Russia and China have developed relations to an unprecedented level based on “full trust” and they almost always coordinate international action, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his annual press conference.
Relations between Russia and China had reached “a point that has never existed throughout our entire history” in both level and quality, Putin told Russian and foreign journalists, as well as members of the public who called in during the four-and-a-half televised session on Thursday.
“Everything that Russia and China do for each other is based on full trust,” he said during the “Result of the Year” press conference on Thursday.
Putin added bilateral trade between Russia and China was worth between US$220 billion and US$240 billion, with almost 600 joint investment projects of a combined value of US$200 million.
“It means the future is assured,” he said.
The president, who has held the post, with a four-year gap to serve as prime minister, for 20 years, has visited China 20 times, most recently in May.
Before that, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a “no limits partnership” with no forbidden areas of cooperation in February 2022, days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We frequently, almost always, coordinate our actions on the international stage, which is a very important element of international affairs,” Putin said.
In 2009, Russia and China, together with India and Brazil, founded a grouping called BRICS that has now become a geopolitical grouping with nine members.
The Russian president denied, however, that the bloc was established to counter the West and that it had a confrontational agenda.
“Our work is not aimed against anyone. We focus on our own interests and the interests of the group’s member countries,” he said.
Ties between Moscow and Beijing serve as “a stabilizing tool” in global affairs, said Putin, whose invasion of neighboring Ukraine has become the largest and deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.
‘Special military operation’
Putin’s answers were clearly aimed at the domestic audience, who sent more than 2.2 million questions to the televised press conference.
A large part of the press conference was focused on the war in Ukraine, which the president referred to as a “special military operation.”
“I started telling fewer jokes and almost stopped laughing,” Putin said about how the war had changed him.
“Due to various circumstances, we are now increasing the strength of the army, security and law enforcement agencies to 1.5 million people.”
Asked whether he would change his decision to launch the full-scale invasion in 2022 if he could, Putin said: “we should have done it earlier” instead of waiting for the situation to deteriorate.
He insisted that the Russian army was making progress and advancing “by square kilometers” every day but he declined to give a timeline for the war.
Russia has always been ready to talk with Ukraine, Putin said, “but we need that country to be ready for both negotiations and compromise.”
Putin also said that he was open to talks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
“I don’t know when we will meet because he has not said anything about it … I have not talked to him for more than four years,” he said.
“Should there be an opportunity for a meeting with the newly elected president, Donald Trump, I am confident there will be plenty to discuss.”
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Putin, responding to a question from an American journalist, rejected the suggestion that he would find himself in some kind of weakened state when meeting Trump.
“You and the people who pay your salary in the United States really want to see Russia in a weakened state,” he told the journalist. “I believe that Russia has become significantly stronger in the past two or three years.”
Russia’s sovereignty
“We are strengthening our defense capability. The combat readiness of the Russian armed forces is the highest in the world today,” he added.
According to Putin, Russia was now “capable of firmly standing on our feet when it comes to the economy,” with an expected growth rate of about 4% for 2024.
He acknowledged a rocketing year-on-year inflation rate of more than 9% but said that people’s salaries had increased, too.
“We are becoming a truly sovereign country, and we barely depend on anybody,” he added.
The president spoke at length about Russia’s sovereignty, which appeared to be at the core of his political calculations.
“Economic growth is also an effect of bolstered sovereignty,” Putin said.
He also spoke of the changes in Russia’s nuclear doctrine, adopted in November, in which it demands increased “responsibility of non-nuclear states that may participate in an aggression against the Russian Federation alongside the countries that have nuclear weapons.”
“If, like their allies, these countries also pose a threat to our sovereignty and Russia’s existence, then we imply that we have the right to use our nuclear weapons against them,” Putin said.
That means Russia could respond with nuclear weapons should it deems an attack by Ukraine as “a threat to Russia’s sovereignty.”
Edited by Taejun Kang.