We’ll go the same way

Chairman of the Federation Council (FC) Valentina Matvienko on Thursday summed up the results of the outgoing year at a traditional press conference. She admitted that she does not see the prerequisites for ending the conflict in Ukraine, and assured that the upcoming presidential elections will be held in conditions of complete “internal legitimacy.” Ms. Matvienko promised to “think about tomorrow” about her new term of office, which, like the presidential term, expires in 2024.

“We worked calmly and efficiently,” Valentina Matvienko briefly summed up the past year and immediately began answering questions. First of all, she talked about working on Vladimir Putin’s instructions that all participants in the special operation be “placed in absolutely the same conditions.” Let us recall that the President made such a statement during straight line December 14. “This order has already begun to be implemented; the prime minister has given the command to ministries and departments. Now the floor is primarily for the Ministry of Defense,” the speaker said, adding that the relevant bills could be considered in January. According to her, this topic has a “moral dimension”: “All defenders of the Fatherland are equal, and we treat everyone with deep respect.”

Answering a question about the prerequisites for ending the conflict in Ukraine, Ms. Matvienko said that the West would “abandon Ukraine,” just as it once “abandoned Iraq and fled from Afghanistan.”

They harbored hopes that Russia would “fall apart from the inside,” but they made a big mistake by underestimating its potential, the speaker stated: “They didn’t achieve the goals they set.” These “cynically stated” goals, Valentina Matvienko recalled, include the subjugation of Russia with “relatively small money” by the hands of Ukrainians and the loading of the Western military-industrial complex. However, the only result so far has been the undermining of Nord Streams and the weakening of Europe, she added: “The Russian armed forces have not allowed any ‘counter-offensives’ to win on the battlefield.”

Further, the Chairman of the Federation Council recalled that the West itself is to blame for the Ukrainian conflict, since in 2021 it refused to give Russia security guarantees, and in 2022 it thwarted the planned agreements: “About this said closest member of the team (President of Ukraine Vladimir.— “Kommersant”) Zelensky (David.— “Kommersant”) Arakhamia in plain text: we were ready, we initialed the agreements, and we were ready to stop this conflict. But neither the West, nor Great Britain, in particular, (ex-Prime Minister Boris.— “Kommersant”) Johnson – no one needed it.” Russia has formulated the conditions under which it is “ready to negotiate,” Ms. Matvienko continued, but until these conditions are met, “we cannot behave differently”: “We need to make sure that Ukraine is not an anti-Russian project, does not remain security threat.”

Valentina Matvienko also stated that “you can no longer sell the counter-offensive and the victory of Ukraine on the battlefield” to Western taxpayers, but it is necessary to explain why “hundreds of billions of dollars were burned in the furnace” and achieved nothing. “But that’s their business, let them think and finally realize that they can’t behave like that with Russia,” she continued mentoringly. “I don’t yet see, to be honest, the prerequisites for this conflict to stop. But it is a fact that interest is falling in the West and there are no arguments left for allocating additional large funds. And we see the confusion and lack of understanding in Ukraine about what will happen to them tomorrow.”

From foreign policy, the speaker turned to domestic policy and stated that the main thing in the upcoming presidential elections is “internal legitimacy”: citizens must be sure that their vote influences the result.

Our electoral system is “one of the most perfect”, it is transparent and honest and “we have nothing to hide,” the senator assured.

Russia welcomes observation of the elections by foreign representatives and is preparing invitations to the parliaments of “friendly countries.” Those who, under the guise of observers, want to “engage in destabilizing the situation” will not succeed, Ms. Matvienko warned: all attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of Russia will be strictly monitored by the relevant commission of the Federation Council. “I’m sure there will be quite a lot of observers from abroad: the interest in Russia is huge, it is still considered a leading, influential country,” she said.

Finally, Valentina Matvienko touched upon the events that are expected after the presidential elections, in particular the expiration of her term of office. Let us remember that since 2011, Mrs. Matvienko has represented the executive power of St. Petersburg in the upper house. She was delegated to the Federation Council twice by her successor as governor, Georgy Poltavchenko, and in 2019 by the current mayor, Alexander Beglov. All three times, at the very first meeting after the appointment, the senators almost unanimously elected her speaker. But Valentina Matvienko did not predict whether this would happen a fourth time, answering the question with a phrase from the novel “Gone with the Wind”: “I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

“I am a member of the team and I am grateful to fate that I have the opportunity to work in Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin’s team,” summed up the chairman of the Federation Council. “But in the team they don’t say: I want – I don’t want, I will – I won’t.”

Andrey Prah