Alastair Crooke: Are US and Russia Eyeball To Eyeball? Plus Putin's Presser

In my Memorial Day essay, I included Crooke’s SCF essay but omitted its presence from the title knowing that he’d have his chat with Judge Napolitano this morning. The Judge mentioned two writings by Crooke, one would be the SCF essay and the other his Al-Mayadeen column about Fico that I reported on here. Also today, the Judge will talk again with Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern whose Friday chat was involved in yesterday’s article. IMO, watching those chats is also mandatory. With McGovern, the initial talk is about the ICC and its potential indictments that ought to extend to Team Biden, and it ends with discussion about war between NATO and Russia, a war that the UK says is already afoot with which Russia agrees—Sunak is right to hold elections that his party will lose so he can exit to his away from UK shelter.

Larry Johnson’s chat with the Judge also begins with the Gaza Genocide which Johnson correctly describes as State Terrorism and equates Zionist actions with those of WW2’s Nazi’s. Johnson: “These Zionists is [sic] just a monstrous evil.” And their actions will hopefully now lead to EU sanctions. And further, is Hamas a terrorist organization? I’ve said no for many years and Johnson using empirical data from the Zionists themselves arrives at a similar conclusion that Hamas is NOT a terrorist organization, but a political organization with a military wing well within its rights to resist the Zionist occupation and fight for Palestinian freedom. Johnson’s analysis is unequivocal: “The #1 Terrorist in the Middle East is the state of Israel.” When the chat shifts to Ukraine, Johnson says essentially that the Outlaw US Empire is a paper tiger that’s incapable of beating Ansarallah in Yemen yet wants to take on China along with Russia while supporting the Zionists: The Judge asks, “What war does Biden want?”

Judge Napolitano has more people he regularly chats with that can be found at his site. I’m fairly certain over a million Americans watch his programming weekly. I see his spectrum of visiting opinions is very broad making it hard to pin a specific ideological POV to his forehead. Since 2022, many people have changed their outlooks as they dig into the factual context that underlies the current situation. IMO, saying I told you so, but you didn’t listen negates the gain that comes from others adopting the factual context—those folks are now ready to be talked to so they can be further brought into a wider political consensus over our reality: a fundamental aspect of building the solidarity so greatly needed to alter the national political dynamic. And that also goes for Europe as well. As pointed out at the end of the chat with Johnson, the USA is no longer protected by the two oceans, and the missiles that might be employed aren’t automatically nuclear but almost as destructive.

In the chats, several recent positions stated by Putin were mentioned. Today he returned from his state visit to Uzbekistan, which was very important as he mentions. Some of the Qs asked in his presser ask for further clarification of those positions. As you’ll read, Putin is very careful to be as clear as he can be in response, so he’s not taken out of context:

Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon! What are we going to talk about and what are your questions?

Evgeny Piskunov: Good afternoon!

Egor Piskunov, RT TV channel.

The visit to Tashkent is absolutely unprecedented in terms of intensity. Two overnight stays. To be honest, some of us thought that maybe there would be a third one already. For a very long time, you spoke one-on-one with the President of Uzbekistan. What are your impressions? What hopes do you have for cooperation with Tashkent, especially in the trade and economic sphere? And what is the potential of Uzbekistan's participation in integration associations on the territory of the former Soviet Union? Thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: As you know, I arrived on Sunday evening, and there was nothing else but the official part-laying flowers at the monument, the Independence Monument, and that's all the work. But the next day – indeed, the day was full of business contacts, meetings, negotiations, Monday, it lasted until late in the evening, it's true. This is how the host party organized our visit.

For the first time, we attended a meeting of the regions. But, you know, what else was so serious about the effect? The fact that the composition of our delegation was very serious also made up almost half of the Government of the Russian Federation and all the key ministers. Therefore, when the heads of the regions and the two governments gathered together from both sides, of course, the exchange of information, the exchange of opportunities for developing cooperation was very rich. And the point is not even in the number of signed papers, but in live contacts between people who want to work together and see how to do it. Uzbekistan is indeed of great interest to Russia from the point of view of developing relations.

First, Uzbekistan is currently the most populous country in the former Soviet Union, apart from Russia. 37 million people live here today, and every year – plus a million. This is how Uzbekistan is growing in terms of population.

The economy is growing actively and rapidly, and the pace is good: last year, GDP increased by six percent – this is one of the world's major achievements. The President of Uzbekistan managed to build a fairly effective management system and a growing model of the economy.

We have a lot of joint plans in industrial cooperation, in the energy sector – you've probably seen and heard everything, and in infrastructure.

There are problems for Uzbekistan, which consist in the fact that it has no access to the sea, to the ocean. Here, too, we could take steps together with other partners in the region to help our friends in Uzbekistan solve this logistical problem and create the necessary conditions for entering foreign markets. Here, too, we have something to talk about. Therefore, there are a lot of questions, and the scope of possible projects is very large.

As you know, we have created a fund for joint work in the amount of 500 million dollars, of which 400 are accounted for by the Russian side. This is not because we have more money, but because we have big interests in this part of Asia and we see that they can be realized precisely taking into account the stability of the political system and the conditions for investing in the economy of Uzbekistan. The interest, I repeat, is great, and this is due to such an intensity of contacts.

As for integration processes, we never insist on anything. In general, integration processes, if you mean the Eurasec-first of all, of course, we are talking about the economy - these processes were initiated by the first President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev. This structure is developing at a good pace and brings real results to all participants. But whether to participate or not is the choice of any sovereign state based on interest, primarily economic interest, and economic feasibility. We have different levels of economic development, different levels of financial system development. And when a particular government makes a corresponding decision on participation or non-participation in certain integration associations, it proceeds primarily from this.

In general, if such an economy as the economy of Uzbekistan joins the association, I think that the association will only benefit from this. But the Uzbek economy must also benefit. This is a rather complicated negotiation process, because when we created the Eurasian Economic Community, we spent many days and nights arguing about what conditions and what mutual obligations should arise. Therefore, it is a calm, smooth process.

Our economies are converging, developing, there are many joint projects, and the outline of mutual interests in the sphere of further cooperation and participation in integration associations will gradually emerge.

Pavel Zarubin: Good evening!

Pavel Zarubin, Rossiya TV channel. I'm sorry, I have two questions at once, and both are quite voluminous.

The first. You and I flew to Tashkent almost immediately from Minsk, and we have been interested in this topic ever since: In Minsk, you answered a question about Zelensky's legitimacy and who to negotiate with, if and when these negotiations will be possible. You said that you need to look at the Constitution of Ukraine to determine which authorities can work without elections. But, based on the Constitution of Ukraine, it turns out that only the Verkhovna Rada can work now, and not a word is said about the extension of the president's powers. Only on the basis of the law on martial law, Zelensky seems to continue to function. You said that you need a legal analysis. Do we conduct this analysis? Who should I talk to if I talk to them?

Can I ask the second question right away?

Vladimir Putin: Please. Whichever is more convenient for you.

Pavel Zarubin: More and more bellicose statements are being made from the high western stands. Now they have even agreed to allow Kiev to strike deep into Russian territory with Western weapons. Right today, the EU Defense Minister discussed this topic, and the NATO Secretary General said at all: we, they say, give weapons to Kiev and since then we believe that they are Ukrainian, and Ukraine can do anything, strike at the territory of Russia where it sees fit.

Thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: The first question concerns the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government. Indeed, we need to conduct a serious, in-depth analysis.

The first thing that is visible and that my colleagues report to me is this. The Constitution of Ukraine provides for the extension of powers, but only the Rada, the Constitution of Ukraine does not say anything about the extension of the powers of the President. First.

Second. Indeed, the law of Ukraine on legal status, legal status, and martial law states that presidential elections are not held during martial law, but this does not mean that they are prolonged. They are not held, but who said that they should be extended? There is nothing about this in the constitution. But there is Article 111 of the Constitution of Ukraine, which says that in this case, the powers of the supreme power, in fact presidential powers, are transferred to the Speaker of Parliament. Moreover, in the context of the law on martial law, the powers of the Parliament are extended. This is such a preliminary analysis, we need to take a closer look.

Some experts say that there are contradictions between the Constitution, which only provides for the extension of the Rada's powers under martial law, and the law I just mentioned-the law, in my opinion, of 2016, which defines the legal status of martial law. As I have already said and repeat, it says that the presidential elections are not being held, but nowhere does it say that they are being prolonged, and this is a problem.

What's the point? The fact is that in its essence, Ukrainian statehood is based on the idea of a parliamentary-presidential republic rather than a presidential republic, and the main levers of power are concentrated in the representative body of the state. Therefore, it is quite logical that the constitution itself and other legal acts that were adopted on its basis are built in this way.

Therefore, strictly speaking, according to a preliminary assessment – I am speaking only according to a preliminary assessment-the Parliament and the Speaker of the Rada remain the only legitimate authorities. And so, by and large, if they wanted to hold presidential elections, they would have to cancel the law on martial law, that's all, and hold elections. But they didn't want to do it for a number of reasons.

But I think (this is no longer connected in any way with the constitution) that maybe the idea of today's owners of Ukraine, and they are located overseas, is to impose on the current executive power the burden of making all unpopular decisions, including making another decision on further lowering the military age. I was 27, now I'm 25, and the next stage may be 23 or just 18 years old.

And after this and other unpopular decisions are made, I think the current representatives of the executive branch will be replaced with people who will not have this responsibility for the decisions that are unpopular among the people. They are simply-chick, change, and that's it. If this is the idea, then in principle the logic is clear. Let's see what happens next.

But just as I said in Minsk, the political and legal system of Ukraine itself must finally formulate and give a definitive answer to what is happening in Ukraine. Here, it seems to me, it is not really so difficult. I repeat for the third time: the law of 2016 says that it is impossible to hold presidential elections under martial law, but nowhere does it say that these powers are extended. Means what? See article 111 of the Constitution – all power passes to the Speaker of Parliament.

About strikes now. I honestly don't know what the NATO Secretary General is saying. When he was Prime Minister of Norway, we talked with him and resolved difficult issues on the Barents Sea and others, and in general we could agree, at that time, I'm just sure, he did not suffer from any dementia. If he talks about the possibility of launching strikes on Russian territory with high-precision long-range weapons – as a person who heads a military-political organization, although he is a civilian like me, he should still know that high-precision long-range weapons cannot be used without space-based intelligence tools. First.

Second. The final choice of the target and the so-called flight task can only be made by highly qualified specialists based on this intelligence, technical intelligence. For some strike systems, such as Storm Shadow, these tasks can be entered automatically (flight tasks), without any presence of Ukrainian military personnel. Who does this? This is done by those who produce, and those who allegedly supply these shock systems to Ukraine. In general, it can happen without participation – and it happens without the participation of Ukrainian servicemen. And other systems, for example, such as ATACMS, are also prepared on the basis of space intelligence, formulated [goals], brought automatically to the appropriate calculations – they may not even understand what they are entering - and the calculation, maybe the Ukrainian calculation, enters the corresponding flight task. But this task is being prepared not by Ukrainian servicemen, but by representatives of NATO countries.

So, these representatives of NATO countries, especially in Europe, especially in small countries, should be aware of what they are playing with. They should keep in mind that these are usually states with a small territory and a very dense population. And this is a factor that they should keep in mind before talking about launching strikes deep into Russian territory. This is a serious thing, and we, of course,are watching it very carefully.

Everything is now going on around the events on the outskirts of Kharkiv. So it was they who provoked these events in this direction. I think I said publicly six months ago that if they continue to attack residential areas, then we will have to create a security zone. And just recently, as I said, we moved on to this.

They first provoked us in the Donbas, led us by the nose for eight years, deceived us that they were supposedly going to resolve the issue peacefully, and forced us to make attempts to bring the situation to peace by armed means. Then they deceived us during the negotiation process, decided that they would defeat Russia on the battlefield, inflict a strategic defeat on it. Then we warned them: do not enter our territory, do not fire at Belgorod and other adjacent territories, otherwise we will have to create a security zone.

Watch all the reports of your Western colleagues. After all, no one is talking about the shelling of Belgorod and other adjacent territories, everyone is talking only about the fact that Russia has opened a new front, attacking Kharkiv. Not a word. What causes this? They did it with their own hands. Well, then they reap the fruits of their creativity. The same thing can happen in the case of the use of high-precision long-range weapons that you asked about.

And in general, this constant escalation can lead to serious consequences. If these serious consequences occur in Europe, how will the United States behave in view of our strategic arms parity? It's hard to say.

Do they want a global conflict? It seems to me that they wanted to negotiate in the field of strategic weapons, but we don't see much desire to do so. There is some talk about this, but we don't seem to see much desire. Let's see what happens next.

V. Sineok: Vladimir Vladimirovich, Viktor Sineok, Izvestia Information Center.

For several months, even before your visit to the Central Asian countries, delegations of the US Treasury and other agencies that implement the sanctions regime came to Uzbekistan, among others. Unprecedented pressure on the capitals of Central Asian countries to exclude or suppress all opportunities and prospects for cooperation with Russia. How do you feel about this behavior, and can Russia somehow compensate for this pressure on Central Asian countries, including Uzbekistan?

If you'll excuse me, the second question is very quick. News has come that Russia is considering removing the Taliban from the list of terrorist organizations. How was this decision made, why, how will it affect our relations with Afghanistan, and when will it come into force?

Vladimir Putin: I'll start with the second part.

This is constantly discussed, and I will not comment on it in any way right now, because relations with the Taliban, with Afghanistan, are constantly being discussed. There are problems in Afghanistan, they are absolute, they are well known to everyone.

The question of how to build relations with the current government is another matter. But you need to build it somehow. These are the people who control the country, control the territory of the country, they are the authorities in Afghanistan today. It is necessary to proceed from the realities and build relationships accordingly.

We are in contact with many partners, including many in the Central Asian region. We take into account the opinion of each of our partners and friends and will formulate this position together.

As for the first part of your question. Well, there's no novelty here. I mean what is happening now, that "voyageurs" are flying all over the world, now to Latin America, now to Africa, then to the East, and they are intimidating everyone – these are elements of imperial behavior. And the political observers themselves, the American analysts themselves say this directly: The United States is an empire, and to a large extent its imperial ambitions are linked to domestic political events. Presidential elections are coming soon, and the current authorities want to confirm their status as an empire. Many people in the United States do not like this, many do not want to be an empire and bear the burden of empire. They don't want to be held accountable, and they don't want to expose their country to any dangers and drive it into any difficulties.

What about Central Asia? Uzbekistan is the largest country not only in Central Asia, but also the second largest in terms of population after Russia – 37 million. But "voyageurs" from the United States, as I said, fly to all regions of the world. Just recently, as you know, the Minister of Finance, in my opinion, was also in China. What was she talking about? I also mentioned this, I think, in Minsk: that the Chinese produce too many cars. They talked about overproduction of cars. I don't think the United States Secretary of the Treasury is illiterate. It's just a distortion of the facts.

What is overproduction? If we live in a market environment, the market regulates overproduction or not. They buy it, and it is also produced at a profit – which means that there is no overproduction. And how can another country be forced to stop producing a particular product? By force? Sanctions? And this is one of the options for using force. And so they are trying to act all over the world.

Of course, the countries are weak and insecure, especially those with dozens of NGOs that feed on the American hand, peck at what they put on their pen, of course, in these countries it is easier to manipulate the minds of the local population, it is easier to put pressure on the current authorities. Where the authorities feel confident, where they devote all their activities to strengthening sovereignty, the interests of their people and their country, they do not respond to these "shouts" from overseas. This is the case with large countries, as well as with small, but self-sufficient and self-respecting States.

We know that pressure was also exerted on the Central Asian region. Something I don't see yet is that everyone is on their knees and ready to blindly follow any "instructions" from overseas.

They – the Americans, the Europeans-of course commit certain actions that harm our partners; but in the end, it is also the sovereign choice of any country: how to build your own policy, whether to fight for sovereignty or not, whether sovereignty has a certain value or not, and so on.

In my opinion, it does. Because if a country wants to be successful, it must be sovereign, even in socio-economic terms. If you want to be successful, you must be sovereign. Otherwise, they will always push and subordinate the interests of another state to their foreign interests – just as, say, they are trying to do with cars in relation to China.

Other options-fertilizers will be made, chemistry, anything, airplanes – we are facing this. Yes, we see this, but there is nothing good in it, and it damages both international security and the global economy.

To.Panyushkin: Good afternoon, Vladimir Vladimirovich! Konstantin Panyushkin, Channel One.

On the eve it became known that the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Syrsky approved the deployment of French mercenaries-instructors, you can say, military, whatever you want. Now it's official and finally public. Moreover, Syrsky says that he hopes that other partners of the Kiev regime will also officially follow the French. What do you think about this and how far can it all go?

Allow me one more small clarification in the development of the question of legitimacy. From your answer, it follows that until the Western curators replace Zelensky in Kiev, you actually have no one to talk to in Ukraine. But I wanted to ask: did Alexander Lukashenko offer you any more Ukrainian military personnel as interlocutors?

Vladimir Putin: Whom? The military?

To.Panyushkin: The military, yes.

Vladimir Putin: Unfortunately, so far Alexander Grigoryevich does not command the military in Ukraine. If he had been in charge, we would have ended this conflict long ago, and to our mutual satisfaction. We would have found solutions to Ukraine if Ukraine were now commanded by people who would be guided by national interests, and not by the interests of their masters in Europe or overseas.

As for the fact that there may or may not be mercenaries in Ukraine, we are well aware of this, there is nothing new here. The fact that the military is now in Ukraine saying that they can appear – so they are there for a long time. We hear English, French, and Polish on the air. We know they are there, these so-called mercenaries. But under the guise of mercenaries, there are specialists there.

There was a question about long-range precision weapons. And who controls these weapons, who maintains them? Of course, these instructors are disguised as mercenaries, that's all. They exist and suffer losses. Perhaps this statement is due to the fact that it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to hide these losses. Therefore, it may be time to show that they are officially present there, so that these losses can also be shown in a real and legal way. I don't know, maybe.

As for the various contingents, I have already mentioned this. The Polish authorities say they are ready to send their troops. We hear Polish speech, there are a lot of mercenaries from Poland. If some contingents from European countries enter together with Poles, others will leave, but the Poles will never leave. This is an obvious thing – for me, at least, for sure. I may be wrong, but I don't think so.

Therefore, under the guise of "liberating some Ukrainian units stationed along the border, releasing them in order to send them to the battlefield, keeping them along the borders to ensure their safety" – nonsense and nonsense, that's all. And if they are there, they will also be in the affected area of our Armed Forces.

I don't think this is a good, correct solution and a good way out. This is an escalation and another step towards a serious conflict in Europe and a global conflict. Do they need it? Well, please. We will still do as we see fit, regardless of who is on the territory of Ukraine. And that's what they need to know for sure.

A. Golovko: Alexey Golovko, Rossiya TV channel.

In the Western press, there were reports that allegedly after the Swiss conference on Ukraine, Western countries want to hold another conference in Saudi Arabia and officially invite Russia there in order to show Moscow a supposedly consolidated position and start some kind of negotiations.

Vladimir Vladimirovich, if such a proposal is received, will our country participate in this conference, and if so, under what conditions?

Vladimir Putin: There is no answer yet, because I do not know what it is about. They say: we are not ready to invite Russia now, but then we will be ready. And we never refused – not now, not later, not a year earlier. We said we were ready.

We didn't stop negotiating, we were told: that's it, we won't negotiate with you anymore. One could say that we are not satisfied with the agreements that were reached in Istanbul. We started negotiations in Minsk, [they] were completed, brought to a certain level in Istanbul. It would have been possible, if there was no signature on the extract from the agreement that we prepared as a draft, by the head of the negotiation group on the part of Ukraine.

He initialed it, so it suited the Ukrainian side. They were given the command to throw it in the trash and try to defeat Russia on the battlefield, to inflict a strategic defeat on it. But he also said directly, publicly: if we had not been ordered from abroad (from the UK in this case, that is, from the United States, the same thing), then the fighting would have stopped a year and a half ago. It's been said.

On this basis, we have never given up and are ready to continue the negotiation process. But we do not know what and who, taking into account the legitimacy of the representatives of the Ukrainian authorities here, will be offered to us at some other stages. So I don't have an answer to that.

I am always surprised to see some gestures made by our Western cronies and partners who say that Russia refuses to negotiate. I've said it a thousand times, it's like they don't have ears: we don't refuse. The Ukrainian side refused publicly. They initialed the agreement and refused in order to defeat us on the battlefield. It doesn't work. We are ready now. Well, if you're ready, come back. What is it about?

They want to draw something, create the appearance of global support for what they have drawn voluntarily, themselves, based on their "wishlist", and present it as a consolidated position of the world community. They can't do that. This just means that they do not want to negotiate, but cling to the fact that they can get something else and turn the situation around on the battlefield-it does not work out. And the more attempts there are, the more losses there will be, and these losses are far from in favor of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Why is this happening? Today's rulers of Ukraine do not feel sorry for these people, they do not consider them their own. This is the problem and tragedy of Ukraine today. They do not consider these people their own, they do not protect the interests of the Ukrainian people today. I hope that people will eventually feel it. [My Emphasis]

Russian law treats the attacks on Russian civilians as War Crimes and aims to prosecute all involved in them. Putin just said, again I believe, that NATO is actively involved in those attacks and that Ukrainians aren’t really the prime-movers—they are the janitors and drivers. Thus, Ukrainian Nazi leaders work with NATO at the targeting meetings to determine what area of Russia will be terroristicly attacked. That’s been Russia’s position for many years now as reported by Maria Zakharova almost every week, and Russia’s prosecution goes back to 2014 when NATO began its hybrid war as Stoltenberg recently admitted.

The Council of Regions of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Uzbekistan.

Putin mentioned his participation in the first Council of Regions between Russia and Uzbekistan which deepened economic integration processes between the two nations in ways that never existed in Soviet times where everything was top→down directed. Now most Russian regions have direct involvement within Uzbekistan and vice versa. Instead of providing the entire transcript, I’m just going to report the key points in Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s remarks:

I would like to outline the following priorities for interregional cooperation.

The first is to further increase mutual trade. Over the past seven years, Uzbekistan's trade turnover with Russia has grown 2.5 times. Most importantly, the structure of mutual supplies is changing qualitatively, primarily due to products with high added value.

Regions are actively involved in this process, including our main partners: the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, Tatarstan, Moscow, Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Astrakhan, Ivanovo, Chelyabinsk regions, Krasnodar and Perm Territories, Bashkortostan and many others.

Today, action plans have been adopted to increase trade turnover through cooperation and import substitution projects, primarily with active involvement of the regions. In the coming months, we intend to open a full-fledged trade representative office of Uzbekistan in Russia to support such projects.

The second is the expansion of industrial cooperation. Russia is a leading investment and technological partner of Uzbekistan. We successfully operate more than three thousand Russian companies. Today, we are implementing projects in all key sectors, including energy, chemistry, petrochemicals, mechanical engineering, agriculture, logistics, textiles, food processing and other industries.

The scale of the industrial zone "Khimgrad" in the Tashkent region, launched with partners from Tatarstan, with a branch in the Jizzakh region, is expanding, which Vladimir Vladimirovich particularly noted at the expanded meeting. The total portfolio of joint projects already exceeds $ 45 billion, and this is far from the limit.

During the current summit, agreements were reached on new cooperation projects worth another $ 20 billion, a quarter of which, as I have already noted, falls on the regions. Among them are high-tech polymer production in Khorezm region, a metallurgical plant in Karakalpakstan, a gas processing complex in Kashkadarya region, industrial parks in Bukhara and Navoi regions. We intend to create new joint industrial zones for implementing cooperation projects with leading enterprises in Russia's regions. I am confident that the regional leaders of the two countries will prepare such projects within the framework of our Council's activities.

Third – the expansion of cooperation in the field of agriculture and the development of close practical cooperation meet our common interests and are aimed at ensuring food security in our countries. Currently, projects are being developed to expand the network of agrologistic centers in the regions of Uzbekistan to organize direct deliveries of high-quality fruit and vegetable products to Russia. Our large agricultural enterprises and agricultural clusters are also interested in the joint development of wholesale distribution centers in Russia and the cultivation of agricultural crops with further deliveries to Uzbekistan.

My colleagues have already reported to me this morning, and our Prime Minister, who is also present, told me that many regions have already made positive decisions. These issues will be resolved with our colleagues from Uzbekistan, and positive solutions will be found. It is important to work out the issue of implementing these projects on a mutually beneficial basis at the regional level.

Fourth, we intend to jointly develop tools for supporting and financing regional projects. We also discussed this issue during the negotiations. A joint investment platform with an initial capital of $ 500 million will be launched in the near future.

Fifth – we pay special attention to expanding cultural and humanitarian cooperation. Currently, 14 branches are successfully operating in Uzbekistan. Today we have signed another one, the 15th,-a branch of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University. These are branches of leading Russian universities, including Moscow and St. Petersburg State Universities in Tashkent, MISIS University of Science and Technology in Almalyk, Kazan Federal University in Jizzakh and many, many other universities. We have agreed to establish a branch in our country, as I said, of the Nikolai Bauman Moscow State Technical University and the All-Russian Academy of Foreign Trade. Active work is underway to create a center for the development of advanced knowledge and competencies. In addition, a program of cultural exchange for the next three years was adopted today, which provides for holding joint events in the regions of our countries.

Quite a review that’s part of an overall process begun by Putin to revitalize relations with the crucial Central Asian nations that relies on greater involvement of regions in the overall development process so that economic dynamism isn’t just a federal preserve as it was during the Soviet Era. The building of better logistical links through Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan to the Caspian Sea is also a priority so overall trade turnover can continue to rise. And as Putin said, a strong economic base is required to develop and defend sovereignty. One can see how Putin is using Uzbekistan as an example for its fellow stans and as an economic pilot program within Russia’s regions. His emphasis that all this development must be on a win-win basis is something that cannot be overlooked and showcases the interplay between EAEU and BRI that will merge at some point in the future.

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