Representatives of the BRICS countries are making proposals today on a political and diplomatic settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. Will this topic be discussed? Are there any prospects?
Well, naturally, it will not be without this topic. Moreover, I think that this topic will be one of the main ones. In any case, representatives of some countries with whom I met today, in particular, have it as their main topic.
I have already said that there were various initiatives. If you remember, last year African countries came to us with their initiatives, with proposals. Then there was the initiative that I spoke about, the initiative of Brazil and China.
If I am not mistaken, almost 110 countries have already joined it. They are watching how everything is happening there. That is, there are many different proposals on the table.
But still, the main ones are Brazil and China, I have already said this, as well as our proposals, the statement of our president, which he made at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on June 14, it is, perhaps, the most important. In general, we have proposed everything that has already been discussed in one way or another, or is being discussed now, if we divide it by points, then it has already been. We have the Istanbul decision on our desk today, which was in April 2022.
In fact, mister Arakhamia signed it. And these were negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Our Turkish colleagues kindly provided their platform.
And these proposals were there, they suited everyone. If you remember, this was the moment when mister Macron said that you can’t negotiate with a gun to your head. Then our president decided to withdraw troops from Kyiv.
The troops were withdrawn, then Boris Johnson arrived and said, dear colleagues, nothing needs to be signed, there can be no agreements, and there shouldn’t be any. But there is a very important point, this is Kursk. Here we have not conducted, are not conducting, and will not conduct any negotiations with the terrorists.
And that is exactly who they are. Because the desire to carry out nuclear terrorism against the Kursk nuclear power plant is nothing less than the highest level of terrorism, I would say. That is, they had the desire and the will to move there and take the Kursk nuclear power plant.
Fortunately, they did not succeed. Until we throw them out of our territory, naturally, we will not conduct any negotiations with them. Our president said this, our security agencies said this.
But what is this anyway? Is this a distraction of our attention? Many are discussing this.
Is this such a desire to lay some kind of foundation for a further possible negotiation process? Well, this is also some kind of step to force us into a negotiation process, into negotiations on their terms. Turkey proposed to us, they made such a proposal, let us commit not to strike at energy facilities, not to strike at nuclear energy facilities, and not to strike at the merchant civilian fleet in the Black Sea.
Our president made a decision. He said, yes, let's make such a decision. And it was a great surprise for us when after some time they said that they would not go for this agreement.
And when Kursk happened, it became clear to us what was meant by nuclear power facilities. And here, if we talk about the diversion of forces, of course, the offensive that is underway in Donbass, in fact, the front line there is almost one thousand kilometers. And it becomes clear that their main desire was to divert our forces, so that we would divert forces from there and transfer them to the Kursk direction.
But, thank God, we have enough forces, and our troops continue to advance. And here, if we return to the negotiation process, then let's briefly restore the chronology. In 2014, Maidan happened.
The foreign ministers of France, Germany, Poland come there to persuade the president of Ukraine to sit down at the negotiating table. Yanukovych was president then. They sign a document according to which Yanukovych does not run in the next elections, he works until the end of the year, and then he leaves.
Everything was decided, it would seem. Everything was signed, everyone is happy. With the participation of the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland.
At that time they had Crimea, Lugansk, Donetsk, everything was fine. And, it would seem, calm down. But, no.
In 2 hours they began to expel the current legally elected president. Moreover, they began to make decisions that are beyond humanity. They began to strike at peaceful cities that said that we do not want to live by your laws that you impose on us.
This is a ban on the Russian language, Russian culture. How is this possible? If this is your native language, and they forbid you to speak this language?
Moreover, they did not just forbid. Those who objected, those who resisted, they began to strike them with multiple launch rocket systems, the air force began to strike. And this cannot be denied.
This is what is documented, how planes hit peaceful cities, how they kill civilians. And remember Odessa. That is, it was 2014, everything was signed, you should implement it.
Crimea, Lugansk, Donetsk remained in Ukraine, there are no questions. Just implement the agreement. No, we do not want to implement it.
The following happens next. The leaders gather in Minsk. The President of France, the Chancellor of Germany, missis Merkel are already there.
A document is signed in their presence, the Minsk agreements. Today they admitted that no one was going to implement them. But if they had implemented them then, then, of course, the process of normalizing relations in the Lugansk and Donetsk regions would have continued.
But Crimea had already been lost by them, because a referendum was held in Crimea, a completely legal one. People voted to return Crimea to Russia, of which they had been for over two hundred years, where a lot of Russian blood was shed. Then there was Istanbul.
And each time Ukraine lost its territories. People died every day. They were constantly building up their troops.
There was the first wave of mobilization, the second, the third wave of mobilization. The draft age of those mobilized was falling further and further. You understand, this could have not happened.
Now, every day we are liberating 28 square kilometers, on average. This happens every day. But the most important thing is not the kilometers.
The most important thing is that they are losing up to two thousand killed and wounded every day. In total, if we talk about 8 days of September and the month of August, we have liberated almost one thousand square kilometers of territory, and the pace is increasing. If you have noticed, then in terms of overall volume or otherwise, but our pace is really growing.
Thanks to our guys who are professionally and with full dedication conducting combat operations today.