Crimea

"...in 1612 the word Ukraine was not heard anywhere.”

“Don’t you think this is political paranoia?”

“Another familiar voice declaring a triumph over the Russian president in the midterms is William Browder, a US-born British investor shark, who reimagined himself as a brave human rights crusader after being accused of financial crimes in Russia. Browder celebrated a victory in a ‘proxy war in Orange County’, because ‘Putin minion’ Dana Rohrabacher failed in his reelection bid there. It’s really convenient when you can declare, with impunity, that people you disagree with are minions.”

“Russia’s military budget has been decreasing, not increasing, year after year. You’d have thought NATO intelligence would have spotted that. Now compare Moscow’s military spending to NATO’s, which is almost a trillion dollars a year. It literally accounts for half the world’s military spending. I mean, there’s no competition here.”

“We love and are proud of President Vladimir Putin, because he is a friend of Palestine and not only Palestine, but all the people who are seeking freedom. President Putin succeeded in restoring Russia’s authority in the international arena and forced all to respect Russia.”

“Alexander Hug is well informed. For four years he’s been working in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, and in Ukraine as the head of the OSCE mission. They basically have open access to any place in the country. I’m not sure about western Ukraine, but here they have free access. They are fully informed. The statement he voiced today is confirmation of what we’ve been broadcasting from here for four years. The armed people here are the locals … But Kyiv naturally began screaming that it had been betrayed. The OSCE destroyed the fairytale that Ukrainian television has been broadcasting.”

“Relations between Moscow and Kyiv deteriorated after the coup in Ukraine, the return of the Crimea to Russia, and the beginning of the conflict in the Donbas.”

“We are accused of something, and ‘with a high degree of probability,’ as they say; we did this or that, intervened here, did something there. At the same time, no one considers it necessary to provide any evidence.”

“It’s no secret to anyone, Western journalists write openly that Bellingcat is connected to special services, they leak information through it to have some effect on public opinion.”

“People rallied, with bloodshot eyes, pronounced these words, looking me in the eye: ‘Death to the enemy, death to Russia, death to you’.”

“Do not believe the stupid Western propaganda that Russia grabbed a piece of Ukrainian holy land from Ukraine. Nothing like that. Crimea has been Russian since very long time and it will be forever”

“Russians have been experiencing problems getting visas to the United States.”