Russian State Duma Speaker blames EU, Biden and his supporters for Ukraine conflict

Moscow: Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin on Tuesday blamed the European Union (EU), former US President Joe Biden and his supporters for the conflict in Ukraine, local media reported.

At the last meeting of the fall session on Tuesday, Vyacheslav Volodin said, “The EU, Biden and his supporters are to blame for what is happening in Ukraine. It is their fault that many innocent civilians died. Their hands are stained with the people’s blood,” Russia’s leading news agency Tass reported.

He said that the culprits of the conflict are “trying to retain their power” by accusing Russia for everything.

He said, “But you and I understand that this is just an attempt to stay in power. The people of European states will assess their work, and just as in several other countries, there will be changes because it will become impossible to portray Russia as the enemy.”

Vyacheslav Volodin said that Russia has never considered Europe its enemy and has always provided opportunities for development to it.

He said, “Russia has never been an enemy of Europe. It has helped Europe grow by supplying affordable energy, [making] its economy more competitive.”

According to him, some European leaders exploit the notion of a Russian threat to continue their grip on power, Tass reported. He further said, “It would be wise for [European citizens] to hold such politicians accountable. The earlier they step down, the sooner Europe will see improvements.”

On December 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin termed the attempts being made by the European Union (EU) to seize Russian assets as “robbery.”

During his annual Q&A session and the year-end press conference titled ‘Results of the Year’, he said, “Stealing is not the right word. Stealing is a covert theft of property. But they are doing this openly. Therefore, it is robbery. Why aren’t they succeeding? Because the consequences will be grave for the robbers. What does this mean? First, it is difficult to accomplish. They have not said that they will rob and seize. One of their ideas is to issue a reparation loan secured by our assets. What does issuing a loan mean? It means consequences for the budgets of every country involved; this will increase the budgetary debt of each country. If a country issues a loan secured by our gold and currency assets, this must be reflected in its budget. Take France, whose state debt has reached 120 per cent [of GDP]. ”

“Our state debt is 17.7 per cent, and theirs is 120 per cent. It is true that our budget deficit is 2.6 per cent, but it will go down to 1.6 per cent next year, while France’s budget deficit is 6 per cent. The new obligations will have to be added to the budget. I believe they are having big problems with next year’s budget. All this is the reason why it is difficult to take decisions related to the robbery of someone else’s assets,” he added.

He warned that seizure of Russian assets in Europe would undermine trust in the Euro zone as several nations like Russia keep their foreign reserves in Euro Zone.

“But, there will be graver consequences for those who might endeavour that. This will not just be a blow to their image, but this will subvert all the confidence in the Euro area, since many countries store their foreign reserves in the Euro Zone. Not only Russia does that, but also those who have free reserves, primarily oil-producing countries. They will look at what is happening – they are already doing so, and they will have suspicions, doubts and fears,” he said.

IANS