As I expected, Syria was the main topic of the “Tehran Conference 2022,” the trilateral meeting of the leaders of Russia, Turkey, and Iran, but no significant progress was made. Responding to questions from Russian journalists, Vladimir Putin noted evasively:
We all believe it is necessary to guarantee the territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and eliminate terrorists of all sorts... Yes, there are some differences there, this is obvious, but we all support the constitutional process.
In addition to the question about the results of the trilateral talks, the Russian President felt it necessary to answer three other questions: About the prospects for an agreement to unblock Ukrainian food exports, for restoring gas supplies to Europe, and for Russian-Ukrainian negotiations to end the war.
Speaking about the talks on unblocking Ukrainian exports, Putin publicly confirmed for the first time that Russia, in addition to demanding control over the non-delivery of arms to Ukraine, had put forward a condition for a “package deal”: Russia agrees to unblock Ukrainian food exports only in parallel with the lifting of sanctions restrictions that curb grain exports from Russia. (Although the Russian President did not specify what these restrictions consisted of, apparently he was referring to restrictions on the operation of major Russian banks when making payments in dollars and euros.)
... we originally put the question in such a way that this should be packaged, namely that we would facilitate the export of Ukrainian grain. Still, we assume that all restrictions related to possible deliveries of Russian grain would be lifted. We agreed on this initially with international organizations. They took the trouble to package it all. No one has objected so far, including our American partners. We’ll see what comes of this shortly.
But as you know, let’s say that the Americans have lifted the restrictions on supplies of Russian fertilizers to the world market, actually lifted them. I hope the same thing will happen with Russian grain exports, if they sincerely want to improve the situation in the world food markets.
The Russian President’s answer to the question about the prospects of Russian gas exports was voiced in the best traditions of Putin’s scholastic rhetoric: Russia is fulfilling all its obligations, Europe has created all the problems itself, and Russia can increase gas supplies, but only if it is permitted to operate Nord Stream-2.
First, Gazprom has always fulfilled and will continue to fulfill all its obligations.
There is no basis whatsoever for our partners to shift their mistakes or to try to shift their own mistakes onto Russia and Gazprom.
As for gas, we have another route ready to go—Nord Stream-2. It can be launched, but it is not being launched.
After that, Putin stated briefly and clearly that he sees no chance for peace talks with Ukraine, accusing Kyiv of unwillingness to comply with the agreements reached.
... The negotiations in Istanbul [late March] were when we actually reached an agreement; all that was left was to initial it, but, as you know, after that—and to create these conditions, our troops withdrew from the center of Ukraine, from Kyiv—the Kyiv authorities refused to implement these agreements. I mean, they were actually achieved. So the final result depends, of course, not on the mediators but on the willingness of the contracting parties to implement the agreements reached. And today, we see that the authorities in Kyiv have no such desire.
Putin’s position means that he sees no other scenario for ending the war except the complete surrender of Ukraine.
Behind the Iron Curtain is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Appetite grows
The Russian President’s position was further elaborated in a surprise interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who publicly voiced the goals of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to him, the Kremlin considers the issue of the withdrawal of the currently occupied territories from Ukraine resolved and is ready for further expansion if Western countries continue to support Ukraine with arms deliveries.
These [territories that Ukraine must lose at the Kremlin’s request] are far from just the DNR and LNR, they are also the Kherson region, the Zaporizhzhia region, and some other territories, and this process continues, and continues consistently and persistently.
As the West, in its impotent anger at making the situation as bad as possible, pumps more and more long-range weapons into Ukraine, the special operation’s geographical tasks will move even further away from the current line of combat operations.
We cannot allow the part of Ukraine that Zelensky will control to contain weapons that will directly threaten our territory and the territory of those republics that have declared their independence and those that want to determine their own future.
No comment
They [European politicians] are prominent specialists in non-traditional [sexual] relations, and here they have also decided to bet on non-traditional sources of energy. (Vladimir Putin)
The “golden billion” want to reduce the world’s population. (Sergei Lavrov)
...U.S. biolaboratories [in Ukraine] have been created to launch artificial evolution of humanity with the Pentagon as the editor-in-chief. (Irina Yarovaya, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma)
Upon his return from Tehran, Vladimir Putin spoke at a meeting with young entrepreneurs who had received budget grants to implement their projects. He criticized Western countries and announced the beginning of a new historical epoch.
...revolutionary transformations are gaining more and more momentum, gaining strength. These tremendous changes are, of course, irreversible. And both at the national and the global level [the international community] is creating the foundations, the principles of a harmonious, more just, socially oriented, and safe world order—an alternative to the existing or, we can say, existing-so-far unipolar world order, which by its nature, of course, becomes a brake on the development of civilization.
The model of total domination of the so-called golden billion is unfair. Well, why should this “golden billion” of the planet’s entire population dominate everyone to impose their rules of behavior based on the illusion of exclusivity? It divides people into the first and second class and therefore is racist and neocolonial in its essence. The underlying globalist, supposedly liberal, ideology is increasingly acquiring the features of totalitarianism, restraining the creative search, and free historical creation.
The impression is that the West simply cannot offer the world its model of the future... But no matter how much the Western and supranational elites are trying to preserve the existing order of things, a new era, a new stage in world history, is coming. And only genuinely sovereign states can ensure high-growth dynamics, become an example for others in the standards and quality of life of people, in the protection of traditional values and high humanistic ideals, and create models of development in which man becomes not a means but the highest goal.
I do not doubt that Putin considers Russia to be an established “truly sovereign state.” Still, I have yet to hear him predict when Russia will become “an example for others in standards and quality of life.”
Export is loss-making
Following his colleague, Viktor Rashnikov, the main shareholder of NLMK, Russia’s largest steelmaker, spoke about the problematic situation of Russian steel companies. According to him, exports are not profitable for the companies in the current situation.
The situation is not easy... For the entire steel industry in Russia, we had about 40% of exports. Some of the exports are over for us; the existing Asian destinations, particularly China, are pretty complicated regarding logistics and freight costs. Among other things, there is a steel production surplus in China, so we supply products to them at the cost of production... in fact, export has become almost meaningless.
In contrast to MMK’s main shareholder, Vladimir Lisin is more optimistic about the future and intends, despite all the difficulties, to implement the planned investment program to the end.
The investment programs were considerably complicated; of course, we will bring what we had to the end, but with some delay, because there will be disruptions with the supply of Western equipment. It’s no secret that we used to get up to 60% of modern technologies, picking them up by the pinch from all over the world; now everything has begun to close for us.
Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia Philip Gabunia named the number of Russian investors whose assets were frozen after the imposition of sanctions—more than 5 million people.
Today, more than 5 million people have blocked assets in their accounts. Here it is essential to clarify that this figure includes not only investors who work through a brokerage account, but also clients of mutual investment funds... we cannot say that 5 million people have all the assets they had blocked... This number also includes those who have had some small part, perhaps relatively small... If we evaluate financially, we can say that only in terms of foreign shares [owned by individuals, as of June 1] over 320 billion rubles ($5.8 bln.) are blocked.
This amount is equal to half of Russians’ investments in non-residents’ shares or a quarter of investments in all forms of financial assets issued by non-residents (not including bank deposits). At the same time, as a share of the total assets of the population, blocked stocks account for only 0.3%.
Just do it
Having learned how to grow good harvests, Russian agrarians remember that this was made possible by importing seeds from “unfriendly countries.” Overall, 97% of sugar beet seeds, 77% of oil sunflower seeds, 50% of corn seeds, and 40% of rape seeds are purchased from the European Union and the United States.
Imported seeds are highly resistant to diseases and pests, and their yield is 20%-30% higher than Russian seeds. Moreover, foreign companies offer seeds and the entire cultivation technology, unlike Russian producers.
Although this year’s harvest is not threatened by anything, Russian authorities are concerned about the problem of dependence on imports and have started demanding that Russian agrarians buy more domestic seeds: The goal stated by the Ministry of Agriculture is to increase the share of Russian seeds up to 75% by 2025. To encourage grain producers to take such steps, regional bodies of the Ministry of Agriculture began to send out planned requirements for the share of Russian seeds. The main incentive should be to stop providing budget subsidies to those farms that will not achieve the required indicators.
However, it is not enough to give an order to buy domestic seeds; seeds must be produced sufficiently. And to do this, seed producers must invest in increasing their capacities, which depends on supplies of equipment that must be purchased from “unfriendly countries.” Having learned about the plans of the Ministry of Agriculture to increase the share of domestic seeds, their producers did not wait long. They offered the Ministry to allocate new subsidies to subsidize interest rates on loans and to increase the level of subsidizing the cost of domestic seeds from 50% to 70%. The most radical proposal was to impose quotas on imported seed. Still, the officials did not support that idea, fearing that the plans to increase seed production might not materialize.
Onion disappeared as well
The problem of agrarians’ dependence on imported seeds has already manifested itself in real life. First, the restaurants of the “Vkusno – i tochka!” (“Tasty – and that’s it!”) chain which bought out the Russian restaurants of McDonald’s could not provide themselves with potatoes of the necessary quality for making French fries—it turned out that only potatoes grown from seeds bought in the Netherlands can be used for that.
After that, Burger King restaurants that continue to operate in Russia said they could not find the proper-quality onions in the Russian regions to make fried onion rings. The manager of one of the restaurants stated, We are switching to a “floating menu”: Buy what we were able to make today.
