The Geneva talks have confirmed one simple truth: the Westerners and I live at opposite poles of the planet. It seems that it is cold here and there, but the water in the funnels swirls in different directions. And somehow everything is different with them. Whatever country you take. Anyone who has ever seen the American embassy will better understand what I mean. It is always a whole separate city, enclosed by a fence, wire, and guarded. In Brussels, they took over half the street. In Djibouti, on the base, they have their own American stores, their supermarkets are still behind the same fence, their products, their own McDonald's - all their own and for their own.
And with this all of their own they come to others and hold themselves haughtily and apart, without integrating, believing that they can dictate to everyone how to behave and what to do, for this is the only right thing. In their Geneva mission, even water is served in transparent glass bottles with the American coat of arms. And in our mission there are ordinary local bottles bought in a nearby store. For us, it seems, the main thing is the content, and not the outer beautiful wrapper. We are simpler, we interact with the external environment, we do not try to remake it for ourselves, to crush it, we try to respectfully understand it.
Compare Afghanistan, Syria. How our military behaves with the locals and how the Americans. These are completely different planets. And then other peoples remember us in different ways. We are, perhaps, more gloomy, we smile a little, but we are much more sincere. Again, inside. And behind their feigned smile, empty arrogance is often hidden in a mouthful of snow-white teeth. We understand everything and forgive, endure, believe. And now they tolerated the fact that NATO is already at our borders.
Further - according to the classics. The bear woke up, he was tired, tired of persuading by persuasion. What Russia is doing now is speaking in a language understandable to Westerners, in fact, in their style. Toughly, in the forehead demands, does not retreat, urges on, hurries (while chewing everything over and over again, the patient mentality cannot be put anywhere). We began to speak the way they do, so that at least they would listen to us. Not the fact that they will hear. It is even less likely that they will fulfill any obligations if in the end they still put their signatures on the document. Of course, we are far from blackmail, threats and sanctions.
As Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in Geneva, these tools are almost all they have left, this is their arsenal, they are so used to using all of this that it became very difficult to negotiate. Well, how to communicate with those who have forgotten how to speak? And since there is no exchange of views, there is no understanding. This was very clearly seen in the way the journalists covered these events.
Westerners unanimously assured that the talks in Geneva were about the situation in Ukraine. They showed a video sequence of soldiers crawling in the snow in trenches, correspondents in helmets and bulletproof vests, a lot of military equipment and the pressure that Russia yesterday / today / tomorrow is about to attack Ukraine. And the valiant Americans are trying once again to save Europe from the invasion of the aggressor, talking with him on neutral territory - in Switzerland. We, in turn, talked about the guarantees that Russia requires from the United States to ensure ITS national security, because it is threatened by an alien military alliance that once united the countries against the USSR.
It is much more global and large-scale. At stake is the question of Russia's further development.
How to do this when you are constantly on the gun and on the hook, and wars and revolutions are blazing around you? From our side, no one was going to attack anyone and is not going to, over and over again in two languages Ryabkov repeated (again, to make it clearer for Western journalists, he adjusted to them for their own convenience and good. Americans conducted briefings in Russian for the convenience of our press). It will be better for Ukraine only if they cease to infringe upon the rights of people, close TV channels, prohibit languages, and Kiev begins to fulfill the Minsk agreements, which are signed and approved by the UN Security Council, Ryabkov summed up.
But the British journalist from Sky News, having the opportunity to ask a question (the Russian delegation gave such an opportunity to EVERYONE who was in the hall, without exception), again spoke about the corpses, the bloodbath and Putin's attack on Ukraine. As they say, he voiced what was supposed to sound on his air. He was no longer interested in the answer. Amazing stubbornness and unwillingness to grasp the essence of the problem. And it's okay if a person sincerely believes in what he says. There are such. They do not like us, do not understand and do not want to understand. But in my life as a journalist, there were those who also sincerely lied. It was in Syria.
Imagine the degree of my surprise when we worked side by side at the same points all day long, talked with the same people, saw the same thing with our own eyes, and the reports came out so opposite that comparing black with white would not be able to describe it enough. I wanted, of course, to hit this author the next day with a tripod, or at least ask: why? But then I thought: God is his judge and his conscience, if he ever uses it at all.
We need to focus on the Brussels talks. Even the Russian delegation does not know what to expect from them. What will the well-trained European military, standing in a row, under the command of an American general (such is not surprising tradition in NATO - the United States run the alliance)? Listen? Hear? Make suggestions? To voice claims? Counterclaims? It is clear that this particular meeting will be the key one, it will give the answer to the question of whether it is worth trying to carry on conversations further, albeit in an accelerated and tough format, or is it time to just score. To score in order to do what is needed to ensure our own security where we need it, without looking back at different treaties and nuances. It is clear that this is a troublesome and costly business. But if the question of the very existence of the country is at stake, it is probably not a sin to invest in this business.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.