BELARUSTV — broadcast
20260812 070500 UTC
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[00:03:14] Talk show "Opinion", my name is Igor Poznyak, good evening, and here
[00:03:18] we will gather, analyze, discuss, and detail a variety of opinions so
[00:03:22] that you can formulate your own.
[00:03:25] Our older viewers, of course, remember that if Soviet television
[00:03:28] showed such art, it did not bode
[00:03:32] well.
[00:03:58] It so happened that Tchaikovsky's famous Swan Lake in the last
[00:04:02] years of the Soviet Union became a symbol of upheaval, and
[00:04:05] later a geopolitical catastrophe.
[00:04:09] But several decades later, in the summer of
[00:04:11] 2026, this legendary ballet is destined
[00:04:15] to become another symbol of monstrous and cynical
[00:04:18] Russophobia in our Baltic
[00:04:20] neighbors. The Minister, if I may say so,
[00:04:23] of Culture of Lithuania, Mr.
[00:04:26] Alsys, just a couple of weeks into this position, stated, quote:
[00:04:30] "Tchaikovsky has no place on the stage of the Lithuanian theater." In this sense,
[00:04:34] the new broom in the Lithuanian government is absolutely
[00:04:37] old-fashioned, so to speak, in the spirit of the entire Baltic Russophobic
[00:04:41] tradition, and there are democratic taboos
[00:04:44] everywhere. Raimonds Pauls' music is banned
[00:04:48] in Latvia. In Estonia, a threat to national security
[00:04:51] was seen not only in Russian film dubbing,
[00:04:54] which is now unacceptable, but also in
[00:04:57] Russian-language recipes for...
[00:05:14] bottom: we will discuss here and now a variety of opinions. Next to me in this
[00:05:17] studio is: Mikhail Oksenuk, Deputy of the House
[00:05:20] of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus, hello, good, Andrey
[00:05:24] Starikov, editor-in-chief of the information agency Balt News,
[00:05:28] we welcome you, Alexey Roslikov, Deputy
[00:05:32] of the Saeima of Latvia from 2022 to 2025,
[00:05:35] good evening. Traditionally, another interlocutor connects via video link,
[00:05:39] Lithuanian politician and businessman.
[00:05:43] Antanas Kandrotas,
[00:05:59] Russophobic theme,
[00:06:03] which, if not every day, then every week
[00:06:07] grows with new informational occasions, including
[00:06:11] with the подачи of the wonderful
[00:06:14] portal led by Andrey Dmitrievich,
[00:06:17] well, we'll get back to that later.
[00:06:20] Baltic Russophobia,
[00:06:23] where do its roots grow from? I remember very well in
[00:06:27] my childhood, but these were still the late Soviet years,
[00:06:30] there was such a joke, and I grew up near the Latvian
[00:06:34] border, that if, for example, in Daugavpils or in
[00:06:37] Riga, and these were still the late Soviet years, the end of
[00:06:40] the eighties, you ask: "How
[00:06:43] do I get
[00:06:45] to this store?", they will definitely tell you the opposite direction. Do you remember such
[00:06:49] a joke? I remember such a joke, especially such jokes
[00:06:53] became popular at the time
[00:06:56] of the collapse of the Union, this is the end of the eighties, beginning of the nineties years,
[00:07:00] when even a simple ticket for a ride in
[00:07:03] transport for 5 kopecks, when a Russian-speaking person asks
[00:07:07] from a Latvian, for example, or a Latvian woman,
[00:07:10] well, they said "Russian pig." Even a ticket is a pity, these situations I
[00:07:14] heard, I remember.
[00:07:18] Well, the roots, the roots, in fact, I think
[00:07:21] that well, probably the creation,
[00:07:24] the creation of the very creation
[00:07:27] of the state, Latvia, Lithuania,
[00:07:31] if we go so far back in history,
[00:07:34] then when did Latvia actually get real Latvian
[00:07:37] statehood, that's exactly from...
[00:07:41] 1918. That was the first
[00:07:44] mention of an independent Latvian state,
[00:07:48] the Soviet Socialist Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, well,
[00:07:51] the LitBel, then they united, separated, this
[00:07:55] republic was not destined to exist for long, but
[00:07:59] the fact is that not all
[00:08:01] people, I am deeply convinced, not all people in Latvia
[00:08:05] think so and then not all people
[00:08:08] thought so at the moment of creation, well, thank God I think that...
[00:08:46] We will talk about politicians specifically, because I found statistics for you up to
[00:08:50] 2022, so that I can give you these absolutely official figures later. After
[00:08:54] 2022, they stopped publishing them. In Riga,
[00:08:57] for example, people with Russian as their native language make up
[00:08:59] 57%, so Riga is a dominant Russian
[00:09:02] city. The problem is that only so-called ethnic
[00:09:06] Latvians are allowed to enter power, who, as
[00:09:09] a result, form this foreign policy and your personal
[00:09:13] colleagues' perception of Latvia in general. Of course, in our country,
[00:09:16] there are about 10% of people who, succumbing to this
[00:09:20] policy, transmit it to people on the street, both through insults and through
[00:09:23] all sorts of unpleasant statements. I will also give you a gift, we have such
[00:09:27] comments, like one can say the word "vomit," so on
[00:09:31] the internet, Russians are called "vomit
[00:09:33] of occupiers," and this is considered normal today, when
[00:09:37] a person with a Latvian name and a Latvian surname leaves such comments
[00:09:41] on the internet. They will not be prosecuted for it, so I will tell you this, that
[00:09:45] today the external, so to speak, temperature towards our country
[00:09:49] is formed by a handful of politicians, but not
[00:09:52] by the people. I did not by chance, perhaps even partially
[00:09:56] provocatively, start with this example, because you are absolutely
[00:09:59] right, that
[00:10:01] it is precisely the Lithuanian, Latvian,
[00:10:05] Estonian authorities and the Baltic
[00:10:09] people, as they say in a famous city.
[00:10:25] you are undoubtedly encountering a vast
[00:10:28] array of diverse information about
[00:10:32] the Baltics. What surprises
[00:10:35] you most, I understand that it's difficult to surprise a journalist with anything, what
[00:10:39] surprises you most about the current
[00:10:41] positioning of these, let's say, essentially
[00:10:44] nationalistic
[00:10:47] sentiments?
[00:10:50] Those who are at the helm, nothing has surprised me for a long
[00:10:53] time, but the fish rots from the
[00:10:56] head, regarding this Russophobia,
[00:10:59] whether it's everyday or political, it's a kind
[00:11:02] of symbiosis, because politicians, those who seized
[00:11:05] power in the early nineties, they set
[00:11:08] the norm, they set the standard, they
[00:11:11] show that it's possible, that it's normal, that it's
[00:11:14] promising for career growth, for
[00:11:18] personal enrichment. Residents of Latvia remember when
[00:11:22] it was said in the Latvian parliament, in
[00:11:25] the Saeima, "Russians, we don't need you to know our
[00:11:28] language, we need you to know your place." And this is,
[00:11:32] in general, a roadmap, it's a guide to
[00:11:36] action, it's goal-setting, and those stories you started with
[00:11:40] are exactly about that: to create
[00:11:42] maximally unfriendly, inconvenient,
[00:11:46] hellish conditions so that Russians leave. "Suitcase,
[00:11:50] train station, Russia," they said for all 25,
[00:11:53] now 30 years, starting with the Singing Revolution in 1988,
[00:11:56] when those who fled after the war began to arrive
[00:12:00] in Soviet Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania.
[00:12:03] This is the first wave of migration,
[00:12:07] these are descendants of Nazis, these are collaborators,
[00:12:10] these are their children, these are their grandchildren, this is a politically
[00:12:13] infected public. Did they love us? Of course not,
[00:12:17] they hated us, they hate us, they want to replay
[00:12:20] the war, that military fervor and that
[00:12:24] pressure on...
[00:13:25] that the people and the government are completely different
[00:13:28] things. Certain
[00:13:30] decrees, of course, stem from this,
[00:13:34] that if you don't create an enemy, then you can't
[00:13:37] confirm and explain to the people the expenses for
[00:13:41] military needs. We've already quickly
[00:13:44] set a record in Lithuania, already
[00:13:48] one-third of the budget goes to military
[00:13:51] expenses, and how to explain it to the people? It's very
[00:13:55] simple: ignite Russophobia and then
[00:13:58] spend the money
[00:14:01] of taxpayers, then you can borrow on behalf
[00:14:05] of the state, and so on and so forth.
[00:14:08] They absolutely need Russophobia as
[00:14:11] a tool for pumping out money.
[00:14:15] It's curious how much this, in quotation marks, cow will
[00:14:18] still give milk. Let's watch a report
[00:14:21] from our correspondent right now. On July
[00:14:37] 24, the Latvian parliament, in an emergency procedure, banned the import from Russia and
[00:14:40] Belarus of books, newspapers, video games, and even children's toys. How Soviet dolls
[00:14:44] or board games threaten the security of the country, the deputies did not explain. A little
[00:14:48] earlier, the Minister of Culture of Latvia ordered to remove
[00:14:51] the Russian language from all institutions of his department by July 30, including.
[00:14:57] The theater can continue to create performances in Russian,
[00:15:00] preserving its artistic originality and enriching
[00:15:03] the cultural space of Latvia. Art should not lose its
[00:15:07] diversity, however, public communication
[00:15:11] of state institutions performs a different
[00:15:13] function. The educational sphere also underwent total derusification.
[00:15:17] In Estonia, since last academic year, all kindergartens and elementary schools switched
[00:15:21] to Estonian. In one of the colleges, after the ban on teaching in... they could not
[00:15:25] recruit half of the students. Free vocational education is now available only in
[00:15:29] the state language. In Lithuania, the Russian language, formally protected by the constitution,
[00:15:33] has become an irritating factor. In one year, the Language Inspectorate received 50
[00:15:36] complaints about its use in public places in Vilnius. The Minister of Education
[00:15:40] announced the abandonment of Russian schools; only educational institutions for
[00:15:43] national minorities in EU languages will remain. This transition is possible as early as September
[00:15:47] of this year. In Latvia, since January, Russian has been excluded from the school curriculum and is not
[00:15:50] offered as a second foreign language. Moreover, linguicide is observed not only in
[00:15:54] schools. The Latvian parliament also approved the closure of public media broadcasting in
[00:15:58] Russian. Calls are being made to deprive FM frequencies from private Russian-language
[00:16:01] radio stations. There is no more Russian language in Latvian ATMs. The banks themselves were officially forbidden to serve clients.
[00:16:05] банкам запретили официально обслуживать кли.
[00:16:37] the Second World War, but then they had to carefully hide it.
[00:16:41] So, going back to the question about real
[00:16:44] fascism, real nationalism, is what
[00:16:47] we are talking about now, what we saw in the story, fit this
[00:16:51] definition in its essence?
[00:16:54] Absolutely, of course, it fits this definition, and we
[00:16:57] understand nationalism, even
[00:17:00] radical nationalism, this is a vivid, that is,
[00:17:03] what is happening today in these countries, which we are talking about, here you need to
[00:17:07] understand that our neighbors wanted
[00:17:10] to hurt us in the economic sphere.
[00:17:14] They shot themselves in the foot, nothing came of it.
[00:17:17] They ruined their economy, their railways, ports, those
[00:17:20] that, by the way, the occupying Soviet Union gave them,
[00:17:24] built. Today they have taken on the hateful,
[00:17:28] hateful, yes, they have taken on the spiritual, and then they paid
[00:17:32] for membership in the European Union, yes, absolutely right, absolutely
[00:17:35] right, and today... we see how the struggle is going on for
[00:17:39] the minds of the citizens of the Baltic republics,
[00:17:43] everything that reminds of itself is erased,
[00:17:46] reminds of the Russian language, of Russian
[00:17:49] civilization, of Eastern Slavic civilization, that is,
[00:17:53] an attempt to destroy everything that is associated with the Russian language,
[00:17:57] including children's books, including fairy tales, including
[00:18:00] works of art, including simple Russian speech, what
[00:18:04] is this called? Is it not nationalism?
[00:18:07] Masha and the Bear, a cartoon where Masha tries on a military cap,
[00:18:11] is discussed in the British parliament, and they find in it a threat to
[00:18:15] national, British
[00:18:18] security and independence, so what more can be said?
[00:18:22] Alexey Viktorovich, you used not entirely
[00:18:25] ethereal words,
[00:18:29] I will also recall from personal experience. I was on a business trip many
[00:18:33] years ago in Riga, living in a hotel, unfortunately, on the first
[00:18:36] floor. And the first floor is
[00:18:39] always where conversations are heard through an open window, and you
[00:18:43] know,
[00:18:45] maybe this is not a representative story, please correct
[00:18:48] me,
[00:18:51] but local teenagers, I don't know, young
[00:18:53] people, drinking light
[00:18:57] alcohol, were discussing something
[00:19:00] there in Latvian, partially English,
[00:19:03] but swore in good,
[00:19:06] choice Russian. This is a classic, yes, this
[00:19:09] is a classic, this is a classic. A huge number of words
[00:19:12] at the moment purebred Latvians borrow from the Russian
[00:19:16] language. The Russian language is much richer, it is much more colorful,
[00:19:19] and swear words are one of those words that express emotions as brightly
[00:19:23] as possible, therefore, here borrowing is absolute, and here
[00:19:26] nothing is constrained, as if Russophobia is
[00:19:30] another thing, again, there is a question of politics, there is a question of everyday life, yes,
[00:19:34] therefore, in everyday matters, so to speak, everyone perfectly uses...
[00:20:07] and he is not ashamed of this word. They tried to bring him before the ethics commission in
[00:20:11] our Riga City Council, where I was the leader of the faction until recently.
[00:20:14] The dominant number of parties refused to even deal with him, they consider it
[00:20:18] normal. So imagine, today the vice-mayor of our society
[00:20:21] says that everyone who is not conditionally
[00:20:24] Latvian, for example, Belarusians, are monkeys. Imagine, this is
[00:20:28] how you talk about formatting, that is, this is not just a question of decency or
[00:20:32] indecency, it is a question of
[00:20:35] political positioning. At the moment, liberals,
[00:20:39] centrists, leftists, rightists, whoever
[00:20:42] you want, have disappeared. We have today political nationalism.
[00:20:46] All parties that today enter the ruling bloc with the permission of Brussels, they must be...
[00:21:20] this scandalous story that recently happened in Estonia,
[00:21:24] when a meat producer posted
[00:21:27] an image with two men with
[00:21:29] smiles, grilling meat,
[00:21:33] and a slogan was written in Estonian, but translated into
[00:21:37] Russian, it sounds as follows: "Proper
[00:21:40] grilling makes bitter onions sweet." Well,
[00:21:44] the whole problem is that the word "onion" in colloquial context in
[00:21:47] Estonia, well, translated from Estonian, can be used as
[00:21:51] a derogatory nickname for the Russian-speaking
[00:21:54] population. So, that's roughly what you are talking about.
[00:21:57] Well, look, it's not all so homogeneous, there's a political
[00:22:01] discussion, even the locals argue about who Russians are,
[00:22:04] whether they are shredded, whether they are monkeys, they need to be
[00:22:07] shredded or marinated or fried.
[00:22:10] So, it's not all homogeneous here. This
[00:22:14] discussion of how to bully all
[00:22:17] those who are alien, and dissenting, and...
[00:22:20] speaking other languages, it exists. We need to
[00:22:23] take this into account, because in the context of even their pressure on the Russian
[00:22:27] language, they themselves fall into a kind of schizophrenia.
[00:22:30] If we observe, they tried to make the Russian language instrumental
[00:22:34] in fighting against us. I remember, in Riga there was a conference
[00:22:38] of the fugitive Mansky from Russia and the
[00:22:40] foreign agent "Russian is not Putin's
[00:22:43] language." They tried to use Russian to fight against
[00:22:46] us, placed media
[00:22:50] editorial offices there. Belarusians know how Lithuania became a stronghold and
[00:22:53] such a farm for fugitive
[00:22:55] zmagars. But now, perhaps, this is even to our
[00:22:59] advantage, their primitive Russophobia,
[00:23:02] xenophobia, rejection of everything else, has reached a point
[00:23:06] where the Russian language is bad for them in any manifestation, even as
[00:23:10] a weapon against us. But before that, for many years, there really
[00:23:13] was a discussion about how to use Russian, what TV channels
[00:23:17] were needed, how to fool Russians. Now they have
[00:23:20] abandoned this. Russians are absolute marginalized people, they are on
[00:23:23] the periphery, they are outside the agenda, they are outside the information
[00:23:27] space, as if they don't exist. And as
[00:23:30] a consequence, yes, there is only one line of behavior left: to create
[00:23:34] such conditions that everyone leaves.
[00:23:37] Rusify, those who don't want to, those who resist, criminal cases,
[00:23:41] prison, imprisonment, even
[00:23:43] physical elimination, I believe we can
[00:23:47] observe, they are capable of going that far.
[00:24:20] a very scandalous story last year, in the year of the 80th anniversary
[00:24:23] of the Great Victory, in Latvia they expelled
[00:24:27] 98-year-old veteran
[00:24:30] Vasily Moskalyonok. Everyone talked about this
[00:24:34] story, but this story is not
[00:24:37] unique. I think this is also such
[00:24:40] a monstrous and cynical slap in the face to
[00:24:44] the generation of those who once liberated this
[00:24:47] land. Such a situation? What you
[00:24:51] mentioned about Latvia, similar things happened in Lithuania, and
[00:24:55] people who extend, for example, in
[00:24:58] Lithuania, I can say more about Lithuania, who extend, for example,
[00:25:01] their residence permit, there is a mandatory question,
[00:25:05] "Whose Crimea is it?" And there have been many stories
[00:25:08] where people answered, or I don't know, or answered that
[00:25:12] it belongs to Russia, they lost their, among other things, I
[00:25:15] know one story where a person lived in Lithuania for
[00:25:18] 40 years. And they did not extend his residence permit, so
[00:25:22] these algorithms work.
[00:25:26] I want to add to the conversation that you
[00:25:29] mentioned these Estonians who were grilling meat, well, in
[00:25:32] Lithuania, all the media just
[00:25:36] rejoiced, praised this advertisement, said,
[00:25:40] "How clever the Estonians are, how original they came up with it, and
[00:25:43] how good it all is." That is, in Lithuania
[00:25:47] the legitimization of these...
[00:27:08] a lot of films about the war, I
[00:27:11] watch a lot of documentaries about the war, I know quite a lot of facts about the Great
[00:27:15] Patriotic War, but what I
[00:27:18] read,
[00:27:20] preparing for this program, honestly shocked me,
[00:27:24] truly shocked me. So, in 2019 in
[00:27:27] Tallinn, at a public
[00:27:29] transport stop, a tram stop, they tried
[00:27:33] to differentiate, although this sign didn't hang for long,
[00:27:37] to differentiate "this part of the stop
[00:27:40] is for those who speak Russian, this part
[00:27:43] of the stop is for real
[00:27:45] Estonians." I think this is not
[00:27:49] just nationalism, this is simply
[00:27:52] some kind of incredible, unconcealed
[00:27:56] fascism in the very center of Europe. What is the international
[00:27:59] community looking at, what is the international community looking at?
[00:28:32] Yes, but it seems more like
[00:28:36] this, you know, little dogs, they usually
[00:28:39] run behind your back, and from there, this is the situation, this situation,
[00:28:43] which is happening today in the Baltics, reminds me of the beginning
[00:28:46] of the nineties during the collapse of the Soviet Union, when older guys
[00:28:50] took a little boy, put
[00:28:53] him somewhere on the street, hid themselves, a guy walked by,
[00:28:57] he bothered this guy, provoked him, that one grabbed his
[00:29:00] ear and then they came up to you, "Well, what's up, little guy?"
[00:29:10] That's the situation we have today, in my opinion, with the Baltic
[00:29:13] countries. Against the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine, an island of instability is being created on Russia's borders, on the northwestern borders of Russia. It is clear that
[00:29:17] it may not reach a hot phase, but it forces Russia
[00:29:20] to turn its head in that direction.
[00:29:23] This is nothing else but support, this
[00:29:27] is all that we are talking about, we state the facts that far from
[00:29:30] all residents of the Baltics...
[00:29:33] support such a state of affairs. Well, it's similar to what we had in 2020,
[00:29:37] 1-2% of the population formed an opinion,
[00:29:41] tried to impose it, the majority for some reason
[00:29:44] believed it, and today what is happening, I am deeply convinced that it
[00:29:48] is happening with the blessing, with the consent, and perhaps
[00:29:50] even at the behest of Western coordinators?
[00:29:54] Please, I usually clarify such
[00:29:57] an assessment, it often comes from colleagues, moreover, it is probably our
[00:30:01] tradition to deny the Baltics
[00:30:03] subjectivity, they mean nothing, they decide
[00:30:07] nothing, there is Apcom in Washington, Brussels has
[00:30:11] a big boss, they act on orders. But if
[00:30:14] we analyze their recent history, political practice, we
[00:30:18] will see that here is a situation where the tail
[00:30:21] directly wags the dog. Who forms
[00:30:24] the Eastern policy of the EU, the policy of the EU in the Eastern
[00:30:27] direction? Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia. Let's take the documents,
[00:30:31] the body of documents of the European Parliament, who writes them? What concerns
[00:30:35] relations, EU, Russia, and so
[00:30:38] on.
[00:30:40] Plus to your argument, who, who comes to
[00:30:44] the position of European Commissioner, from where they come, determines this
[00:30:48] "calos". Therefore, we should not deprive them of subjectivity, it
[00:30:51] puts us into a trap, makes our foreign policy
[00:30:55] vulnerable. These are those who, in general,
[00:30:58] fanned the Ukrainian conflict, including the conflict in
[00:31:01] Ukraine, themselves after the Eastern Partnership summit
[00:31:04] in Vilnius. These are those who throw
[00:31:07] fuel on the fire, these are those who impose this
[00:31:11] absolutely primitive practice of discrimination against Russians, further.
[00:31:47] 366 administrative cases, with penalties provided,
[00:31:51] increased penalties, which for individuals
[00:31:54] will increase from 35 to a maximum of
[00:31:57] 195 euros, for legal entities up to
[00:32:00] 700 euros, in individual cases up to 5,000
[00:32:03] euros. A good addition
[00:32:06] to the budget. It turns out that for 2025 there were
[00:32:10] 610 fines, meaning they haven't even met the target yet, they will still
[00:32:13] reach it. I always... Yes, this is my personal pain, since I
[00:32:17] have been living in these sandals for 42 years. The problem
[00:32:20] of this aggression of nationalism started a long time ago,
[00:32:23] 26 years ago, I am 42 years old today. Fights between Russian and
[00:32:27] Latvian children in Latvia were an absolute
[00:32:30] norm. At 14 years old, we were pitted against
[00:32:33] each other, and we really fought in the street, district against district,
[00:32:37] Latvians against Russians. So you must understand that the problem
[00:32:41] was laid, originated, raised
[00:32:43] in advance. Today you are talking about the world community, but why in
[00:32:47] 2000 did no one notice that Russian children
[00:32:50] were convinced that they should go to a Latvian school and break windows in the opposite
[00:32:54] direction, and today those same children are already over 30, they have also
[00:32:58] been diluted by our repatriates, who in the 1940s lived with their
[00:33:01] parents or were later born already in America in special conditions, were
[00:33:04] returned back. So today the result
[00:33:07] of '22 and '26 is a fairly clear,
[00:33:11] measured and correctly constructed work, starting from the
[00:33:15] moment when our Latvia gained its independence. Therefore, I suggest that today
[00:33:19] we not kick, we have a huge historical, let's say,
[00:33:22] process, in which certain mistakes were
[00:33:25] made, it will resolve itself, it will pass. Today it has not resolved itself and has not
[00:33:29] passed. Therefore, we have a clearly charged group of political
[00:33:33] politicians, political figures who
[00:33:35] are set on the most open,
[00:33:39] let's say, aggressive actions, they simply will not stop.
[00:33:42] Well, it's obvious that now those same
[00:33:45] politicians who, as if with their mother's milk, absorbed
[00:33:48] these very sentiments, and perhaps these very politicians once
[00:33:52] walked with you, district against district, and this is the whole situation, we
[00:33:56] today, starting from twenty-two to twenty-six, adopt
[00:34:00] an average of 10 laws per year in Latvia, that is, one
[00:34:03] law per month, the parliament rests for 2 months, no tractor factory can
[00:34:07] boast of such results, 10 laws per year directed against
[00:34:10] Russians, 10, as of today, since twenty-two, more than 40 laws have been adopted.
[00:35:15] Mikhail Petrovich, you are a parliamentarian, so speaking in legal
[00:35:18] terms, what does this
[00:35:21] mean, I will try
[00:35:24] to use this word very carefully,
[00:35:27] is it not
[00:35:29] genocide,
[00:35:32] of a people that we are dealing with, if we dig
[00:35:35] deep and look at the concept of the word
[00:35:38] genocide, then it smells exactly like that, this is
[00:35:42] the extermination of an entire nation, the Russian nation.
[00:35:49] the extermination of a nation by any means, even if it's not killing, not bringing to death, but it's,
[00:35:52] let's say, silence, it's turning
[00:35:55] a person into another nationality, if you will, it's roughly the
[00:35:59] same thing, if we don't talk about genocide of a people, then we can
[00:36:03] safely talk about genocide of a nation, therefore of course such actions are
[00:36:07] very, very on the verge of genocide, but here I
[00:36:10] fully support you, by the way, Dmitrievich, let's go back to...
[00:36:14] the
[00:37:28] areas where Russians, Russian-speakers live compactly, well, with such
[00:37:31] disdain, it has always been
[00:37:35] the case, as for genocide,
[00:37:38] I agree with my colleague, yes, genocide, because if we look
[00:37:42] at EU documents, UN documents, documents
[00:37:45] of the International Court of Justice, then genocide is not only physical
[00:37:49] liquidation, it is also deportations of peoples, we
[00:37:52] observe this, it is depriving
[00:37:55] peoples of the right to language, to...
[00:38:27] genocide, but our assessment, a political assessment, I believe,
[00:38:31] can be such, and such it should be,
[00:38:34] and I will allow myself once again within the framework of our program
[00:38:38] to recall a personal situation, I already recalled it a few
[00:38:41] broadcasts ago in a different context, well, now I simply
[00:38:45] cannot not talk about
[00:38:48] this, more than 10 years ago
[00:38:52] my interview in Tallinn in a business center with
[00:38:55] a veteran of the Great Patriotic War.
[00:38:58] I really want to believe that he is still alive and
[00:39:01] well, but when the head
[00:39:04] of this very business center, passing by, heard that we were
[00:39:08] speaking Russian, we were simply asked to go out
[00:39:12] onto the street.
[00:39:15] Andrey Viktorovich, could such a situation have occurred
[00:39:18] in Latvia? Well, look, in 2023,
[00:39:22] 2,500 people who have
[00:39:26] a residence permit, absolutely necessary for staying in the territory of the Latvian
[00:39:29] Republic, are being brought to the status of future
[00:39:32] deportation. 25,000 people. So what do you think, how
[00:39:35] are our people treated today, today, in general? These
[00:39:39] 25,000 people should have been taken to Russia or
[00:39:43] Belarus, wherever they want, but only outside the European Union. Therefore,
[00:39:46] today, if you call for any humanity and the opportunity
[00:39:49] to assess, let's say, the emotional state of our authorities, it is absolutely
[00:39:53] meaningless. I told you about this case when
[00:39:56] a purebred Latvian woman with two
[00:39:59] children from a Russian guy, who has a Russian passport with a Latvian
[00:40:03] residence permit, wakes up in the morning to find herself being pulled out of bed and taken to the
[00:40:06] border, and the minister, who for humanitarian reasons was
[00:40:10] obliged to reunite this family and return the boy, personally
[00:40:14] told me, "I don't care, let her pack her bags and go with him," and the purebred Latvian
[00:40:17] woman with two purebred Latvian children, with civil passports, goes to
[00:40:21] Russia and writes to me, "I am happy," so what
[00:40:24] will we discuss, yes, and I think, Andrey Dmitrievich,
[00:40:28] I completely agree with you, why be cautious with the word bullying,
[00:40:32] classic
[00:40:32] genocide.
[00:40:39] from 5 to 10 billion euros, such
[00:40:42] astronomical, colossal for the budgets of the Baltic countries,
[00:40:46] sums Russophobia can cost, according to experts, while
[00:40:49] the bill to Tallinn and Riga could be presented by the
[00:40:53] International Court of Justice already next year. It is there that Russia intends
[00:40:57] to defend the rights of the Russian-speaking population in the Baltics. The process
[00:41:01] has already been launched, all procedures should be completed by spring
[00:41:04] of twenty-seven. At that time, as expected, the court
[00:41:08] will issue a verdict, or rather, should issue one. Well, even if
[00:41:11] the Baltic authorities refuse to pay, the very fact
[00:41:14] of Russophobia, discrimination, as
[00:41:17] we have already indicated today, genocide will be legally
[00:41:20] enshrined at the UN level, and this is already
[00:41:23] a global precedent, our correspondent states.
[00:41:28] The Russians of the Baltics were an argument in someone else's political game for too
[00:41:31] long. In May, Moscow announced its intention to file a lawsuit with the International Court
[00:41:35] of Justice against Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia for systematic infringement of the rights
[00:41:39] of the Russian-speaking population. For Russia, the issue is no longer limited to merely stating
[00:41:42] violations and concerns in diplomatic notes. It is about
[00:41:46] the security of its own citizens and compatriots, about preserving the Russian
[00:41:49] world as a civilized space. There are more than enough
[00:41:53] arguments for the court: dismantling of monuments, renaming of historical streets,
[00:41:56] criminal cases against Russian-speaking human rights activists, journalists,
[00:41:59] politicians, teachers, priests, mass dismissals, and ultimately,
[00:42:03] forced expulsions. A striking example was the deportation to
[00:42:06] Russia of a seventy-four-year-old Latvian pensioner, Grigory.
[00:42:40] The actions of the Baltic authorities are simple and cynical. Russians must either be squeezed out,
[00:42:43] or broken, or turned into silent statistical noise. In
[00:42:46] Latvia in the nineties, this experiment began legally elegantly. About
[00:42:50] 750,000 people, almost a third of the population, overnight
[00:42:54] found themselves in the status of non-citizens. Formally, they were not forbidden to live, work, pay
[00:42:57] taxes. In fact, they were erased from the political body of the country. The Baltics
[00:43:01] in this sense are a laboratory of the future. Everything that has been worked out here on the Russian
[00:43:05] question will then be transferred to another territory where the West needs to break
[00:43:09] historical memory. Ukraine has long been on this path, and Moldova is
[00:43:13] also on the rails. And these are the fruits. A meat product manufacturer in Estonia refuses to remove
[00:43:16] an advertisement that caused a storm of indignation. Two men with Ukrainian
[00:43:20] flags on their sleeves at a barbecue, behind them smoke from fires with the inscription:
[00:43:23] "Proper grilling changes the bitter taste of onions to a sweeter one." This is how they joke,
[00:43:27] using slang that is forbidden in any decent society, but in
[00:43:31] indecent ones, Russian-speakers are called "onions." There are a huge
[00:43:34] number of angry comments online, accusations of inciting interethnic
[00:43:37] hatred, MEP Yana lashed out. "What's that in your
[00:43:41] background, dear sausage makers? Is the idea that everyone who buys your
[00:43:45] sausage thinks they're eating a burnt enemy?" But behind
[00:43:48] this process is a chain of politicians and special services, who perfectly understand what
[00:43:52] they are doing. The former Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas, who became the EU's top diplomat, is only
[00:43:56] the visible tip of the iceberg. Underneath it is a familiar set of institutions of soft
[00:43:59] power: foundations, grant programs, independent media, human rights
[00:44:03] NGOs. Through them, an elite was nurtured for whom the struggle against Russian influence became not
[00:44:07] an idea, but a profession.
[00:44:09] It's even curious how the International Court of Justice
[00:44:13] will behave, Mikhail Petrovich.
[00:44:16] Is the decision important here, or the precedent itself, in your
[00:44:20] opinion? I think the precedent is important. Doesn't the situation
[00:44:24] today in the Baltics remind you of the situation in Ukraine? Even 10 years
[00:44:27] ago, it was roughly the same thing. Russia was forced
[00:44:30] to intervene in the rights of its citizens, the protection of the rights of its
[00:44:34] citizens. This appeal to the International Court will already
[00:44:37] be a fact and a precedent.
[00:44:40] Whether you recognized it or not, whether you understood it or not, but we
[00:44:43] reacted according to international norms. If the international
[00:44:46] community did not react, Russia will still be forced
[00:44:50] to protect the rights of its citizens by other
[00:44:53] means and ways. Well, we probably won't discuss
[00:44:57] what those are today. I think the leadership of Russia knows best how
[00:45:01] to protect its citizens. Alexey
[00:45:03] Viktorovich, if the International Court
[00:45:06] of Justice makes a decision that Riga,
[00:45:10] Tallinn must pay the bills, I'm somewhat far from thinking that
[00:45:13] they will rush to open their fat
[00:45:16] wallets. Absolutely not, but look, after
[00:45:19] ninety, when the Baltics gained their independence
[00:45:23] in general after the collapse of the Soviet Union, more than 20 million people were left outside
[00:45:27] their native, let's say, land. My
[00:45:30] parents gave the first generation – that's me, we've given the second generation, and today these
[00:45:34] millions have grown, doubled or tripled, and today these are
[00:45:37] absolutely legal hostages of...
[00:47:22] the situation has exhausted itself, and how the Russian side
[00:47:25] will further resolve the Russian question
[00:47:28] in the Baltics, well, as they say, think for yourselves, what
[00:47:32] tools remain, because that's why this is a very
[00:47:35] serious story, and the Balts got scared, the Latvians
[00:47:38] got scared, the Latvian intelligence service, the Bureau for the Protection
[00:47:42] of the Constitution, has already released huge
[00:47:45] reports, releases, they called it in English,
[00:47:49] law fair, law as...
[00:49:22] everything is fine, yes, that is, today we have beyond the borders of the Republic of Belarus, where
[00:49:26] there is absolute stability, absolute transparency, concepts, yes, that is,
[00:49:29] the rule of law exists, there is a wild, insane world,
[00:49:33] gentlemen, in which there are three categories of people:
[00:49:36] a citizen, a non-citizen, hello, and
[00:49:39] a non-citizen, yes, that is, a person who is forbidden to work in 40 professions,
[00:49:43] a person who is forbidden to vote, a person who only works and pays
[00:49:46] taxes, you understand, it's hard to say how long our people on
[00:49:50] the other side will last, while in the big corridors of the courts, someone will
[00:49:54] walk around and try to achieve something, it's difficult, this is the part of the world that
[00:49:57] publicly positions itself as democratic
[00:50:01] Europe. I would still like
[00:50:04] to continue the thesis about the international court, what
[00:50:08] you were talking about, but I think that
[00:50:11] this is also a very important story about
[00:50:15] human and historical justice,
[00:50:18] yes, it is unlikely that anyone will pay the bills, but this very
[00:50:22] public precedent will be created, and I
[00:50:25] think Mikhail Petrovich, this correlates quite clearly
[00:50:29] with the story familiar to you and me here in
[00:50:32] Belarus, the criminal case of the genocide of the Belarusian
[00:50:35] people, within which, by the way, we are
[00:50:39] closely cooperating with Russia, and yes, those
[00:50:42] war criminals, well, due to time, due to the fact that they
[00:50:45] have already left this world, they did not receive physical
[00:50:49] punishment, but forever...
[00:51:22] them in cages like monkeys and showed prove and had to prove with facts, we also need to understand
[00:51:25] who we are dealing with today, the so-called
[00:51:28] Expo-58, it was in Brussels in 1958 that
[00:51:32] they closed an international exhibition, at which there was a human zoo,
[00:51:36] in fifty- eight, Europeans in
[00:51:39] Brussels gathered people, put
[00:51:42] them to others, look, his ear is a different color, you think about
[00:51:46] who we are working with today, they will not come to their senses, this is an absolute
[00:52:33] the
[00:53:06] situation, the time of vampires, remember, as one very famous person said, is coming
[00:53:10] to an end, but they are still trying to paint over this end, to postpone
[00:53:13] it somehow, but it's inevitable, today it's clear that this empire
[00:53:17] will collapse, it's a matter of time, well,
[00:53:20] the question is, when will all this, continuing your
[00:53:23] metaphor, be washed away by the rain, Andrey
[00:53:26] Dmitrievich? I think we will all see this
[00:53:29] in our
[00:53:37] considering the wishes of our Minister of Culture,
[00:53:41] our film will be seen, believe me, our people watch, they find it,
[00:53:44] the internet is a great thing, they find everything.
[00:54:03] We are, perhaps, the only country in the world to have survived a color revolution, an attempted
[00:54:06] coup, and a series of articulated hybrid attacks.
[00:54:10] We did not get involved in a war, although different centers of power are pulling us
[00:54:13] there. They call this Minsk's multi-vector policy,
[00:54:16] Lukashenka's versatility, but the result is a peaceful, clear
[00:54:20] sky, a well-groomed country, and a state of social