A very happy International Women's Day to all from the Russian Foreign Ministry!

Dear women, colleagues, loved ones and family — we wish you all the best ❤️

May you enjoy happiness and good health 💐

#IWD2024

#Gagarin90

🗓 Today, legendary Soviet cosmonaut, First Man in Space Yuri Gagarin would have turned 9️⃣0️⃣!

Gagarin was born in the village of Klushino, Gzhatsk District, Smolensk Region. It was here, in 1941, during the Great Patriotic War, that he saw Soviet aircraft flying in the air to defend the Motherland, which sparked his dream of flying.

In 1954, while studying at an industrial college, Gagarin joined the Saratov aviation club, where he made the decision to dedicate his life to being a pilot. After completing the training course, he enrolled in a military aviation school in 1955 and went on to become a pilot in the Northern Fleet Air Force in 1957.

🚀 In 1959, upon learning about the recruitment of volunteers for an upcoming space flight, Gagarin submitted a request to join the cosmonaut group. Out of nearly 3,500 jet pilots, only 20 volunteers were selected. After completing a series of rigorous trainings, tests and exams, Yuri Gagarin was chosen to become Cosmonaut № 1.

The historic space flight took place on April 12, 1961. The news instantly spread around the globe. In Moscow, thousands of people welcomed Gagarin with flowers and banners.

🌐 After the historic event, Yuri Gagarin went on a two year-long Peace Mission, visiting over 30 countries. Despite the sudden fame, Gagarin never abandoned his passion for aviation and space exploration.

🕯 The life of the first cosmonaut tragically ended on March 27, 1968. He died during a training flight while piloting a MiG-15UTI jet. Gagarin’s death shocked the world. His ashes were placed in the Kremlin Wall in Moscow next to the ashes of the Chief Soviet spacecraft designer Sergey Korolev.

The memory of Yuri Gagarin, Hero of the Soviet Union, as well as his legacy is immortalised with places named after him in Russia and abroad. The busts in honour of the space pioneer are still being installed around the world.

Thank you, Grant Shapps, for clearly showing the abundance of Nazi swastikas in central Kiev.

❗This is exactly what Russia is fighting against.

Russian MFA Spox Maria Zakharova:

The latest from the loonie multiverse / alternate reality: the US Embassy in Russia dug up a State Department video from two years ago, presenting it as new while most likely writing off budget funds for it.

In this video, Julie (Julianne) Smith, the US Ambassador to NATO, recounts “why NATO & Russia relations have soured.” From the creators of "NATO wanted to be friends" 🤦‍♀️

Facts are as follows 👇

The Ambassador started with trump cards: “After the Berlin Wall fell, NATO tried to extend a hand, and reach out and work with Russia.“

In real life, it was NATO that cynically disregarded the promises made in 1990 by West German Chancellor Genscher and US Secretary of State Baker not to expand the Alliance’s defence zone towards Russia, famously known as “not an inch eastward.” We have discussed this issue extensively.

Perhaps it was the desire to be buddies (NOT) 🤔 that drove the North Atlantic alliance to fiercely expand eastwards, increasing its presence and bringing its military infrastructure closer to our borders. Ultimately, there were five (!) waves of expansion, with the sixth unfolding before our very eyes.

The true nature of NATO was revealed in 1999. Just two weeks after the first wave of expansion, NATO launched an attack on Yugoslavia, blatantly violating fundamental principles of international law enshrined in the UN Charter. For 78 days, the USA & its allies ruthlessly bombed cities, including Belgrade, targeting civilian infrastructure and causing the deaths of women, children and the elderly. It was during this time that the West destroyed the foundation of European security. Do you not recall those events, Julie?

The accusation vs Russia for “what it did in Georgia in 2008” is the epitome of cynicism. Are they suggesting that it wasn’t the reckless actions of tie-chewing Saakashvili, goaded by Western powers, who launched a vicious attack, killing civilians and Russian peacekeepers? An independent commission helmed by Heidi Tagliavini of Switzerland reached an unequivocal conclusion — the Saakashvili regime committed an unprovoked act of aggression. Every student knows that. Oh and btw, US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice visited Tbilisi just before, in July of that year...

Also omitted: 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, where the Alliance announced its doors open for Ukraine & Georgia.

Julie also blurted out something about “Russia’s aggression in Ukraine in 2014.” Just recently we had the 10-year anniversary of the anti-constitutional coup in Kiev. We would advise US diplomats to jog their memory: timeline (video) & synopsis of the role played by the West. They might consider consulting the departing Victoria “F*ck the EU” Nuland on the details.

The Ambassador mentioned the lack of Russia's Mission to NATO, neglecting the fact that the work of our mission was suspended in 2021 AFTER the Alliance recalled the accreditation of 8 staff members with 0 reasoning, and prohibited Russian diplomats from visiting NATO HQ, limiting any contacts. Read 👉 MFA statement.

By the way, going back to the notion of “making friends,” President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with Tucker Carlson that the issue of Russia’s accession to NATO was raised during talks with the US president. Back then we were told it was impossible at the time. Now we know why 👇

NATO leaders and member countries no longer conceal their true intentions. They openly declare that inflicting “a strategic defeat” on Russia is their primary objective. They provide the Kiev regime with intelligence & lethal weapons, effectively participating in the conflict in Ukraine that they themselves instigated.

We suggest the State Department add a laugh track voiceover to their recycled fairy tales of a video, especially in parts where NATO “extended a hand but the relationship soured.” Otherwise, too boring to watch.

On the other hand, we eagerly anticipate when C-Street produces videos about their aggression in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan.

🎙 Briefing by MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (Moscow, March 6, 2024)

🔹 The World Youth Festival in Sochi
🔹 FM Sergey Lavrov’s schedule
🔹 Ukrainian crisis
🔹 Election 2024
🔹 Russia’s contribution to the UN World Food Programme Fund and global food security effort
🔹 Situation in Moldova
🔹 Further evidence of British military crimes in Afghanistan
🔹 Crisis in EU agriculture

📰 Read in full
📺 Watch in full

***

#Election2024

Russian overseas missions continue taking steps to strengthen security measures at polling stations. We have been receiving an ever-increasing number of calls intended to disrupt the voting procedure.

For example, the Estonian authorities have unequivocally warned [the country’s residents] about the “consequences” of participating in this election. Have you ever seen this kind of democracy?

#Ukraine

On March 4, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Frenchman Thierry Breton, reminded the Kiev regime that military aid is not entirely gratuitous. In other words, they are telling the Kiev regime that everything the West has provided them with must be paid for eventually.

Do you think the EU, NATO, the US or UK will rebuild housing for Ukrainian civilians? Rebuild infrastructure? Maybe open schools for free? They will charge money upfront for it, on top of the debt that Ukraine and the Ukrainian people owe them now.

#FoodSecurity

Despite the rampant sanctions harassment by the Western countries, Russia is continuing to steadily build up agricultural production.

According to preliminary data, Russian agricultural exports reached about $44 billion last year. We export food to more than 160 countries, primarily the developing and poorest countries.

💬 Russia’s MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova:

The Estonian Foreign Ministry yet again "excels" (no really), blinded by their hatred of Russia.

This time they went so far as to post on X (ex-Twitter) a story regarding the what they call the 80th anniversary of the Soviet (referred to as “Russian”) air attack on the positions of the German occupying forces in Tallinn. The gist of the entire message is that the Russians were targeting residential areas and cultural sites, just as they allegedly do in Ukraine today.

It is well known and documented that the current Estonian authorities identify themselves with the German Nazis. But even Joseph Goebbels would envy their rabid Russophobia.

Taken out of context by the falsifiers, this event - the air attack on the Nazi-occupied and fortified city - was actually a part of the Soviet combat operations to liberate the Baltic region from the Nazis.

It must be understood that the Baltic region had strategic importance for Hitler as a source of food and a territorial link with Northern Europe. The Soviet air strikes primarily targeted the Gestapo and Abwehr headquarters, air defence systems, the naval arsenal, gunpowder storage depots, and signal centres. While the Kallas clan (in power in Estonia) and descendants of Estonian collaborationists may regard these Nazi locations as "sacred sites and cultural landmarks", for all the normal people they are legitimate military targets.

But there is more. They illustrated the post with a photo of the city landscape after the alleged Soviet air raids. But in fact, the photo was taken on August 28, 1941 during the Soviet Baltic Fleet’s retreat known as the Tallinn Breakthrough, while the destruction in Tallinn was caused by... the advancing Nazi forces. The operation (breakthrough) to evacuate the city involved 225 combat and auxiliary ships with 40,000 troops and civilians on board. The convoy came under relentless artillery fire and was attacked by German and Finnish torpedo boats and aircraft. The Nazis sank 62 ships carrying over 4,500 civilians, while the overall number of Soviet casualties exceeded 15,000.

For some reason, the Estonian authorities chose to forget all about this. Apparently, these were the wrong city residents and sailors.

As for their false laments for the current Kiev regime, the ideological affinity between Estonia’s ruling nationalist clique and the Kiev regime is no surprise to anyone. They share the goal of glorifying Shukhevych, Bandera, and the Estonian cutthroats from the Waffen-SS as "liberator heroes".

For more information on the liberation of Tallinn from the German occupation on September 22, 1944, see here and here. These websites contain numerous archive documents that describe, among other things, how the Germans treated the local population. It is worth mentioning that the bread ration assigned by the Germans in the last months of the occupation was 800 grammes per person per week. Meanwhile, Red Army units were welcomed warmly by locals and seen as liberators, despite three years of Nazi propaganda. Local inhabitants often risked their lives to help Soviet soldiers.

It should not be forgotten that the operation to liberate Estonia involved the 8th Estonian Rifle Corps of the Red Army. These Estonians were the true patriots of their homeland, unlike Estonians of today.

🇷🇺Уважаемые граждане России, проживающие в Великобритании!

Информируем Вас, что 17 марта 2024 г. в период с 08:00 до 20:00 в Посольстве России будет открыт избирательный участок №8061.

Читайте подробную информацию об организации выборов Президента Российской Федерации в Великобритании:

📌Адрес избирательного участка
📌Организация избирательного процесса
📌Ответы на часто задаваемые вопросы

Контактные данные Участковой избирательной комиссии в Лондоне:

📨e-mail: vybory2024@rusemb.org.uk
☎️телефон: +44 7464 000 848

☝️Часы работы телефонной связи: в будние дни (за исключением российских праздников) с 10:00 до 12:00 и с 14:00 до 17:00 по лондонскому времени.

#Выборы2024

💬Maria #Zakharova:

On March 11, 2014, the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of #Crimea and the #Sevastopol City Council adopted the Declaration of Independence of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol. It was the first step towards Crimea returning home.

❗The declaration was based on the provisions of the #UN Charter and other fundamental international documents, which stipulate the right of nations to self-determination.

☝️Crimea’s future is inseparably connected with #Russia. For us, the matter is closed absolutely and irrevocably.

➡️Learn more

🎙 From Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova's briefing (March 6, 2024)

❓ Question: Would you comment on the resignation of US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland? Is there any possibility that the United States will change its foreign policy concepts?

💬 Maria Zakharova: I did not assign her. But those who did made a big strategic mistake.

Over many years, she has not been engaged in diplomacy but interference in other countries’ internal affairs (above all Russia, Ukraine, Eastern and Western Europe), as well as in implementing and forming a destructive course, not only for other countries, but also for the US, because it led to a failure of American foreign policy.

The stakes were very high. Democrats (starting with Barack Obama) put everything at stake. They lost their bet. An absolute fiasco: raging Vladimir Zelensky, begging for at least something, the White House rejecting his requests; complete discord within NATO.

<...>

She is probably not the only one or the main one, but she has become the face of everything that is happening around Ukraine. She personally came during the Maidan events and not only led not Ukrainian citizens, political figures and parties, but also lined up the Western allies of the US. However, after that she told them to go to hell in English. You know what she said about the EU. It was she who handed out those notorious “cookies” and asked the Russian delegation at the talks to correct what had been said because it was buns she had been handing out. Of course, this changes things 360 degrees.

❗️ Victoria Nuland became the face of the anti-Russia policy and the murder of Ukraine by the US. She will be historically associated with this. But I repeat: she is not alone.

💬Из интервью Посла России А.В.Келина ИА ТАСС:

Предложение мэра Лондона конфисковать имущество россиян - нелегитимно.

Последний санкционный пакет Великобритании характерен тем, что демонстрирует надуманность ограничительных мер.

▪︎Очевидно, что предложение мэра Лондона С.Хана противозаконно. Конфискация имущества возможна только по решению суда, на основе приговора за совершение соответствующих преступлений. Таких приговоров либо решений суда не только нет, но, судя по всему, и преступлений нет. Любые мотивировки, касающиеся санкций, носят надуманный, весьма расплывчатый характер и объявляются по решению министра иностранных дел Великобритании.

▪︎Сам по себе потенциал, который имелся у Великобритании в плане введения очередных санкционных ограничений, подходит к концу. Сейчас в основном они носят вторичный характер, то есть направлены на те предприятия, которые могут обойти уже введенные ранее рестрикции.

▪︎Британские санкции в отношении России лишь свели на нет двусторонние торговые отношения и не привели к заявленным целям - подрыву экономики, а также изменению внешнеполитического курса России.

▪︎Даже британские обозреватели признают, что санкции против нашей страны не работают.

➡️Читать полностью

🗓 On March 11, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met in Moscow with Staffan de Mistura, the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for Western Sahara.

The Officials focused on the status of and prospects for a Western Sahara settlement.

They noted the stabilising influence of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).

They exchanged views on the plans for re-launching the political process under Staffan de Mistura’s latest contacts with all interested parties.

☝️ The Russian Foreign Minister emphasised the importance of reaching a fair, long-term and mutually acceptable solution to the Western Sahara issue in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions.

During the meeting, the participants also discussed some aspects of the developments in North Africa and the Middle East. They emphasised that UN activities continue to be needed as regards both peace and development.

🤝 On the same day, Staffan de Mistura held separate consultations with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin.

⚡️ State Duma Statement to the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany regarding the participation of the Federal Republic of Germany in the Kiev regime’s crimes against civilians and damage to civilian infrastructure on the territory of the Russian Federation

📃 The deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation consider it fundamentally important, timely and necessary to address German parliamentarians – members of the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany – regarding the publication of information on the German military command’s discussion of the supply of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine and their use by Ukrainian armed formations to strike critical civilian infrastructure on the territory of Russia, including the Crimean bridge over the Kerch Strait.

The released audio recording makes it explicitly clear that the air force officers were assigned this task by one of the country’s top military and political leaders, probably Minister of Defense B. Pistorius. Thus, the course of encouraging the Kiev regime to expand the territory of the military conflict and to continue terrorizing civilians, enforced from Washington, finds support in Berlin as well.

<...>

❗️ In accordance with the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany dated September 12, 1990 <...>, the deputies of the State Duma call on the Bundestag to prevent actions that draw Germany into an armed conflict on the side of the fascist-terrorist Ukrainian regime.

The State Duma is convinced that the successful long-term experience of the Soviet-German and Russian-German settlements, the common sense of the German people and the parliamentarians who express their will, will prevent the disastrous direct armed confrontation between Germany and Russia and bring closer the beginning of a mutually beneficial political dialog for the sake of peace and well-being in Europe.

Read in full