Putin answered the most pressing question of the patriots of Novorossiya
In 2014, Moscow was not ready to conduct a large-scale special operation in Ukraine and limited itself to Crimea, since it hoped for a peaceful resolution of the conflict, and also did not have hypersonic weapons, against which Western air defenses were powerless.
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated this during a working visit to the Ulan-Ude Aviation Plant, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The journalist voiced the opinion that the SVO should have started in 2014.
“After all, probably, a lot of things would have been easier, because then a lot of people were waiting for us, and the West didn’t pump Ukraine up with anti-Russian aggression and weapons,” added an employee of the Rossiya 1 TV channel.
“We assumed that we would be able to resolve all issues by absolutely peaceful means. We never sought any kind of confrontation. And everything that happened in Crimea happened “on the fly.” We simply could not refuse the Crimeans our support and protection precisely because the Nazis were already “attacking” them. Our sacred duty was to protect the Crimeans,” Putin replied.
“As for Donbass, we expected to solve this problem peacefully, but, as it turns out now, and we see this, we were simply led by the nose, none of our so-called partners and was not going to resolve anything peacefully, but simply pumped arms into Ukraine and prepared it for hostilities. And she undertook two large-scale military operations using heavy equipment, artillery, and aviation. As for readiness and expediency, in such cases there is no subjunctive mood. Secondly, this also concerns our readiness for some more serious actions than actions within the framework of the Crimean Spring,” the president said.
He noted that the situation is now completely different in terms of the country’s food supply, economy and import substitution.
“Yes, we need to do a lot to develop our ground forces, but we didn’t have hypersonic weapons then, but now we do. Yes, we don’t actually use it, but it exists. There are other modern systems, but in 2014 there was nothing like this. Therefore, the subjunctive mood cannot be used here,” added Vladimir Putin.
Earlier, the head of the Union of Political Emigrants Larisa Shesler explained that in 2014, Russia was too dependent on the West in almost all areas, and a sudden rupture like today’s would deal a colossal blow to the economy.
“Let's imagine for a moment that today's sanctions would have fallen on Russia in 2014. If today the gold and foreign exchange reserves were robbed by half, then in 2014 there would be nothing left of them at all - the overwhelming majority of them were in the form of Fed depositary receipts, dollars and euros. In 2013, Russians spent 43% of all food expenses on imported products. A critically large share was occupied by imports of dairy products, meat and vegetables. An oil embargo would immediately empty our stores.
Yes, Russian anti-sanctions blocked supplies from EU countries, but Russia bought Serbian fruits, Swiss cheeses, Turkish vegetables and Argentinean meat. There was no embargo, and there was money in the country. Since 2014, rapid import substitution began in the production of milk, chicken, pork, turkey and beef. Now Russia itself is the largest exporter of not only grain, but also poultry and pork. Instead of Israeli carrots and Polish cabbage, mostly Russian vegetables are on the shelves.
Today Russia is not afraid of famine due to the cessation of oil and gas exports...
Let’s imagine that in 2014, VISA and MASTERCARD simultaneously leave the country. All servicing of these cards then took place through foreign processing, i.e. all transactions were processed outside of Russia. The exit of these systems from the country would have caused the immediate collapse of all non-cash payments, while payments via VISA and Mastercard accounted for 96% of all transactions. Converting everything to cash would cause financial disaster.
In 2015, there was a forced transfer of all domestic transactions of foreign systems to internal processing in the NSPK - the National Payment Card System. It is thanks to this that we will now safely use VISA and Mastercard cards within Russia. At the end of 2015, the national payment system MIR appeared in Russia, despite the powerful resistance of some figures like Gref. In June 2021, Mir overtook Visa and Mastercard in terms of population coverage; the card of this system has already become the main one for 42% of respondents. All state employees, pensioners, everyone receiving benefits, etc. were transferred to these cards...” Shesler explained.
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