Comment: The special operation in Ukraine brought to a climax the confrontation between Russia and Western countries led by the United States. Battles are taking place not only in the vast expanses of Ukraine, but also in the economic, political, and cultural planes.

Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev told AIF what threats Russia faces and how much longer the special operation can continue.

Nikolai Patrushev is a Russian politician, security officer and intelligence officer who has served as the secretary of the Security Council of Russia since 2008. He previously served as the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) from 1999 to 2008.


Nicolai Patrushev
© Nikolai Patrushev. / Alexey Nikolsky / RIA Novosti
What is the West trying to achieve?

Gleb Ivanov, АиФ.ru — Nikolai Platonovich, the United States and other Western states openly demonize Russia, turn to direct insults. What is the reason for this?

Nikolai Patrushev: The style of the Anglo-Saxons has not changed over the centuries. So today they continue to dictate their terms to the world, rudely trampling on the sovereign rights of states. Covering their actions with words about the struggle for human rights, freedom and democracy, they actually implement the doctrine of the "golden billion", suggesting that a limited number of people can thrive in this world. The lot of the rest, as they believe, is to bend their backs in the name of their goal.

In order to increase the well-being of a handful of tycoons in the City of London and on Wall Street, the US and British governments, controlled by big capital, are creating an economic crisis in the world, dooming millions of people in Africa, Asia and Latin America to hunger, limiting their access to grain, fertilizers and energy resources. By their actions, they provoke unemployment and a migration catastrophe in Europe. Uninterested in the prosperity of European states, they do everything to make them disappear from the pedestal of economically developed countries. And for unconditional control of the region, they put Europeans on a chair with two legs called NATO and the EU, disdainfully watching how they balance.

— Today, it is increasingly being said that Western pharmaceutical companies have a vested interest in the spread of dangerous diseases and in humanity's daily dependence on drugs...

— Some experts express their view about the man-made coronavirus infection, suggesting that it may have been created in Pentagon laboratories with the assistance of a number of major multinational pharmaceutical companies. The Clintons, Rockefellers, Soros and Biden foundations were involved in this work under state guarantees. Instead of caring about the health of humanity, Washington spends billions on the research of new pathogens. Moreover, Western medicine increasingly practices genetic engineering and synthetic biology methods, thus blurring the line between artificial and natural.

— In Washington they nurture plans to recognize Russia as a country-terrorist, some countries like Lithuania already officially assigned such status to Russia...

— As the saying goes, a thief's hat is on fire. Today it is easier to tell which of the largest international terrorist organizations has not arisen with the American assistance. The United States widely uses them as a tool of geopolitical confrontation, including with our country. Back in the mid-1980s, Al Qaeda (banned in the Russian Federation) was created under the control of U.S. intelligence agencies to counter the Soviet Union on Afghan soil. In the 1990s, the United States created the Taliban (banned in the Russian Federation) to exert influence in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Guided by its alleged "national interests," the U.S. has been using force to topple unwanted regimes in Libya and Iraq, and has tried to do so in Syria. And the main striking force in all cases are radical groups, whose further unification has led to the creation of a terrorist monster called the Islamic State (banned in the Russian Federation), which, after Al Qaeda and the Taliban movement, has got out of the Americans' control.

It is also known about Washington's warm relations with neo-Nazi thugs in Ukraine.

What does denazification mean?

— There are still disputes about neo-Nazis in Ukraine. In the West, they say with one voice that they are not there. President Biden, requesting billions of dollars from Congress for the supply of weapons to Ukraine, calls this country the leading edge of the struggle for freedom...

— The Westerners will probably not take off their rose-coloured glasses until the rampaging Ukrainian youths start rampaging in their streets. Not only in Europe, by the way. Remember the recent shooting in American Buffalo. I would like to ask the Americans what is the difference between a neo-Nazi shooting people in a supermarket and the Azov militants (banned in the Russian Federation), who humiliated and destroyed the peaceful population of Donbass every day from year to year.

— What is meant by denazification anyway? There has been a lot of talk about it in recent months, but not everyone understands this term.

— Everything becomes clear if you remember history. During the Potsdam Conference, the USSR, the USA and Britain signed an agreement on the eradication of German militarism and Nazism.

By denazification, a number of measures were meant. Apart from punishing Nazi criminals, the laws of the Third Reich legalising discrimination on the basis of race, nationality, language, religion and political opinion were abolished. Nazi and militaristic doctrines were removed from school education.

Our country had set such goals in 1945 and we are setting them now, when we are liberating Ukraine from neo-Nazism. However, at that time England and the USA were together with us. Today, these countries have taken a different stance, supporting Nazism and acting aggressively against most of the world.

What will happen to Ukraine?

— Some of our readers sometimes express concern about, as they write, "the delaying of the special operation in Ukraine".

— We are not chasing deadlines. Nazism must either be eradicated 100% or it will raise its head in a few years, and in an even uglier form.

How do you assess the chances of a successful completion of the special operation?

— All the goals set by the President of Russia will be fulfilled. It cannot be otherwise, because the truth, including historical, is on our side. It is not for nothing that General Skobelev once said that only our country can afford the luxury of fighting out of compassion. Compassion, justice, dignity - these are powerful unifying ideas, which we have always put and will continue to put at the forefront. Compassion, justice, dignity are powerful unifying ideas that we have always put and will continue to put at the forefront.

And what fate awaits Ukraine? Will it be preserved as a state?

— The fate of Ukraine will be determined by the people living on its territory. I would like to remind you that our country has never controlled the destinies of sovereign states. On the contrary, we helped them to defend their statehood. We also supported the United States during their Civil war. France has been assisted on numerous occasions. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, we prevented its humiliation, and in World War I, we saved Paris twice. It was the USSR that prevented the British and Americans in 1945 from dismembering Germany into a multitude of states. Moscow's decisive role in the unification of Germany, to which the French and the British were the most opposed, is also well known. Russia has played an equally important role in the history of Polish statehood. At the same time, today the West in every way obscures the contribution of our country to the preservation of other states.

By the way, Finland, which now wants to join NATO, was also formed as a state within the Russian Empire?

— You are right. Moreover, Finland came out of the Second World War, despite taking part in it on the side of Germany, with minimal damage for itself thanks to Moscow's position. Now, Finland, together with Sweden, has been persuaded to join NATO, allegedly for their own safety. Turkey and Croatia, however, object, but I think Helsinki and Stockholm will be accepted into the bloc anyway, because Washington and its controlled Brussels have decided so. The will of other nations does not interest the US leadership, although I believe many of the inhabitants of these countries understand the gamble they are being pushed into.

NATO is not a defensive but a purely aggressive offensive military bloc; joining it means automatically surrendering a large part of their own sovereignty to Washington. In the event of the expansion of the alliance's military infrastructure on the territory of Finland and Sweden, Russia will perceive this as a direct threat to its own security and will be obliged to respond.

— Adherents of joining NATO persistently point Finns and Swedes to the events in Ukraine...

— Except that the logic here is the opposite. It is de facto the guidance of the Kiev authorities by NATO that has led to this disastrous scenario. If Ukraine had remained independent, instead of being governed by the current puppet regime obsessed with joining NATO and the EU, it would have long ago expelled all the Nazi scum from its land. Meanwhile, the ideal scenario for the whole North Atlantic Alliance, led by the United States, seems to be an endlessly smouldering conflict in this country. Ukraine is needed by the West as a counterweight to Russia and also as a landfill for the disposal of obsolete weapons. By fuelling hostilities, the US pumps money into its military-industrial complex, again, as in the wars of the 20th century, remaining a winner. At the same time, the U.S. considers citizens of Ukraine as expendable material, which has no place in the "golden billion".

Forgotten History

Speaking of billions. Zelensky says that Russia should pay reparations to Ukraine...

— It is Russia that has the right to demand reparations from the countries that sponsored the Nazis in Ukraine and the criminal Kiev regime. The DPR and the LPR should demand from them compensation for all material damage for 8 years of aggression. And the Ukrainian people themselves deserve reparations from the main instigators of the conflict, i.e. the US and England, who force Ukrainians to fight, supporting the neo-Nazis, supplying them with weapons, sending their military advisers and mercenaries.

Unfortunately, many Ukrainians still believe what the West and the Kiev regime tell them. Sobering up will come sooner or later. They have yet to open their eyes and see that the country actually does not exist, that the gene pool of the people and their cultural memory are being destroyed by the Westerners and replaced by rabid gender concepts and empty liberal values.

Oblivion of history and abandonment of the own values is apparently a misfortune not only for Ukrainians?

— Of course. Last year I visited the Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Minsk. The guide shared with me her impressions of the visit of a group of students from the USA, who throughout the tour doubted whether they were being told the truth in the museum, because they naively believed that it was America that defeated Hitler's Germany.

Unfortunately, this false version of fateful events is also held by some school teachers in our country. Many textbooks also distort the facts. Little time is given to the subject of heroism of the Soviet people during the Great Patriotic War in the history lessons, and it is often described superficially in the textbooks. As a result, only a few seniors can name the names of those, who gained the victory in 1945, at the cost of their own lives, and almost nobody has ever heard about the heroes of the WWI or the Patriotic War of 1812.

The Battle for Memory

What do you see as the cause?

— First and foremost we need to look at the training of teachers. It's a good time to remember the ideas of Ushinsky and Makarenko, that the teacher forms the personality of the student, and his vocation should not be the provision of services, but enlightenment, education and upbringing. Specialized universities should train future teachers as high-class professionals, and not stamp them on an assembly line.

Teachers occupy a special place in the life of every citizen, so arbitrary interpretation of global and national history by individual teachers is unacceptable, undermining the authority of our country and programming the minds of children on the basis of false facts and myths. Psychological manipulation of young people, the gap between generations, the distortion of historical truth - all this is incompatible with the professional vocation of a teacher.

— I am reminded of the catchphrase attributed to Bismarck that it is the teachers who win the battles.

— In my opinion, the idea is certainly correct. Especially in the context of a hybrid war, which is currently deployed against Russia. Teachers are in the front line in this war. The personal responsibility of the heads of educational institutions is necessary, whose graduates did not hold in their hands books dedicated to the heroism of the Soviet people during the Great Patriotic War, or have only a vague idea of the deeds of those who fought for the Motherland.

Issues of patriotic education of young people should not be relegated to optional classes. All this is described beautifully in the reports, but there is no result. In some schools, including private ones, the word "patriotism" is considered obsolete.

How do you propose to change this situation?

— It is necessary to raise the authority of educators who are faithful to their profession and who dedicate their lives to educating genuine patriots. The most important task today is the revival of historical traditions, as well as the protection of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values. To solve it, we need a systematic approach to upbringing and education. There is a need to implement a state program in this area at all stages of a person's growing up and becoming a citizen. A comprehensive model of this process should be developed.

Our students and teachers are currently being squeezed out of the Western academic and educational world. I think it is advisable to abandon the so-called Bologna education system and return to the experience of the world's best domestic educational model.

In addition, it is necessary to provide for a significant increase in the scale of the state orders for the creation of works of literature and art, films and television programs aimed at preserving historical memory, fostering pride in our country and the formation of a mature civil society, clearly aware of the responsibility for its development and prosperity.

Only in this case will we be able to successfully resist the threats and challenges that are being formed by the collective West to influence individual, group and public consciousness.