Filenews 16 March 2022 - by Xenia Tourki
Until February 24, Russia claimed not to invade Ukraine. Since then, three weeks of fierce fighting, bombing and attacks have passed. Despite the global outcry that has stirred up, Moscow defends its decision by stressing that it has no intention of conquering Ukraine, but as soon as it achieves the objectives of its military operation it will withdraw. As the Ambassador of Russia in Nicosia, Stanislav Osaci, stressed in his interview with "F", the concerns and red lines of his country had to be taken into account, something that never happened.
However, it seems that the Ukrainian issue will be a catalyst when the military operations end. Moscow is recording the behaviour of each country and everything will be taken into account, as Stanislav Osaci warned. "We will then take into account the development of our bilateral relations, as well as those measures that Nicosia will take in relation to our country," he said.
The sanctions imposed on Moscow are causing enormous problems. Russia sees them as unfair and stresses that it perceives them as an unfriendly act. Although the Russian ambassador underlines that his country's stance on the Cyprus issue remains the same, he warned that the line taken by the EU aimed at the demonization of Russia is contrary to the interests of Cyprus and is disastrous for the economic, spiritual and cultural relations of the two countries, which, as he said, have existed for centuries.
However, Stanislav Osaci sees no resemblance between Turkish claims that the Turkish invasion in 1974 was made to protect Turkish Cypriots, and the Russian excuse that he began military operations to protect Ukraine's Russian-speaking people. "What happened in Cyprus in 1974 was the occupation of part of the territory of another country with the invention of an occasion. The troops of our country will leave the territory of Ukraine immediately after the completion of the operation," he said.
Has Russia's policy towards Cyprus changed? This is what some argue after Sergey Lavrov's statement about "TRNC".
Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, has not made any "statement" in relation to the "TRNC". On February 21, 2022, during a meeting of the Russian Security Council, he told the President of our country that the Kiev authorities for eight years did not implement either one of the key points of the Agreements in Minsk, nor did he enter into dialogue with his own citizens, living in southeastern Ukraine. In relation to the above, he cited as an example a number of countries and conflicts, where such a dialogue is taking place, including the "TRNC". You must agree that such a reference in no way could be interpreted as a recognition of anyone or that it goes beyond the framework of international agreements in relation to the settlement of the Cyprus problem.
-How is Moscow coping with Nicosia's approach to the Ukrainian crisis?
-We carefully monitor all the steps and actions carried out by the leadership of Cyprus as a member of the European Union. At this stage we see the sanctions, supported by Nicosia in solidarity with Brussels, as unfriendly. The line taken and aimed at the demonization of Russia, which has been imposed by the other side of the ocean, we consider to be contrary to the interests of Cyprus and is disastrous for our economic, spiritual and cultural relations, which have existed for centuries. Our stance on the Cyprus issue continues to remain unchanged. Nor do we plan to recognize any new forms that do not comply with or deviate from the frameworks set by the UN Security Council Resolutions on Cyprus. We will then take into account the development of our bilateral relations, as well as those measures that Nicosia will take in relation to our country. For our part, we will try to maintain those good relations which were previously established. We hope that the official Nicosia will respond in a similar way.
-Turkey in 1974 invaded Cyprus to protect, as he said, the Turkish Cypriots. Today, your country is conducting military operations in Ukraine to protect, as it says, the Russian-speaking people who are there. Do you see any similarities?
No, there is not even the slightest similarity between the situation in Ukraine and the events of 1974 in Cyprus. In those years, as now, Cyprus was not even the slightest threat to Turkey. Neither militarily, nor in any other way.
Ukraine, however, in recent years has deliberately and actively prepared itself in the form of a base for a war confrontation with Russia. Starting in 2014, the U.S. invested in the militarization of Ukraine with $2.5 billion.
And in the last months of last year we are all witnessing an increasing supply of hundreds of tonnes of lethal equipment to this country at an accelerated pace. In camps in the west of Ukraine off and without hiding, hundreds of American, British and Canadian military instructors worked. More than 22,500 Ukrainian soldiers have been trained in these camps. On the territory of Ukraine, American laboratories for the processing and manufacture of biological weapons have been manufactured and operate. Not to add the demands of the president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for the return to his country of the regime of nuclear power.
But the most important thing of all is the rebirth of extreme nationalism before the eyes of the whole of Europe. Could it be that something similar was happening in Cyprus in the 1970s? Moreover, we have no intention of changing the ethnic, religious and linguistic composition of these regions and territories. What happened in Cyprus in 1974 was the occupation of part of the territory of another country with the invention of an occasion. The troops of our country will leave the territory of Ukraine immediately after the completion of the operation for its demilitarization and de-Naziization. This has been officially declared by the leadership of our country. So how could the two cases be compared?
-Russia has repeatedly expressed its concerns about NATO enlargement. Unfortunately, the US did not take into account Russian concerns. But is this a reason for an invasion, for so much pain, for so many civilians to die?
-We did not just express our concern. We believe that the approach of NATO's structures to our borders is a direct and obvious threat to our national security. We have learned very well from the lessons of history and fully understand the so-called 'defensive' nature of the North Atlantic Alliance with the examples of Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq and Syria.
For all this we were trying patiently and persistently to talk to all the world leaders. And we have done everything at all levels to explain the unacceptable for us of turning Ukraine into a base for hostile actions against Russia. We talked several times about our red lines and the unexpected of our "military-technical" response. Which of the Western leaders has heeded our positions? None. Reacting to our concerns, they laughed and reacted mockingly and "threw" our "worries" in the bin, as the President of our country recently mentioned.
In January of this year the entire Western press imposed a hysteria regarding the concentration of Russian troops around the border with Ukraine. But no one noticed or rather wanted to pay attention to the 130 thousand Ukrainian soldiers who gathered on the borders of Donetsk and Luhansk. How should we react to these events as a whole? Should we wait for when we will be attacked?
Turkey to find a balance of interests
-Do you agree with the view that the crisis in NATO's relations with Russia will test the balancing policy that Turkey seeks to keep? What does the new reality of Russia mean to Turkey?
-On how to treat Turkey in the face of new realities, you should ask Turkey itself. Our country maintains mutual commercial and economic relations with this country. We hope that, like the rest of the countries, Turkey will find a balance between its own national interests and its allied obligations to NATO and to the West in general. We hope that it will do the same with regard to its relations with Cyprus.
Since we are talking about national interests, I would like to mention our position on the current situation. We are firmly convinced that Since 2014, Washington has been resolving and promoting in Ukraine its geopolitical goals for maintaining its global hegemony. In this context, Ukraine has been driven into chaos by the bankrupt regime of Volodymyr Zelensky and has been used as a tool in the general confrontation between the US and Russia. And the countries that have been involved in the anti-Russian alliance are forced to sacrifice their own national interests, in essence, by playing on foreign terms in a foreign game and in a foreign scenario. The attempt to drown Russia will not succeed, but it may lead others to a humiliating defeat. In these circumstances, would our partners be well advised to think again, is it worth it "to break their heads", following the Russophobic line of cruising in the USA and trying, like Canada, for example, "to run in front of even the American train"? The gain from such behaviour may be minimal, but relations with Russia will deteriorate substantially and irreparably.
Tragedy the human losses
-Russia has been claiming for many years that Russians and Ukrainians are one people, one nation. How do you feel now that an army, and indeed yours, is killing your own people?
The fact that Russians and Ukrainians are one people is the absolute truth. This does not mean, however, that we regard as "ours" the nationalists and neo-Nazis of all kinds, who have appeared in recent years in Ukraine. We are not going to close our eyes to the fact that Ukraine is becoming a base of operations for primitive chauvinism and rampant fascism at the centre of Europe. And this is done with the approval of the so-called 'civilised' Europe. Where were all these defenders of human rights, of the OSCE, of democratic European institutions and institutes, when over the course of too many years at state level they banned the Russian language, which is spoken by more than half the population of Ukraine? Where was the whole "independent" press and the media, when journalists and politicians friendly to Russia were openly, overtly and publicly murdered, when they forbade and closed large Russian-speaking television channels, when in the streets of Kiev they held their night parades with lit torches and fascist symbols, reminiscent of pre-war Nazi Germany, when the boulevards and squares of Ukrainian cities were renamed, in honour of war criminals, convicted by international military tribunals? And all this is not fake nor "Kremlin propaganda." All this has been happening and has been broadcast live over the course of eight endless years, before the eyes of those who are now shouting most of all for human rights.
-The losses, however, are still great.
-Yes, it is a fact that there are victims on both sides. And this is a great human tragedy and first of all for ourselves. But in this fight with the "black plague" we are doing everything we can to ensure that these victims are as few as possible. We do not indiscriminately bomb cities, residential areas and targets of social structures. We are not doing what others have done and are doing, flattening entire towns and villages. It is for this reason and not for any other reason that the military operation did not last 2-3 days, but has been going on for three weeks. We are not responding to the provocations of so-called "nationalist battalions", who place tanks and heavy weaponry in densely populated neighbourhoods, causing our troops to strike at civilians. We have not done it, nor will we. They seem to like to imitate the radical Islamist terrorists in Syria and Iraq. We are organizing humanitarian corridors for the exodus of our "own" people and not the neo-Nazis. And I repeat once again, after the completion of the operation to demilitarise Ukraine and the extermination of the neo-Nazi camps in the centre of Europe, all Russian troops will be leaving the territory of Ukraine.
Taking advantage of the opportunity you offer me, I would like to refer to the informative background around this business. The Western media, including the Cypriot ones, are full of appalling scenes of war and suffering that torment the civilian population. The fact that an unprecedented communication war is being waged against Russia is an obvious and indisputable fact. As well as that in this war the West and primarily the US use their cherished method of fake news and disinformation. This is what the experience of Iraq, Syria and Yugoslavia teaches us. I am sure that we will soon find out the truth about who and what was actually destroying.
