D. Simes: And what about the sanctions directly imposed on you? Do they hurt you or do you see them as an empty gesture?

S. Glazyev: I am personally not negatively affected because I have neither property nor accounts of any sort in the United States. I had no plans to come to America.

D. Simes: And one last, philosophical, but very important question. In the U.S., it is considered that now is a low period of U.S.-Russian relations, but it is still far from a Cold War, and that the U.S. need not worry about cooperating with Russia on other issues such as Iran and Syria. How would you describe the situation—is it a Cold War? Can we spar and punish each other over Ukraine, but still work normally on other problems?

S. Glazyev: Our feeling of danger for U.S.-Russian relations is based on more than business relations and sanctions. We have already calculated the consequences of and responses to the sanctions imposed by Washington. What worries us are the American actions in Ukraine and the CIS, as well as the EU Eastern Partnership politics. The thing is, the entire crisis in Ukraine was orchestrated, provoked, and financed by American institutions in cooperation with their European partners. They financed neo-Nazis. For fifteen years, the U.S. and Europeans financed neo-Nazis’ training, their camps, and preparation. By U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s acknowledgement, the State Department spent $5 billion on the creation of an anti-Russian political and paramilitary elite. This work led to the sad situation that now in Ukraine neo-Nazi and neo-fascists ideas prevail, as does admiration for, more than anything, Stepan Bandera’s associates who in their time murdered Jews, Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, and whomever they wanted, burning or otherwise killing them under Nazi leadership. This is very dangerous. We do not understand why the U.S. and the American ambassador for many years and months systematically supported those neo-Nazi ideologies and even methodically trained their followers. Why did Ms. Nuland have to feed them cookies on the Maydan, thereby demonstrating the political and moral support of the United States.

Second, we do not understand why the U.S. has supported anti-Russian politics in Ukraine for years. That neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine now is impossible to work with. What we presently see in Ukraine is a symbiosis of neo-fascist groups on the one hand and pro-Western ones on the other, working with the support of the United States, and simultaneously committing violence, pillages in the streets of Ukraine, and shootings of peaceful protesters. The U.S. has systematically supported the “Our Fatherland” party, which is now in power in Ukraine. In this way, America created the symbiotic relationship between neo-fascists and pro-Western leaders that make up the basis of the current regime, supported an illegal power take-over—a coup, and is further prodding this regime to go to war with Russia. This frightens us.

It is absolutely unclear why today, March 21, the European Union is signing a partnership agreement with the Ukrainian illegitimate regime, which too implicates the EU in supporting this regime. By signing this agreement, the EU is taking upon itself the responsibility for Ukraine’s foreign and defense policy, thereby leading Ukraine’s handling of its own regional conflicts, including military ones. In other words, by signing the document with the current illegitimate Ukrainian government, the EU is making itself responsible for protecting this regime. Why wouldn’t they wait two months for the scheduled early elections so they could sign an agreement with a legitimately elected government and an elected President? It turns out that they engineered their entire coup, human casualties, neo-fascists and all with the explicit purpose of installing in power a puppet to sign the treaty that the EU itself dictated which was earlier refused by Yanukovich. As follows, Yanukovich was removed from power, so the EU could make Ukraine its colony: the partnership agreement deprives Ukriane of sovereignty in trade, economic relations, technical regulations, as well as partly in defense policy. So, while they blame us that we have taken over Crimea, where a referendum took place that showed virtually unanimous support for the restoration of sovereignty and joining Russia, at the same time what the EU and U.S. are doing is perpetrating an economic and military-political annexation of the entire Ukraine by imposing on it a treaty that sacrifices its sovereignty and mandates that it follow European policy in foreign and military policy, as well as obey all European directives on trade, the economy, and technical regulations. And actually, the signing of such a partnership from a legal point of view would necessitate changes to the Ukrainian constitution in at least five articles; the current constitution does not allow it. We are watching how our Western and American partners are wittingly forcing on Ukraine illegitimate decisions, signing illegitimate agreements, supporting an illegitimate government, while law violations, violence and terror sweep over the country. All the Western-instigated steps lead not to stabilization, but on the contrary—to the destabilization of the situation.

D. Simes: And this can affect more than just the U.S.-Russian and EU-Russian relations with regard to Ukraine, do I understand you right?

S. Glazyev: In all seriousness, we cannot accept the singing of an illegitimate agreement with an illegitimate regime, which for Ukraine would mean a loss of sovereignty in a lot of spheres, from trade to foreign policy for the benefit of the EU. This is in essence aggression; an annexation of the entire Ukraine, and the move of the country under European Union jurisdiction in violation of all legal norms. A decision like this should require a referendum in Ukraine, which we repeatedly told the EU. This is what Putin was negotiating with Barroso. Two months ago, we were agreeing that trade and economic partnerships with Ukraine will be negotiated in concert with Russia. The idea was to choose the optimal arrangement with Ukraine so that Russia and Europe could both retain and increase their investments with Ukraine. As before, we are ready to partake in any program on Ukraine’s development and invest in it. Russia is Ukraine’s principal investor: for the past 20 years, we have invested $40 billion and are of course, more than anything, interested in the country being stable, calm, and successful. But unfortunately, the EU, instead of following through on these intentions, is now forcing on Ukraine an agreement which we can never accept as legitimate, particularly considering there is no legitimate Ukrainian government to sign it.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/A.Savin. CC BY-SA 3.0.