Russian embassy officer replies to Poland’s CDA

IFEEL obliged to comment on the article “Russian roulette: Food, fuel and fertilizers” by Mr. Jarosław Szczepankiewicz, Charges d’ Affaires of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in the Philippines, published in the Businessmirror on July 25, 2022. Following the Russophobic Western media, the author came up with stories of a clear anti-russian orientation with emphasis on unreliable and one-sided coverage of the special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine, falsification of history and speculations devoid of common sense about the causes of the food and energy crises. I will try to provide a more balanced perspective of the developments taking place in Russia as well as of my country’s foreign policy.

About Ukrainian identity

THE Russian leadership has never used the thesis that Ukrainians lack historical consciousness, nationality and elite as a “justification” for a special military operation (SMO). It has been emphasized more than once that the main tasks of the SMO are to protect the Russian-speaking population of Donbass from blatant discrimination and genocide, and to eliminate direct threats to the security of the Russian Federation (military, biological, nuclear one) created over the years by the United States and its satellites on the territory of Ukraine. Moreover, a special operation to demilitarize Ukraine began in full accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter.

However, the conclusion about the absence of a stable national identity among the Ukrainian elite suggests itself if we analyze the behavior of the Kiev leadership. The current president of Ukraine is a person with certain ethnic roots who has spoken Russian all his life. Moreover, he worked in Russia and received significant funds from Russian sources. Nevertheless, at a certain moment, having become the head of the state, out of fear of getting another “Maidan” directed against his personal power, he completely changed his political and moral orientation. In fact, he gave up his identity. He began to earnestly serve the most rabid nationalist forces in Ukraine and act on explicit orders from Washington.

The Kiev regime, in the guise of preserving its own identity, is only destroying it. It considers the inhabitants of Eastern Ukraine as separatists, exterminating them over the past 8 years, while squandering lands in the west of the country. For readers’ information: President of Poland Andrzej Duda, while visiting Ukraine last May, declared that soon the Polish-ukrainian border would cease to exist. Right after the visit of his Polish counterpart, Mr. Zelenskyy asked the national parliament to approve a special status of Polish citizens, thus legalizing the takeover of Ukraine by the Poles. In fact, this means the transfer of control over the western regions of the country to Poland. Isn’t it “an incident of sovereignty,” as Maria Zakharova, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, called this situation?

I also recall that modern Ukraine was entirely and completely created by Russia, more precisely, Bolshevik, communist Russia. This process began almost immediately after the 1917 revolution. At the same time, Lenin and his associates created Ukraine in a “very rude way” towards Russia—by tearing away its territories. Thus, one of the largest industrial centers of the Russian Empire, Donbass, was literally squeezed, against its will, into Ukraine in order to boost the economic development of its more backward agrarian regions. However, Donbass has never forgotten its roots.

On Stalin’s use of food as a weapon

THE author’s throw in about Stalin’s use of foodstuffs in Ukraine as a weapon is not very clear. In the 1930s indeed, mass famine raged in the USSR. In Ukraine, this tragedy is known as the Holodomor. Many Ukrainian historians believe the famine was staged specifically to destroy the Ukrainian people. However, this version is clearly untenable, since this happened not only in Ukraine, but throughout the Soviet Union, primarily in the grain regions of Russia, including the Don, Kuban, the Volga region, the South Urals, Siberia and the Far East, in Belarus and Kazakhstan. At the peak of the famine in the Russian regions, food was taken for Ukraine. Historians are aware of documents indicating that in 1933, Stalin personally authorized sending grain to Ukraine to the detriment of Russian regions.

A whole range of reasons caused the famine: drought, crop failures, unsustainable plans for grain procurement, forced industrial and social change. The famine did not choose the peoples—this was the common tragedy of the Soviet countryside. The question of which people suffered more is shortsighted, dangerous and unpromising. Nowadays, at the initiative of the Federal Archival Agency in Russia, work has been carried out to obtain documents on the famine and the publication of the corresponding multi-volume collection. Ukrainian researchers were also invited to participate. This work began long ago, since the archives were opened, and not as a reaction to what they say and write in Ukraine, but as a natural need to understand a problem that is painful for millions.

The export of grain

THE Soviet leadership also provided large-scale assistance to agriculture and industry of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic after the liberation of its territories from Nazi invaders during the Great Patriotic War. Ukraine was considered by Nazi Germany as a source of food, cheap labor and raw materials. Noticeably, the current West, which is indifferent to the development of industry in Ukraine and its population’s standard of living, is experiencing almost the same interest in this country. The consumer attitude of the West towards Ukraine is also observed at the backdrop of its attempts to take grain out of its storage facilities and fight with Russia “to the last Ukrainian.”

At the same time, Western countries, puzzled by the idea of “where else to steal something,” transfer this aspiration to others, in particular to Russia. So, reports by Mr. Szczepankiewicz that Russia recently sent a shipment of grain stolen in Ukraine to Syria from the port in Mariupol are fakes. There are no grain storage facilities in Mariupol. The main reserves are located in Nikolayev (Mykolaiv in Ukrainian) and Odessa regions. Russian ships do not have access to these ports because they are under Ukraine’s control. If the Charges d’ Affaires means the Crimean grain, then let me remind him that it has had nothing to do with Ukraine for a long time.

The agreements on the transportation of Ukrainian grain from the Black Sea ports and on the promotion of food and fertilizer exports signed on July 22 in Istanbul testify to Russia’s intentions to ensure the maximum possible movement towards developing food-importing countries. On the day the deal was signed, Western countries presented distorted information about the Russian Armed Forces’ missile attack on military facilities in the port of Odessa in order to discredit Russia. A fake report was actively spread about the Russian Armed Forces launching rocket attacks on a granary in Odessa. However, high-precision strikes were inflicted exclusively on the military infrastructure of the Odessa port (a Ukrainian warship, a shipyard, a warehouse of Harpoon missiles delivered to Kiev from the USA). At the same time, the grain terminal in the port is located far from the military unit, so the shelling does not interfere with the export of grain, in accordance with the agreements.

Real causes of the food crisis

ON June 3, President of the Russian Federation V ladimir Putin gave clear explanations on the causes of the food crisis. The unfavorable situation in the food market began to take shape in February 2020 while the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic were being fought, when the global economy sank and had to be restored. The West began to abuse the monopoly on reserve currencies and print money that led to the fact that they began to rake food from the world market. Washington “printed money” and caused a rise in the price of all raw materials, in particular fertilizers, the production of which was already hampered by sanctions and problems with logistics. Lack of fertilizer means reduced yields—meaning, there will be risks of shortages of food in the world market, and prices will rise further, risking hunger. At the same time, the Russian leader expressed his readiness to increase grain supplies up to 50 million tons and send them to Africa and the Middle East.

The energy policy of the European countries also contributed to the unwinding of prices. The West has made a “blind bet” on renewable energy, which has led to a sharp increase in the cost of energy.

Wedge between Russia, China

MR. Szczepankiewicz said that in the current scenario, Russia is becoming a kind of “discount country” for China, whose assets have fallen sharply amid geopolitical uncertainty and restrictions, and which will be forced to sell its energy resources at a significant discount. However, we see here an attempt to drive a wedge between Russia and China. Unfortunately, the United States and the European Union have refused equal cooperation with Russia, and some Western companies, albeit against their will, have become an instrument of economic aggression against Russia. China takes a fundamentally different approach. Relations of Moscow with Beijing are developing on an equal and mutually beneficial basis, and meet the objectives of strengthening the good neighborliness of both countries, and therefore are of a stable, long-term nature.

The trade turnover between Russia and China for the first half of 2022 increased by 27.2 percent and amounted to $80.675 billion. The growing power of China, which will be the main driver of world growth in the coming decades, opens up new prospects for the development of the Russian economy. Russian exports to China are not limited to energy raw materials, other commodity areas are being developed, including supply of agricultural and food products. Russia expects an increase in commodity flows to China due to their reorientation from the western direction.

Negotiations with Ukraine

THE Charges d’ Affaires of Poland expressed a desire to end the Russianukrainian conflict. If we talk about launching peace talks, then it’s important to emphasize that this dialogue was stopped by Ukraine. Russia is ready. If the West does not want negotiations, but craves Ukraine’s victory over Russia “on the battlefield” (such statements are heard more and more often), then there is nothing to talk about with the West. With such approaches, it does not allow Ukraine to move on to the peace process. Western countries are forcing the Kiev regime to accept weapons, use them to bomb cities, destroy the civilian population, which the Russian Federation cannot put up with. Such a split in the West shows that the main thing is ideology, and not concern for Ukraine, its citizens, and for European security as a whole.