🎙 Russia's Foreign Minister’s Special Representative for Cooperation to Promote Respect for the Right to Freedom of Religion and Foreign Ministry’s Ambassador-at-Large Gennady Askaldovich’s comment on Ukraine adopting a law banning the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church

💬 The most recent development in Ukraine reveals the Kiev regime’s deliberate and premeditated efforts to destroy Christianity as a world religion. The Verkhovnaya Rada adopted the long-discussed controversial law On Protecting the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Religious Organisations which provided the Kiev regime with an opportunity to implement its long-term plan to ban and eradicate the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) in the country.

As a reminder, Article 35 of the Constitution of Ukraine states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of personal philosophy and religion. This right includes the freedom to profess or not to profess any religion, to perform alone or collectively and without constraint religious rites and ceremonial rituals, and to conduct religious activity.”

☝️ Everyone is aware that the Constitution of Ukraine matters little for the Zelensky regime. Just think about them cancelling presidential elections.

The authors of the law ignored the opinions of millions of believers, the stance of the UOC itself, the legal community, and even diffident criticism coming from foreign supporters of the regime. The efforts undertaken by the opponents of this criminal law have failed. The political demand to destroy an institution used by millions of people was stronger.

The fact of approving this law dealt a powerful blow to Orthodoxy as a whole and presents a threat to its canonical unity.

❗️ For the first time ever, we have witnessed an event where an entire religious denomination had been banned in a European country, the rights of millions of believers openly violated, and established international legal documents regarding freedom of religion egregiously ignored.

Undoubtedly, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church will provide its assessment of this unlawful act, but it seems appropriate for the Holy See, Constantinople, and other denominations to speak out on this matter as well.

❌ Once again, the Kiev regime has shown disregard for its citizens and ignores the opinion of the sensible members of the international community, who have repeatedly called things by their names, using words such as destruction, schism, and a crackdown on the UOC.

Things that the Zelensky clique is doing are driving the schism within Ukrainian society even deeper, and it is knowingly destroying the centuries-old spiritual foundations of Orthodox believers who live among the fraternal Ukrainian people. Oppressors are committing a historical crime. God will pass his judgment on them.

👉 Considering this, we strongly condemn this unprecedented decision which will lead to banning the canonical UOC altogether and call on all concerned people and human rights organisations to come together in countering the outrage perpetrated by the Kiev regime authorities against canonical Orthodoxy.

The Zelensky regime has once again revealed its dictatorial nature, its readiness to betray everything that is sacrosanct and, in pursuit of its political goals, to desecrate what millions of its compatriots hold on to as their religion.

🎙 Russia's Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s answer to a question from Rossiya Segodnya regarding peace initiatives on Ukraine

❓ Question: Are Russia’s peace proposals on Ukraine still in force now? How would Russia see a proposal to have talks on Ukraine if they are initiated by Minsk?

💬 Maria Zakharova: Russia has always wanted to put an end to the Ukraine conflict as soon as possible and favoured the start of negotiations. We suggested on many occasions finding solution to the current situation by political and diplomatic methods, including this past June, when President Vladimir Putin came forward with a peace initiative. It boiled down to:

• Withdrawal of Ukrainian armed units from new Russian regions, Donetsk People’s Republic, Lugansk People’s Republic, Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions,
• Kiev’s refusal from NATO membership,
• Cancellation of all Western sanctions against Russia,
• Ensuring the rights of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking citizens.

That said, it was about putting an end to the conflict, rather than about freezing it in order to rearm the Kiev regime. No doubt the initiative put forward by the President of Russia will remain a universal and long-term recipe for resolving the Ukraine conflict because it contains a way of eliminating its root causes.

❗️ However, the recent events have shown that the Ukraine crisis is far detached from peace talks. As you know, in August, the Zelensky regime ventured a treacherous terrorist invasion of the Kursk Region. It was a kind of response from Ukrainian Banderites to Vladimir Putin’s peace initiative. Kiev did not conceal that by such a risky step they intended to improve their positions in the hypothetical negotiations with Russia. It is clear that when such heinous atrocities are taking place, in particular, indiscriminate attacks against civilians who have nothing to do with hostilities, against civilian infrastructure, and when threats to nuclear power facilities are created, any peace talks with the terrorist regime in Kiev are out of the question, regardless of their initiator.

Meanwhile, we would like to emphasise that we are grateful to our Belarusian allies for the peace-making efforts they made many times, specifically, provided a negotiation platform, including in 2015, when working out a Minsk package of measures, and in the spring of 2022, when holding first rounds of the Russian-Ukrainian talks.

⚓️ #OnThisDay in 1941, the first Arctic convoy, codenamed Dervish, arrived at Archangelsk harbour. Seven vessels were escorted by the UK military ships. The convoy sailed from Liverpool with a stopover in Hvalfjörður, Iceland, and laid out a route for the further escort of ships delivering strategic cargoes to the northern ports of the Soviet Union during the Second World War.

In accordance with their commitments made at the Moscow Conference in 1941, the Lend-Lease Act and other agreements, the United States and the UK used Arctic routes to supply the USSR with armaments, military hardware and other cargoes. The ships returned with strategic raw materials and other supplies.

Sea deliveries of military cargoes through the Black and Baltic Seas were ruled out because of Hitler’s rapid advance towards Crimea and Leningrad whereas the route across the Pacific Ocean was too long. The Arctic route was the shortest but the Soviet Union did not have a fleet to carry half a million tones of military supplies. Given this, British sailors took over the burden of Arctic sea transport and its protection.

The convoys were formed in the UK and after refueling in Iceland headed to northern Soviet ports. As a rule, an Arctic convoy consisted of seven to eight loaded transport ships, which sailed in line-ahead formation constantly changing their course to thwart submarine attacks.

Arctic convoys became a vivid example of combat teamwork maintained by the navies of the anti-Hitler coalition during WWII. Their history keeps many examples of heroism and self-sacrifice of British, American and Soviet sailors and pilots, as well as citizens of other countries, who escorted the convoys in harsh polar conditions.

🕯 During the war, a total of 78 convoys were dispatched, with 85 merchant ships and 16 British Navy warships failing to reach their destination. More than 3,000 British sailors lost their lives.

💬 Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (excerpt from the briefing of August 19, 2021):

Russia and the UK are now paying tribute to the memory, heroism and dedication of those involved in the convoys. Their heroic crossing of the North Atlantic is forever inscribed in golden letters in the history of the liberation of Europe from Nazism. The further course of the war confirmed the Arctic Convoy’s significant contribution to the success of the joint struggle against the common enemy, which cannot be overestimated.

⚡️ Russia's Foreign Ministry statement on the terrorist attack by the Ukrainian Nazis against Belgorod

Zelensky’s neo-Nazi junta continues to terrorise civilians in Russia. On the evening of August 30, its fighters perpetrated yet another crime by using Vampire, a Czech-made multiple rocket launcher, to shell Belgorod and its suburbs with cluster munitions.

🕯 This barbaric strike left five civilians dead and 46 wounded, including seven minors. One child is in a critical condition and has already undergone surgery. Two adult patients are on their way to Moscow for medical treatment. Residential buildings and other civilian sites have been damaged in the attack.

We sincerely mourn the victims and wish the wounded a speedy recovery.

Russia’s Investigative Committee launched a criminal investigation into the attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces against Belgorod and the Belgorodsky District as per Article 205 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (terrorist attack). It is gathering information regarding the circumstances of the attack.

❗️ All those who plotted and carried out this and other crimes perpetrated by the Kiev junta will face inevitable punishment under the law.

There is no doubt that this terrorist attack was designed to sow fear among people and was carefully planned well in advance. Once again, the Kiev clique demonstrated its Nazi essence — just like eight decades ago, during the Nazi invasion, today’s followers of the Nazis and Bandera continue killing innocent people.

Just as back then, the supposedly civilised and enlightened West world, which in reality supports the Nazis, turns a blind eye to their bloody atrocities while also delivering lethal weapons to the cynical killers it nurtured. NATO-made missiles brought all this suffering, fires and destruction to the Belgorod Region. The name of these missiles, Vampire, is quite telling. The Ukrainian Nazis and their Western masters, the bloodsuckers of the XXI century, must recall the lessons of history and seriously consider about the disrepute and infamy the European fascists and their Banderite accomplices had to face at the end of their life’s journey in May 1945.

☝️ Once again, we call on the responsible governments and the relevant international structures to firmly condemn this outrageous terrorist attack and to distance themselves in public from the Kiev regime and its Western curators who commit these crimes. Staying silent in the face of this rampant manifestations of barbarism by the Ukrainian Nazis and their puppeteers and accomplices representing the so-called civilised democracies will be akin to assisting them in their bloody acts.

All this senseless and cruel shelling targeting residential neighbourhoods in Donbass, the Belgorod, Kursk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, Crimea and other Russian regions, as well as the merciless killings of civilians – all this testifies to the agony of the criminal Zelensky regime. It has been mired in terrorist, illegal, corrupt and cynical practices. All it seeks in its impotent rage is to kill as many Russians as possible.

However, no matter how hard it tries, its efforts will be vain and doomed to fail.

✊ People living in these Russian regions have demonstrated their courage and resilience by staying calm and reserved, while the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are ready to promptly respond to any crime by the Ukrainian militants.

The special military operation will carry on until it reaches all its objectives, including de-Nazification and demilitarisation of Ukraine.

▪️ 20 years ago, on September 1, 2004, a group of terrorists seized School No. 1 in Beslan, Russia's North Ossetia, during a ceremony marking the start of the new school year. Children, parents and teachers were taken hostage. They were held without food and water for almost three days.

That bloody terrorist attack claimed 334 lives, including 186 children. The Alfa and Vympel special-purpose units of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation launched a counter-terrorist operation and managed to save 811 lives. Ten Federal Security Service special operations soldiers and two EMERCOM officers were killed in the assault.

🕯 People in Russia and abroad are mourning the innocent victims of the terrorist attack today. It has become an unhealing wound for our entire nation which bleeds to this day.

Encouraged by Western masterminds, the terrorists sought to destabilise Russian society and sow interethnic and inter-faith discord. Against all odds, our society stood firm and survived. The terrorists may have destroyed a school building, but it was substituted by two newly-built schools equipped up to the most modern standards.

⚠️ Today, Russia is once again facing a terrorist threat. The collective West is waging a hybrid war against our country, using, among other things, terrorist and extremist groups.

Russia remains firmly committed to a principled fight against the threats of terrorism and calls on the international community to join forces in combating this scourge with the UN playing its central coordinating role.

#Beslan20

🗓 September 1st marks 85 years ago since the start of World War II – the bloodiest conflict in the history of mankind. It claimed many dozens of millions of peoples' lives (by some estimates, 80+ mln perished), including over 27 million citizens of the Soviet Union.

▪️ 61 states, with over 80 percent of the world’s population, were drawn into the bloody ordeal unleashed by the Axis powers; hostilities spread to 40 countries.

📖 Read our in-depth retrospective overview in full

The background of the greatest tragedy of the 20th century still remains in the focus of historians’ attention. The entire range of contradictions that provoked the war stemmed from World War I and can be traced back to the Treaty of Versailles signed in 1919.

👉 It was the Versailles system of international relations, drafted by the UK and France, that made the basis for the rise of revanchist sentiments in Europe. The League of Nations, the organization established to settle international disputes within the legal framework, technically became a tool for the Western powers to achieve their political goals.

Not surprising that in Europe, torn by contradictions, fascism rapidly gained popularity. Politicians and extreme right-wing ideologues who were convinced of the superiority of their nation and ethnicities came to power first in Italy (1922) and then in Germany (1933), humiliated by the Versailles Treaty. The political establishment of the Western countries preferred to remain unaware and close their eyes on the danger these new ideologies presented. Their cynical view considered that Nazi aggression could be, in a typical Anglo-Saxon style, redirected towards the east where the young Soviet state was rapidly developing.

The infamous Munich Betrayal of 1938 was the apotheosis of the self-serving “appeasement” policy that the Western countries had preferred to building a collective security system suggested by the Soviet Union. With the tacit consent by the UK and France, Hitler ruthlessly annexed the sovereign state of Czechoslovakia. It was only Moscow that was willing to provide military assistance to the Czechoslovakians, but was unable to do so due to Poland that was playing along with Hitler and taking advantage of Czechoslovakia’s annexation by occupying the Cieszyn region.

🔻 A year later, a similar drama played out in the Far East: the Anglo-Japanese treaty was signed in June 1939, untying Tokyo’s hands in China. The Soviet Union could have become the next victim of militarist Japan. According to recently declassified documents, the Japanese command had been planning a possible attack against the Soviet Union since 1938, with nearly a million-strong Kwantung Army troops deployed along the border and ready to invade of our country at any moment, with its soldiers and officers known to show no aversion to human experiments to develop biological weapons. The Soviet Union had to contain Japan’s potential invasion by keeping substantial forces on its eastern borders until the very end of the war.

❗️ Hitler's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 was a direct consequence of the policy of intrigues and manuevers pursued by the West, which did not allow to create an anti-Hitler coalition to jointly resist the Third Reich.

❌ In this context, the assertions of an alleged ‘equivalence’ between Nazism and Communism are unacceptable and blasphemous, as are the attempts to place equal blame for the start of the war on Germany and the Soviet Union in order to downplay the decisive contribution of the Soviet Union on the battlefields of the Great Patriotic War, which crushed Hitler’s war machine, and to diminish the heroism of our soldiers-liberators.

☝️ Defeating the most aggressive reactionary forces was the most important outcome of the Great Victory of May 9, 1945. Our country saved many peoples (considered by the Nazis and their cronies “non-Aryan”), that the Nazis planned to kill in concentration camps or to turn into slaves.

🗓 September 3 marks the Day of Military Glory in Russia — the day of victory over militarist Japan and the end of World War II.

On September 2, the representative of the USSR General Kuzma Derevyanko and the allies of the Soviet Union during WWII signed the Instrument of Surrender of militarist Japan.

At the Tehran (1943) and Yalta (1945) conferences of the heads of the Big Three Joseph Stalin agreed to help the United States and Britain in the war against Japan, which at that time the USSR had a pact of neutrality with.

It was agreed in Tehran that the USSR would enter the war two or three months after the surrender of Germany.

The redeployment of Soviet soldiers to the Far East began even before Berlin was captured. According to the plan the Soviet forces were to encircle and defeat the enemy in the Far East within two months but victory was achieved much faster — merely 11 days later.

☝️ The Red Army dealt a crushing blow to the Kwantung Army, which became one of the key factors of Axis Japan's defeat. Southern part of Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, Manchuria and part of Korea were liberated from Japanese occupation.

📹 The Russian Military Historical Society

#Victory79 #WeWereAllies

2 сентября в самой северной российской школе в заполярном Баренцбурге состоялась праздничная линейка, посвящённая началу нового учебного года.

С напутственным словом выступил Генеральный консул России
на архипелаге Шпицберген А.А.Чемерило. Он пожелал успехов всему коллективу учителей, и, конечно, школьникам, особенно первоклассникам,
в жизни которых начинается новый этап, полный открытий.

Первая советская школа в арктическом поселке норвежского архипелага была открыта трестом «Арктикуголь» в начале 1970-х годов. В настоящее время обучение в поселке организовано по программе «Школа России». Реализуется российский федеральный государственный образовательный стандарт. Школа благоустроена, хорошо оборудована, оснащена компьютерами и всем необходимым для полноценного освоения школьной программы. У ребят есть возможность круглогодично посещать бассейн
и спортивный комплекс. Ежегодно здесь проходят обучение от 30 до 40 детей работников треста и других российских организаций на Шпицбергене.

🎙 Remarks by President of Russia Vladimir Putin at a reception marking the 85th anniversary of the victory at Khalkhin Gol (Ulaanbaatar, September 3, 2024)

💬 I am sincerely delighted to visit the hospitable Mongolian land once again and to celebrate, in an impressive setting, the anniversary of our common victory in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol together with our Mongolian friends.

We are paying tribute to Soviet and Mongolian soldiers who fought in those intense and bloody battles. Their feat will forever be remembered by our nations, and it will be emblazoned in the history of Russia and Mongolia. The courage and fortitude of the heroes of Khalkhin Gol stopped a dangerous enemy who hatched far-reaching plans to occupy the entire territory of Mongolia.

The victory at Khalkhin Gol greatly influenced the destiny of the region and the entire course of World War II. After defeat, Japan refrained from attacking the Soviet Union, and our country was able to deploy all its forces, including fresh Far Eastern divisions, against Nazi Germany.

Of course, we remember the substantial support offered to us by the Mongolian nation during World War II, during the Great Patriotic War. Mongolia assisted the front by supplying food, warm clothing and also raised funds to manufacture tanks and aircraft.

Loyal to the traditions of combat brotherhood laid down by our fathers and grandfathers, Russia and Mongolia continue to actively collaborate and to develop their all-encompassing strategic partnership. I would like to stress that Russia has always aimed to strengthen friendly relations with Mongolia; it has perceived and continues to perceive this as one of its foreign policy priorities.

🤝 In turn, we appreciate the fact that Mongolia also steers towards mutually beneficial cooperation with us. Our current talks with President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh and other Mongolian leaders have clearly confirmed this. All meetings were traditionally constructive and substantive and allowed to review a wide range of issues and topical regional and international problems, and to chart future prospects of our diverse partnership.

The people of Mongolia have a nice saying: “Choose a new robe but an old friend.” I am convinced that we will certainly raise and address the most ambitious objectives, while relying on our time-tested solid friendship. We will actively expand our collaboration in traditional sectors, and we will launch cooperation in new high-tech spheres; we will work hand-in-hand to strengthen the entire range of our bilateral partnership for the benefit of the peoples of Russia and Mongolia.

In conclusion, I would like to wholeheartedly congratulate the President of Mongolia, as well as all Mongolian and Russian citizens who are present here, on the 85th anniversary of the glorious victory in the battle on the river Khalkhin Gol.

I would like to offer a toast to our common victory, to further development of Russian-Mongolian comprehensive strategic partnership, to the health of the President of Mongolia, Mr Khurelsukh, and everyone present here, and for the well-being and prosperity of our nations.

#RussiaMongolia

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks and answers to questions at a meeting with students and faculty of MGIMO University (Moscow, September 2, 2024)

💬 I would like to congratulate all of you on #KnowledgeDay.

I would like to highlight that, according to the statistics, MGIMO graduates hold important positions at the Central Office of the Government of Russia, particularly the Presidential Executive Office. Additionally, two-thirds of them join the Foreign Ministry staff every year. This speaks volumes about the “seal of excellence” associated with the diplomas from this great – without any exaggeration, for me at least – institution of higher learning.

We welcome the fact that MGIMO supplies the Foreign Ministry with most of its staff. We are always eager to welcome those whose qualifications meet the high standards of Russian diplomacy. I would like to address the final-year students: together, we will implement the Foreign Policy Concept approved by President Vladimir Putin in March 2023.

I am certain that you keep up with international news and developments on the global stage. The primary trend is the strengthening of new growth and development centres located outside the historical West.

Regional integration associations, such as the #SCO, the #EAEU, #ASEAN, the #CIS, the #LAS, the African Union, and #CELAC, play a significant role at the current stage of development of the multipolar world order. #BRICS, as it strengthens its influence and authority, increasingly acts as an informal global coordinator for these regional integration processes.

The globalisation, which the West pro-actively promoted for years, has been accepted as a method of interstate relations in the economy, technology and the financial sector. However, this globalisation model is now falling apart.

We will advance integration processes within the EAEU, CIS, SCO, ASEAN, and, of course, strengthen strategic partnership with China, India, Brazil, and all our other like-minded countries, working in the context of forming the Eurasian architecture. There are many, it is impossible to list them all. That is why we have a clear and comprehensible image of the future – multipolarity, based on another key principle of the UN Charter – sovereign equality of the state.

<...>

❗️The essence of Western policy towards Russia has always been based on the assumption that our country is too strong and independent and that something must be done to change this, preferably by pulling it down. History repeats itself. Today, these 50 countries have again been rallied under Nazi banners against Russia, considering the essence of Zelensky’s regime or even the chevrons and flags of the so-called Ukrainian army. <...> Today, all those who show independence and a will to defend their national interests within international law while refusing to play by Western rules, are under threat. It is clear, however, that these attempts are largely an agony of the West.

<...>

We do not seek to embed ourselves into various “schemes” that are being established by Western “rules” without our participation and without consideration of our interests. We will continue to champion widely held principles of international law and the UN Charter in their entirety instead of cherry-picking them as the West does.

President Putin has repeatedly stressed that “we are open to contacts with the countries of the ‘collective West’ on the understanding that they pivot away from their openly hostile course towards our country”. Any unfriendly moves will still be met with a tough response. The ball is not in our court, it is up to those who set out to deliberately destroy their relations with Russia and demonise our land and our nation.

Read in full

🎙 President of Russia Vladimir Putin took part in the 9th Eastern Economic Forum plenary session (September 5, 2024)

Full text of the statement and answers to media questions

💬 President Putin: We have designated the development of the Far East as a national priority for the XXI century. The significance and correctness of that decision have been confirmed by life itself, the challenges we have recently encountered and, most importantly, the objective trends that are gaining momentum in the global economy, when the main business ties, trade routes and the overall development are increasingly shifting towards the East and the Global South.

Our Far Eastern regions offer direct access to these growing emerging markets, helping us overcome the barriers which some Western elites are trying to create worldwide. The most important thing, as I have already mentioned, is that the Far East is a huge area for implementing business initiatives, launching complex projects and creating whole new industries.

❗️ The Far East has become a crucial factor for strengthening Russia’s standing in the world and our flagship in the new global economic reality. The further development of the Far East will largely determine the future of our country as a whole.

<...>

Overall, representatives of more than 75 countries and territories are taking part in the forum’s events. It is extremely important that such discussions are complemented with substantive business dialogues and result in the adoption of investment decisions and trade agreements. I would like to say that over a thousand agreements worth in total more than 10.5 trillion rubles were signed during the previous three forums.

☝️The Eastern Economic Forum has rightfully become a respected venue for establishing reliable business contacts and discussing the strategic development of the Russian Far East and the Asia-Pacific region as a whole.

Other key talking points

• Russia's economy ranks fourth in the world in terms of GDP by purchasing power parity;

• We and our BRICS partners use national currencies in 65% of trade settlements with each other;

• We did not refuse to settle in dollars, we were denied settlements, and we were simply forced to look for other options;

• More than 30 countries are willing to cooperate with BRICS, and some of them are ready to join the group;

• The new members who joined BRICS this year are self-sufficient, have rapidly growing economies and will make their contribution to the development of the grouping;

• [Kiev regime's Kursk incursion] goal of trying to make us nervous, to relocate our forces, to halt our military adavance in Donbass was not achieved. Our Armed Forces stabilised the situation and stepped up their offensive.

#EEF2024

🎙Read excerpts from the statement of Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the OSCE A.Volgarev «On religious "war" unleashed by Kiev regime against the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church» (meeting of the OSCE PC, 05.09.2024)

🇷🇺 Russia has consistently drawn the attention of the OSCE to the worsening situation in the religious sphere in Ukraine, where representatives of the Kiev regime have for many years sought the total eradication of canonical Orthodoxy
 
☦️ Persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) is being carried out there through a smear campaign launched by the Ukrainian media. The mass seizures of churches by radical nationalists with the complicity of local authorities, special services and law enforcement agencies are shamelessly justified
 
⚠️ As a rule, they are accompanied by violence, mass beatings of clergy and believers. Numerous attempts to seize the largest monasteries of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are constantly being made, and their inhabitants are being forcibly evicted
 
▪️Ukrainian security services are exerting direct pressure on the UOC, its episcopate and clergy, including threats, blackmail and the opening of dozens of trumped-up criminal cases on political grounds. Many of its priests are under arrest, imprisoned or have received unjust sentences
 
❌ Local authorities in a number of regions and localities of Ukraine have simply banned the activities of the UOC, forcibly closing its churches, preventing worship services, illegally seizing land plots under its monasteries, churches and shrines
 
▪️At the end of August, V.Zelensky signed the law "On the protection of the constitutional order in the sphere of activity of religious organizations". Representatives of the Kiev regime took a step that may surpass all previous historical repressions against the UOC in its scale
 
▪️The proponents of this treacherous act don't hide that the law is aimed directly against the canonical UOC. Hundreds of monasteries, thousands of communities, millions of Orthodox Christians will find themselves outside the legal framework, losing their property and a place to pray
 
▪️The supporters of the bill ignored the opinion of millions of believers, the position of the UOC itself, the legal community and even the timid criticism of the foreign patrons of Zelensky's regime. Its representatives once again demonstrated their disregard for their own citizens, aggravating the already serious split in society
 
☝️For the first time we have witnessed the banning of an entire religious denomination in the pan-European area, the open violation of the rights of millions of believers, and the brazen and shameless violation of well-known international commitments in the area of freedom of religion, including within the OSCE
 
❗️The blatant silence and complete inaction of R. Polak, Personal Representative of the Maltese OSCE CiO for Combating Intolerance and Discrimination, including against Christians, throughout the entire repressive campaign against the UOC raises questions about her professional competence and suitability for her position
 
📣 We call on representatives of the relevant OSCE executive structures first and foremost the ODIHR, to finally respond publicly to the intensification of repression against the believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. It is necessary to give a principled assessment of the religious "war" unleashed by the Kiev regime against the canonical Orthodox Church of Ukraine and its followers

#JournalistsSolidarityDay

🗓 September 8 marks the International Day of Solidarity of Journalists, established in 1958 by the decision of the IV Congress of the International Organization of Journalists in memory of the Czech correspondent Julius Fučík, executed by the Nazis in 1943.

💬 Maria Zakharova (from the briefing of the official representative of the Russia's Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova dated September 4, 2024):

This date serves as a reminder to the global community that a true journalist’s duty is to impartially and honestly present the real state of affairs to the public. Journalists are often at the forefront of crises and conflicts, sometimes risking their own lives to report on unfolding events and provide objective coverage rather than engaging in propaganda. This challenging and noble profession has long been defined by a strong international camaraderie with its own ethical standards and code of honour.

❗️We now witness a significant void where there should be statements, petitions, and declarations condemning the murders and terrorist attacks against Russian journalists, including those killed by the Kiev regime.

👉 Look at the far from complete list of politically motivated repressions against Russian media on the web portal of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In the past 30 years, Westerners, being on the verge of interfering in our internal affairs, have been following the fates of Russian journalists and demanding that the Russian authorities take steps to investigate and protect them. Instantly, Russian journalists were transformed in the West from those who needed protection into those who should be persecuted, expelled, segregated and “marked.”

Speaking about Western unions of journalists, individual Western journalists and elites engaged in the harassment of their Russian colleagues, this is based on the fear of competition and the inability to withstand it (to say nothing about winning).

When Russia Today TV channel began broadcasting in German, the audience in Germany, Austria and other German-speaking countries felt it like a breath of fresh air, an alternative point of view, an opportunity to compare and make a choice in favour of their traditional media or subscribe to one more information resource.

❌ However, the interest in the Russian media broadcasting in German rose so much that became a challenge for German journalists who asked the FRG authorities to take measures against Russian journalists.

The conditions for media pluralism and free access to information keep on degrading in many “advanced democracies” and a worthy rebuff from Western media professionals is nowhere to be seen. The Baltic states actively continue to persecute unwanted journalists who dare to doubt whether the authorities’ policies are correct and express their point of view.

The Maia Sandu regime is following the well-trodden Russophobic path of the Baltic states, where they have deliberately deprived Russian-speaking residents of the country’s last sources of information by shutting down the broadcasting and rebroadcasting of Russian television channels and media outlets.

☝️ The permissiveness of the neoliberal pseudo-democracies is only gaining momentum against the background of solidarity inaction of not only relevant human rights organisations but also the journalistic community of the West itself.

Hopefully, there will be someone who will not only recall all the above problems on International Day of Solidarity, but also write and stage rallies in support of their colleagues and journalism.

***
Despite everything, on this day we congratulate all correspondents, editors, photo operators and other media industry workers who remain faithful to the ideals of journalistic solidarity, who are always ready to help the colleagues, even if their opinions differ.

🤝 For our part, we will continue to defend the rights of our journalists and call to account those who have illegally given themselves the authority to set rules and punish dissenters.