
"The President is consistent and exhaustive in his explanations and statements"

Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the head of state and deputy head of the presidential administration, told Izvestia on June 19 on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) about Vladimir Putin's upcoming speech, Russia's position on the conflict in the Middle East, relations with the United States and the third round of negotiations with Ukraine.
"The most reliable way is to convey our position first—hand"
— The president's overnight meeting with the heads of major media outlets has already become traditional. The goal is clear: to reach out. Did you get through?
— Probably, yes, we got through. It succeeds every time. Direct dialogue with the heads of international news agencies, who are the trendsetters of all information trends in different regions of the world, is the most reliable way to convey our position first—hand. And it goes out on the tapes. Distortion inevitably occurs, and then everything gets colored in a way that is not entirely objective. This happens in the subsequent stages, when the information is processed by analysts and our enemies. As for the direct work of news agencies, this is a justified practice, and every time we have a very good dialogue.
— Does the Kremlin understand that there will be a distortion? Is this taken into account during the conversation?
— Of course. But the president is consistent and exhaustive in his explanations and statements.
"Putin's speech at the SPIEF will be voluminous"
— What will be in the President's speech at the plenary session on June 20?
— It will be a voluminous performance. It will assess the current stage of development of our economy, outline the prospects and the main directions in which, from the point of view of the president, it should develop. It will also contain an assessment of the entire international palette within which our economy exists. In addition to the speech, there will also be a plenary session, which is often no less interesting and harmoniously complements the president's speech.
"Improving the quality of our economy is a direct result of the work of the core unit"
— Is it possible to assume that tomorrow the president will put an end to the discussions that began today between Elvira Nabiullina (Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation — Ed.) and Maxim Reshetnikov (Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation — Ed.) on new ways and models of economic development?
"I don't think so." Such discussions should accompany the work of the government's economic unit. Most of these meetings are held behind closed doors, where different and sometimes alternative points of view are expressed.
"Emotionally?"
— It happens, and emotionally. Very heated debates are being conducted in a reasoned and correct manner, and this is the right process. There are too many components, including the delayed reaction of the economy to the decisions being made. It is impossible to see the effect of them in two weeks or in the next quarter. It comes in a year or even a couple of years, so the responsibility and scope of tasks are huge.
The economic bloc is very effective in developing our country and maintaining high rates, but there will always be volatility, there will be a slowdown and acceleration. The only thing that is clear is that we are moving forward. Improving the quality of our economy is a direct result of the work of the core unit.
— The key rate debate continues. Even its decrease is perceived by some as a clear signal that the situation is stabilizing, while others call a decrease of 1 percentage point insufficient.
— The rate that is slowing down our economy is a conscious, planned choice. Both Nabiullina and the Ministry of Economic Development talked about this.
— Reshetnikov spoke today about the risks of recession.
— Many people will agree with him. Someone will say that we need to be safe 10 times, because we are the fourth economy in the world in terms of PPP (purchasing power parity — Ed.), and inertia is great. This means that it is impossible to make any drastic decisions.
— As I understand it, there will be a discussion about this tomorrow, too.
— I'm sure that one way or another it will come up.
"More and more conflicts are turning into a stage of war"
— One of the factors that turned out to be the most unpredictable and serious is the conflict between Iran and Israel. Russia offered its services as an intermediary. What is the reaction?
— Russia is one of the few countries that maintains constructive working relations with both Israel and Iran. Now it's also with the United States. At the moment, unfortunately, we do not see any grounds for moving towards a peaceful course. Now there is only an exchange of bellicose statements and blows. At the same time, each statement is more belligerent than the previous one.
— So the spiral is spinning?
— We see the threat of the geographical expansion of the conflict and the United States' hesitation to join or not to join (the conflict — Ed.). This is potentially very dangerous, so there is no special demand for Russia as an intermediary right now. Whether it will appear in the future, we cannot predict.
— It seems that the series of recent conflicts in the Middle East and the Asian region (the Indo-Pakistani conflict) are links in the same chain, an attempt to stop the construction of a new architecture of international relations. The situation with Iran affects our direct interests not only in terms of the Bushehr NPP, but also in the construction of the North-South transport corridor, and this is an important project for many countries and regions. Could this have partly pushed our opponents to escalate?
— I don't think there can be such narrow-profile goals here. From my point of view, there are different components. One of them is the extreme growth of conflict potential in different parts of the world. There are more and more conflicts that are turning directly into the stage of war. Contradictions accumulated for many decades and accompanied the crisis in existing international organizations, systems and structures. These organizations proved to be less effective than they needed to address the root causes of conflicts. Boils began to open, and international institutions proved ineffective. Mediation efforts are in demand, but only at certain stages. Because of this, such terrible events are happening now.
As for the North-South transport corridor, it is in the national interests of almost all countries in the region. Therefore, as soon as the hot stage of this conflict is over, hopefully, the process of its further implementation will continue. This is in the interests of all countries.
"The President and the Russian side are grateful to the American administration"
— International institutions are not working. The language of diplomacy is also lame. And this concerns us directly, as can be seen from the example of Ukraine. What to do?
— Be patient and take a consistent position. The mediation services of the United States are in demand for us. Our president has repeatedly said that it is preferable for us to solve problems and achieve our goals peacefully, therefore, if these peaceful ways are possible with the mediation of the United States, we will resort to them. Which we are already doing.
The President and the Russian side are grateful to the American administration, Trump and his team for the efforts they are making to initiate the peace process. Although it is very difficult to do this.
— We see that Kiev first flirted with the United States for a long time, and now we hear outright rudeness towards Washington.
— Rudeness is a permanent characteristic of the Kiev regime. It's just that an administration has come to power in the United States that is not ready to tolerate him, and is also quite categorical and straightforward in its judgments, which causes great discomfort to the Kiev regime.
— The President said yesterday that we are ready to continue the dialogue with Kiev the day after tomorrow, after the 22nd.
— Yes, indeed. Yesterday, my colleague Medinsky reported to the president about contacts with his counterparts in the negotiations. The dates of the next round after June 22 are currently being worked out.
— What could be the subject of the next round?
— Continuation of humanitarian exchanges, release of prisoners, exchange of bodies. The President said yesterday that we are ready to continue this practice. Of course, we will also have to exchange views on the memoranda.
"The president has a number of foreign visits planned for the second half of the year"
— The President received a lot of invitations on the day of the celebration of the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. Will they be accepted and which one will become a priority for Vladimir Putin?
— Russia lives a very active diplomatic and political life. The presidential schedule is always full of international events, not to the detriment of the domestic agenda, which has always been and remains an absolute priority for Vladimir Putin. Of course, these invitations have been accepted, and the dates will be negotiated through diplomatic channels. The President has already scheduled a number of foreign visits for the second half of the year.
— There is a lot of talk about a personal meeting between Putin and Trump. What is the stage of preparation for these negotiations? Have we managed to eliminate those same diplomatic contradictions and irritants?
— The irritants could not be eliminated, work on them has just begun. There are so many problems that you can't get rid of them overnight. As for the meeting, both Putin and Trump are aware that such a meeting is necessary to consolidate at the highest level the results achieved as a result of hard work. This work has not been done yet, so what is the point of holding a meeting?
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