Donbas
Thursday 25 April 2019
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![Maria Zakharova]()
Maria Zakharova
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokespersons
"Can NATO bring anyone closer? History does not know any such examples. What I can see is that NATO is adding new members, who are now being pulled in by various methods.”
Read more...NATO membership is based on invitation and approval by existing member states. Countries must meet certain standards to be eligible. -
![Andrei Koshkin]()
Andrei Koshkin
Head of the Plekhanov Academy’s political science and sociology department
“In Ukraine, there is an extremely difficult situation with the supply of ships to the Navy: there are practically no such deliveries, and what NATO countries share with them is, in essence, junk.”
Read more...The ships that NATO nations are providing to the Ukrainian navy technologically are more advanced and in a better shape than most of the Soviet-made vessels in Russia’s own navy. Experts say the NATO-provided ships significantly enhance the Ukrainian navy’s capabilities. -
![Sergey Lavrov]()
Sergey Lavrov
Russian Foreign Minister
“I’ve repeatedly said that as soon as Edward Snowden chose freedom – refused to fly to where he was threatened with the electric chair – the Americans immediately began trying to punish us.”
Read more...Apart from the rhetoric of a former CIA director, the U.S. Justice Department confirmed in writing that Snowden never faced capital punishment. Lavrov falsely connects the Magnitsky Act to the Snowden affair. -
![Grigory Karasin]()
Grigory Karasin
Russian Deputy Minister of the Foreign Affairs
“Certainly, the creation of explicit complexities for citizens' expression of their will casts a shadow on the entire electoral process. Inevitably, questions arise to the authorities, who are thus trying to influence the outcome of the vote."
Read more...Recognized international elections monitors such as those of the OSCE declared the election to be fair and competitive. Ukrainian citizens in Russian-occupied Donbas were prevented from voting by local authorities, not the Kyiv government. -
![Maria Zakharova]()
Maria Zakharova
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman
“Our country has repeatedly historically reaffirmed its role as a state that is the guarantor of stability and security, a party that brings peace, not aggression. The Second World War and the role of the Soviet Union in it are a global example of this.”
Read more...The Soviet role in World War II is part of the historical record and predates the current Russian Federation. More recent history shows Russia not only as destabilizing influence in Europe but an occupying power in Crimea and questionable initiatives in Syria and Africa. -
![NTV - Russian television channel]()
NTV - Russian television channel
Elon is ours! Musk, who suddenly spoke Russian, is now under suspicion: who is he – the Kremlin’s agent, Stierlitz or a victim of the Russian hackers?”
Read more...To some it was just a joke but in Russia Elon Musk’s phrase put him in the Kremlin’s propaganda dictionary, where one possessive pronoun divides the world into good and evil. But it did not make the entrepreneur a Russian spy. -
![Vladimir Putin]()
Vladimir Putin
President of Russia
“Russia has entered into a difficult demographic period. The birth rate is falling. The reasons for this are objective. But this doesn’t mean that we should accept this situation. At the beginning of the 2000s we managed to reverse the negative trend. It seemed impossible but we did it.”
Read more...Significant improvement in Russia’s demographics began only around 2006. Population growth versus deaths balanced out only in 2012 and positive growth peaked in 2015 before going into another decline. -
![Alexey Kazakov]()
Alexey Kazakov
Rossiya-24 TV Presenter
“As the saying goes, [Metro Exodus] is a tall tale topped with Russophobia.”
Read more...Russian state media has lambasted the Metro Exodus video game for allowing players to take aim at statues of Vladimir Lenin. But from Russian President Putin to far-right bloggers, taking pot shots at the Soviet leader is a national past time. -
![Svobodnaya Pressa]()
Svobodnaya Pressa
Russian News Outlet
“USA Air Forces: ‘Thanks very much to the Russians for taking Crimea”
Read more...None of the U.S. Air Forces’ commanders or representatives, including General Tod Wolters, ever said the words cited in the Russian media outlet. -
![Dmitry Medvedev]()
Dmitry Medvedev
Russian Prime Minister
“The latest wave of anti-Russian sanctions is related not to our relations with the Americans but to the domestic problems in the United States.”
Read more...Russia's PM claims a tougher version of anti-Russian sanctions proposed last year is a “domestic” U.S. affair, unrelated to bilateral ties. But while efforts to pass sanctions in the U.S. have hit domestic hurdles, the sanctions themselves were drafted in reaction to Moscow’s international acts. -
![RIA Novosti]()
RIA Novosti
Russian state-owned media outlet
“‘Not Odessa, but Kotsyubeyev!’ Why does Kyiv erase the real names of cities”
Read more...While Ukraine’s “decommunization” law is not without controversy, countries have the right to rename cities and other geographical features as they wish. Nothing in the law requires new city names to be based on historical titles. -
![Vyacheslav Volodin]()
Vyacheslav Volodin
Speaker of the State Duma
“A bill of [the] Verkhovna Rada that restricts the rights of observers at the elections of the President of Ukraine violates the international law.”
Read more...While Ukraine's banning of Russian citizens from entering the country to take part in the OSCE election monitoring mission is "without precedent," it does not violate international law, and there will still be OSCE observers. Only two members of the team were Russian citizens.
