the same citizens of Russia like Christians, Jews, and we don't make a difference.
We don't want to enter any inter-religious conflicts in Syria.
We have only one goal:
to support the legal government, and to create conditions for political settlement.
We have it as the origin goal,
and now we follow only it.
Thanks God, we have good relationships with those Islam states
which practice... majority of the population of which practice Islam in Shia version,
- What about Sunnites? - And Sunnites as well.
- We have very good relationships.
We highly appreciate them, and want to develop it further.
- Did anyone of Sunnite countries support?
- Look, I think yes.
- There were calls from country leaders who supported our actions?
- It is not the matter of calls, we are in contact with people all the time.
And we know what they think.
And moreover, if I didn't know except general propaganda cliche,
which are poured into mass media, what really leaders of certain countries think,
maybe, we would not do anything in Syria.
- I.e. our Egyptian friends support us?
- It is not the matter of only Egypt.
- I.e. others as well?
- I make you sure that the danger of terrorism
looms over many countries of the region.
One of the leaders of region countries once told me, and it's true,
he said: It is us, countries of the region, and Islam countries are first victims of terrorism.
And we want and are ready to fight against it.
But I don't understand some of our colleagues in Europe and USA,
when they say they fight against terrorism,
but we can't see true results.
Moreover, it is widely known that
the program in USA for preparation of so called Free Syrian army is now closed.
They planned to prepare 12 000 people,
then they said they would prepare 6 000,
then they prepared only 60,
and it turned out that in fact 4-5 people are fighting against ISIS.
- So you don't bomb them? - They spent 500000000 USD.
They'd better give us 500000000 USD, we would spend it better
from the point of view of fighting against international terrorism.
It is definite, as our people say, no need to tell fortunes.
But in any case, this cooperation must be enhanced to the level of full exchange of surveillance data.
- Thanks, Vladimir Vladimirovych.