And there is still one more important theme that directly affects global security. Today many talk about the struggle against poverty. What is actually happening in this sphere? On the one hand, financial resources are allocated for programmes to help the world’s poorest countries – and at times substantial financial resources. But to be honest — and many here also know this – linked with the development of that same donor country’s companies. And on the other hand, developed countries simultaneously keep their agricultural subsidies and limit some countries’ access to high-tech products.
And let’s say things as they are – one hand distributes charitable help and the other hand not only preserves economic backwardness but also reaps the profits thereof. The increasing social tension in depressed regions inevitably results in the growth of radicalism, extremism, feeds terrorism and local conflicts. And if all this happens in, shall we say, a region such as the Middle East where there is increasingly the sense that the world at large is unfair, then there is the risk of global destabilisation.
It is obvious that the world’s leading countries should see this threat. And that they should therefore build a more democratic, fairer system of global economic relations, a system that would give everyone the chance and the possibility to develop.
Dear ladies and gentlemen, speaking at the Conference on Security Policy, it is impossible not to mention the activities of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). As is well-known, this organisation was created to examine all – I shall emphasise this – all aspects of security: military, political, economic, humanitarian and, especially, the relations between these spheres.
What do we see happening today? We see that this balance is clearly destroyed. People are trying to transform the OSCE into a vulgar instrument designed to promote the foreign policy interests of one or a group of countries. And this task is also being accomplished by the OSCE’s bureaucratic apparatus which is absolutely not connected with the state founders in any way. Decision-making procedures and the involvement of so-called non-governmental organisations are tailored for this task. These organisations are formally independent but they are purposefully financed and therefore under control.
I watched from Germany on BBC, and Olympic spectacle that was at once thrilling and magnificent, and at the same time the saddest moment in my life as an athlete. The BBC and most other Western media reported on stray dogs, non- functional toilets, the plight of gays in Sochi bars, and left out or convoluted anything positive about the scene in Sochi.
For my team and me this was onerous, given we had colleagues on the ground in Sochi who were covering events. The spectacle that was a great Olympics left us feeling as if we witnessed a murder on closed circuit TV and the trial judge excluded our testimony. In the "murderers" of the Sochi Olympics went free. American President Barack Obama led the unsportsmanlike conduct toward the Olympics in end, the empire's 2014. He was joined by the entire LGBT community of the western world. They even pulled lesbian tennis legend Billy Jean King out of mothballs just to become the poster girl of anti- Russian sports. In the end, the world's journalists missed no opportunity to cast a shadow over Russia's effort. Reporters were instructed to dig for dirt and dig they did. Anytime a US athlete took a spill on the slopes, a news team was there to talk about bad snow conditions. If a Russian won a medal and an American did not, the whining and crying and bitching and moaning did not stop. From a sportsman's perspective watching Sochi was like watching athletics and the Olympic dream being flushed down a toilet. The horrendous coverage by American networks was only
exceeded in nastiness by the BBC. One moment that showed the British network's biased coverage came when Jenny Jones won Great Britain's first Olympic medal on snow in the snowboarding competition. In the booth for BBC were British snowboarder Aimee Fuller joined by Ed Leigh and Tim Warwood. The announcers were heard by viewers cheering when Jones's competitors fell. Fans of the sport complained to BBC about the lack of sportsmanship, which led to the article on the subject. This was not an isolated event, I assure you. Oliver Brown of The Telegraph captured the distasteful essence of the BBCs unsportsmanlike partisanship:
"In particular, the squeals from Fuller' gormless sidekicks, Ed Leigh and Tim Wanvood, both imploring Jones's Austrian rival Anna Gasser to fa// over, were quite hog-whimperingly awful. It was the point at which patriotic zealousness tipped over into zealotry. "
Russians whom I know were good sports, my young colleagues, photographers Pasha Kovalenko and Nina Zotina, took it upon themselves to go overboard photographing Olympic events for us. In all honesty, it was these two young Russians who opened my eyes to just how tragic the media war on Russia was. You see, we could not afford to pay much for photographers or reporters at the games, but these two young professionals were ever trusting and professional, and they ended up donating much of their time and effort to our cause of showing Sochi realistically. These two, and a scattering of other colleagues and associates of theirs, all proved the real spirit of Russians in a test which they never knew was a test.
It wasn't long before we all learned to be scared. US senators, the US ambassador and even senior US State Department personnel helped set Ukraine on fire. The February 2014 coup d'état began just as Vladimir Putin and Russia were focused on sport and the coming out party of Russia. I wonder at the global view from Washington DC as I write this, and I shudder to think of the calculated recklessness of it all. That was a tipping point to make us question what US pretensions about freedom and democracy really mean. Beneath the deafening noise of rocket fire across Donetsk and Luhansk, many of us found brothers and sisters fighting not just for peace, but for the essence of freedom itself. Make no mistake, the false narratives we are subjected to re ardin Ukraine are si n osts of freedom and democrac
Beneath the deafening noise of rocket fire across Donetsk and Luhansk, many of us found brothers and sisters fighting not just for peace, but for the essence of freedom itself. Make no mistake, the false narratives we are subjected to regarding Ukraine are signposts of freedom and democracy deconstructed and destroyed. It is in this fearsome reality the reader can find the real motivational component that serves "so-called" Kremlin Trolls. In the chapters to come the deep dark secrets of Vladimir Putin's harbingers will be unmasked. The hard lesson for most will be accepting a new reality.
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