Contribution of Vladimir Putin to the 2nd Forum of the Silk Road

by Vladimir Putin

 

Mr Chairman, Mr Xi Jinping, colleagues,

It is obvious that ensuring stable and sustained economic growth and strengthening comprehensive links between countries and integration associations on the Eurasian subcontinent requires an advanced transport, energy and telecommunications infrastructure, as President Xi Jinping and Ms Lagarde have just said.

I should note that Russia is currently implementing comprehensive national projects, which cover major sectors crucial for dynamic economic development. Most significantly, we allocate resources to infrastructure programmes worth hundreds of billion dollars in investment.

The implementation of the long-term tasks we set in the infrastructure development area will undoubtedly have a great synergistic effect – hopefully, not only for Russia but for the entire Eurasian region as well.

As regards the transport infrastructure, its modernisation and expansion is Russia’s major priority. The Safe and Quality Roads national project will receive some 4.3 trillion rubles until 2024 (which is 4.8% of the GDP and amounts to about $80 billion). We will also allocate 6.35 trillion rubles for a comprehensive programme for developing trunk road infrastructure (6.3% of the GDP, or slightly more than $130 billion).

We are making consistent efforts to modernise the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Baikal–Amur Mainline, which connect Russia’s European part with its Far East. We plan to raise their capacity 1.5-fold and increase the volume of annually transported cargo to 210 million tonnes by 2025.

We are paying particular attention to the development of the Northern Sea Route and considering the opportunity to connect it to China’s Maritime Silk Road and thus create a global and competitive route that will connect Northeast Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia with Europe.

Such an ambitious project implies close cooperation between Eurasian countries in boosting cargo transportation as well as constructing port terminals and logistics centres. We invite the countries present here to join in its implementation.

The development of the International North–South Transport Corridor of over 7,000 km offers new prospects as well. It will include establishing railway and road transportation, which will allow for a considerable growth of cargo traffic from South Asia through Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia to Europe.

As regards improving the Eurasian transport infrastructure, Russia is closely cooperating with its partners in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which is implementing the Agreement on Creating Favourable Conditions for International Road Transportation. In accordance with the agreement, six new routes will be launched next year, including the Western Europe – Western China transit corridor that will connect the Yellow Sea ports of the People’s Republic of China with ports in Russia’s Leningrad Region.

Therefore, our aim is to develop Russia’s nationwide transportation network with a view to its integration with Eurasian countries’ transportation arteries.

Another fundamentally important area of cooperation to provide interconnection in the Eurasian continent is creating a common energy infrastructure. As you may know, Russia is taking active efforts to expand the oil and gas pipeline trans-border network. The construction of the Power of Siberia natural gas pipeline is in full swing to provide safe and uninterrupted deliveries of natural gas to China and the entire Asia-Pacific region. The construction of gas pipelines in Russia’s European part is nearing completion: those are the Nord Stream pipeline laid along the bottom of the Baltic Sea and the Turkish Stream along the bottom of the Black Sea, which aim to enhance Europe’s energy security.

Russia is also building capacity to produce and export liquefied natural gas. Last year, our LNG exports grew by over 70 percent and amounted to almost 27 billion cubic metres. Within the next 20 years, we expect this volume to reach 100 billion cubic metres. Work will be implemented to build new plants in Russia’s northern territories – Yamal LNG and Arctic LNG. We are considering the opportunity to expand the large-scale Sakhalin-2 oil and gas development project in Russia’s Far East.

We believe that all these oil and gas projects are making a considerable contribution to boosting energy security in the entire Eurasian continent and creating a large Eurasian energy space.

Finally, the third major aspect of the Eurasian infrastructure system is digital networks and telecommunications.

Russia is going through a process of forming an information society, where digital solutions are stimulating economic competitiveness, GDP growth, and people’s quality of life.

Russia is among the top ten countries in terms of broadband Internet access. In the coming year, we plan to begin using 5G networks. Together with the Eurasian Economic Union member states, Russia is introducing universal standards of information exchange and protection and building a digital space. I believe that in the long term, we will succeed in creating such a space across the entire Eurasian continent and establishing coordinated rules for online trade.

We initiated the development of the APEC Internet and Digital Economy Roadmap. We are closely cooperating with ASEAN member states in the issues of information and communication technology’s secure use.

Russia is promoting a number of large-scale initiatives in the UN, SCO, BRICS and at East Asia summits related to exchanging experience in state oversight of the digital sector and harmonisation of national strategies of developing technology markets of the future.

In other words, we advocate joining all states’ efforts with the aim of building an open digital space and a unified telecommunications system.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Russia is committed to active joint work with all interested partners in seeking new growth drivers, boosting relations in the Eurasian continent, and achieving many other common goals. I am confident that by taking joint efforts we will succeed for the benefit of our nations and all Eurasian states.

Thank you for your attention.

Vladimir Putin
Read more:https://www.voltairenet.org/article206431.html

After verifying my picture library, I found I made a mistake and attributed the article mentioned at top to Andrew Bolt... Many apologies. It was Greg Sheridan who basically mistook Putin for Donald Trump in regard to dictators looking for a fight (an ultra-nationalist in need of enemies), except Putin got better election results.

 

 

 

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Russian president Vladimir Putin scored at least eight goals in an exhibition ice hockey game with former National Hockey League players at Sochi’s Bolshoy Ice Dome, then took a face-first spill while waving to the crowd during a post-game victory lap.

The 66-year-old leader, who appeared fine after the tumble, had taken the ice on Friday night in what has become an annual tradition. He played on the Legends team alongside Russian hockey stars such as Hall of Famers Slava Fetisov and Pavel Bure.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/may/10/vladimir-putin-hockey-fall...

 

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Hapless Russia-watchers canonize journalist Dorenko as ‘mysteriously killed’ Putin critic

For some in the West, any death of a prominent journalist in Russia seems to be only a fortunate opportunity to speculate that he or she must have been an enemy of the Kremlin and died because of it.

The latest person to fall victim to this trend is Sergey Dorenko, who suddenly died on Thursday while out on a motorcycle ride.

"Anti-Putin journalist dies in mysterious motorbike accident days after criticizing Russian authorities over fatal plane crash," the Daily Mail chose to headline its report on Dorenko’s death.

The usual Russiagaters were quick to chip in with anger and disbelief. Bill Browder, the internationally famous anti-Putin crusader, called Dorenko "one of Russia's most outspoken independent journalists and critics of the Putin regime."

"Putin will be Putin," Bild editor Julian Ropcke declared as he retweeted the story. He added a translation of an angry rant posted by Dorenko in the wake of last weekend’s Superjet crash.

"One of Dorenko's last posts. Deadly? Rest in peace."

Good for Ropcke that the message he quoted didn't carry a date stamp. Otherwise his readers might have learned that it was posted right on the day of the tragedy, when the high death toll was suspected but not yet confirmed. Dorenko had posted no less than 59 messages on his channels after that "last post."

As for the Daily Mail’s insinuation that Putin's hitmen assassinated "Kremlin critic" for saying bad things about the Russian government, the autopsy has since shown that Dorenko suffered a ruptured aortic aneurysm. This was reported by the very radio station that he headed. It's a relatively rare and usually lethal condition.

For the sake of argument, let’s say the autopsy report can be falsified and the Kremlin did go after the journalist. The problem with that conspiracy theory is that Dorenko was not as critical of government policies as his colleagues at the Daily Mail and the “blame Russia” crowd want to believe.

The Mail paints a story of a brave no-nonsense reporter, who had spent years criticizing the Russian government. Dorenko was fired in 2000, after accusing the government and Vladimir Putin of lying about the causes of the Kursk nuclear submarine disaster. In 2007, he released footage of his 1998 interview with Alexander Litvinenko, who died in Britain from Polonium-210 poisoning. Days before his death he "attacked an effort to blame the crew for a disaster that many suspect is the fault of technical problems with the Sukhoi plane."

Conveniently omitted were some of Dorenko’s other statements and ideas that didn't fit the narrative. For instance, he was a vocal supporter of the decision to reintegrate Crimea after it broke away from Ukraine in 2014, prompting the Ukrainian press to call Dorenko a “top Russian propagandist.”

Those who don't support Russia's position on Crimea lack both heart and intelligence," Dorenko had said on the issue. On another occasion he literally threatened to violate any American with a fire iron if challenged in his opinion that the cities of Donetsk, Lugansk and Kharkov in eastern Ukraine were "our land.” As for the tensions between Russia and Ukraine, he wrote: "We can inflict pain indefinitely until people say they have realized that there will be no Ukraine that stands against Russia. If we have to keep proving it for ten more years, we will." 

Good luck printing those opinions in the Western press!

The actual Dorenko – not the Daily Mail-Browder-Roepcke construct – was a controversial figure on the Russian media scene. In the 1990s he was famous as a reputation hitman for oligarch, media mogul and shady power broker Boris Berezovsky. One of his jobs was to conduct relentless attacks at ex-PM Evgeny Primakov on behalf of a presidential candidate by the name of Vladimir Putin.

In one report he was explaining to viewers at length that Primakov's recent surgery at a private Swiss clinic must have cost hundreds of thousands of euros or maybe more, considering how old and frail the politician was.

Yes, there was his famous report on the Kursk disaster, in which he accused Putin of mishandling the crisis. "The authorities disrespect us all. That's why they lie. And more importantly, they treat us like that solely because we allow them," was how he wrapped up the report, and was indeed sacked after that.

Yet despite his often abrasive personal style and strong opinions, he remained part of the media establishment in Russia, not some fringe voice delivering online rants about “evil Putin.” He headed one of Moscow's biggest radio stations. What could possibly make him a target?

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/459035-russia-dorenko-western-press/

 

 

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Meanwhile, at Assange.... read more: not a convict past...