Our political observer Pavel Zarubin will talk about the details of what happened in Vietnam.
In many respects, this is a historical video, which no one has seen yet. The moment shot by the President’s personal operator. Lavrov shows Putin a sheet of paper with the text, and we can hear the words about the approval of the statement. Do you approve the statement? The joint statement of Putin and Trump on Syria instantly became the main political news of the summit.
Vladimir Putin: “The work on the APEC Summit was useful and successful because it wasn't that easy to come to the statement on Syria. Among absolutely fundamental things are, firstly, the continuation of the fight against terrorism.
This is very important for the US, especially in relation to the recent tragic events that occurred there, connected to the terrorist attacks. This is important for us, for a country that has been facing this problem for a long time. This is important for the whole world community. The fight against terrorism will be continued with joint efforts. As for Syria, I consider it extremely important that we confirmed the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country. We agreed that after the end of the fight against terror, after the elimination of the terrorist threat in this territory, we'll move towards a political settlement under the auspices of the United Nations”.
Only Putin and Trump know when they talked about Syria and when about other things. Thousands of journalists around the world, watching this video, counted how many times the presidents of Russia and the United States got together and talked. Publicly four.
Putin gave five to the president of Peru, then Trump came. During the photo shoot, the presidents of Russia and the US were next to each other. The next morning, before the start of the meeting, Trump deliberately went to see Putin. Then more pictures, and again the presidents actively discuss something while walking. And this is a backstage shooting of another rather detailed conversation, after which Trump was seemingly in quite a good mood. “Hello everybody! Glad to see you”.
There were several handshakes, too.
With other presidents, Trump was noticed trying to pull and squeeze their hand, but none of them was a judo master.
Says Putin: “I don’t know his habits, we don’t know each other well. But the US president behaves very correctly, kindly, and we have a normal dialogue. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough time and so far we can’t talk in more detail about the whole complex of our relations, and there is something to talk about both in the sphere of security and in the sphere of economic cooperation, which is practically at zero level today. Therefore, we’ll certainly need to find an opportunity, as well as our teams, to sit down and talk at the presidential level about the whole complex of our relations”.
Trump himself shared his first impressions after talking to Putin with journalists directly on board the aircraft. Those were interested in only one thing again, whether he asked about some Russian intervention in the elections. He did. And he again received a firm 'no' in return.
“When will all the haters and fools out there realize that having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. These are political games that are always bad for our country?” — Trump would Twit later.
And this morning, Trump was literally attacked during the press conference. If after talking to Putin, the US president believes him, does that mean that he doesn’t believe the US special services?
Donald Trump, US President: "I believe that Putin is convinced that neither he nor Russia interfered in the election. He said he didn’t do it. I think that it offends him very much. But this artificial barrier got in the way, and it's a shame. I feel that maintaining friendly relations with Russia, instead of always fighting with it, is valuable for the world, valuable for our country. Very heavy sanctions were imposed on Russia, and it's time to heal the shocked and broken world".
American companies were the majority at the Economic Forum in St. Petersburg.
Putin noted that everyone wanted to work in Russia.
Vladimir Putin: “They banned Exxon Mobil from working on the Arctic shelf. They deprived the company of an interesting and promising work that would have increased the economic power of the United States, create additional jobs there, bring profit, tax levies and so on. Your place will be taken by competitors. This is inevitable in the modern world”.
It was a very interesting moment when Putin said, listen, you are losing, deals pass you by. I think he feels that such a message will be accurately perceived by President Trump, who wants to make deals and create more jobs in the United States.
However, instead of a substantive dialogue with Russia on a huge number of world problems, the US is overtaken by anti-Russian hysteria. Moscow's interference is seen everywhere. Former Trump’s campaign chairman Manafort is under home arrest for his activities in Ukraine.
“But I don’t understand what this has to do with Russia. Nothing. There is nothing here, just senseless chatter and the desire to use any clue to fight the current US president”, — Putin remarked.
When Putin entered this press conference room, the correspondent of CNN, the TV channel which is especially successful in looking for the Russian trail everywhere, began to take pictures against the backdrop of the Russian president.
Matthew Chance immediately posted the photo on Twitter. It's even surprising that his own TV channel hasn’t yet accused the reporter of working for Putin. After all, CNN makes many of its conclusions without even having such photos.
Reporting live, the American journalist analyzed Putin's speech in the CNN’s corporate style. He said without having secured a proper one-on-one meeting with Donald Trump, which, by the way, everyone expected. But the same American viewers hardly forgot that it was Trump who was the first to declare his desire to meet with Putin a week before the APEC summit:
“We may be having a meeting with Putin, he is very influential. They can help us with North Korea, Syria, and we need to talk about Ukraine”.
Will Putin's meeting with Trump be of a full scale or, as we call it, on the move?
“I repeat again, that we hear statements by Donald Trump that he’s planning to hold such a meeting with President Putin. President Putin is ready for this, Americans know about this, protocol services are in contact”, — noted Sergey Lavrov.
Newspapers wrote that a meeting room was prepared and flags ironed. However, upon arrival in Vietnam's Danang, Americans behaved, to put it mildly, strange. The White House claims that no formal meeting will take place due to the presidents’ mismatching schedules.
By that time, Putin, as planned, began bilateral meetings at the APEC summit. We saw that the president, the foreign minister, and Putin's foreign policy assistant were actively discussing something.
Furama Hotel, in which the APEC summit is held. Here, in almost every room, everything is ready for negotiations at the highest level.
In this room, President Putin met with Prime Minister Abe. If a full-scale meeting between Putin and Trump had taken place, then everything would have looked about the same.
This question was addressed to Mr Lavrov: Sergey Viktorovich, excuse me, what's going on around the meeting with Trump?
- Why are you asking me? Who should I ask? Ask the Americans.
“We don’t talk about this at all. We say that we heard that President Trump wanted to meet with President Putin, and it was expressed by President Trump himself. I don’t know his other office blimps say. I’m not responsible for this, so please contact the American side. We remember that President Trump was the first who started saying that he would like to meet with Putin. And today we hear from the US... Dmitry Peskov, Russian President's Press Secretary. "That's why I say that the statements are conflicting. We don’t yet fully understand, but we’ll patiently continue to work in order to reach some sort of understanding. But, simply put, both presidents are in the city, one way or another they will meet".
They did. And more than once. But no full-scale talks were held.
“This was due to Mr. Trump’s schedule and my schedule. And to certain formalities of the protocol, which our teams couldn’t cope with, unfortunately. Well, they’ll be punished for this”, - commented Putin.
As it turned out, the Americans insisted on holding the meeting at their hotel and at their time, although last time in Hamburg, the meeting was already held in the American sector of the G20 summit.
Dmitry Peskov, Russian President's Press Secretary: "They proposed one single timing that suited the American side and offered one place, a room that was rented by the Americans. They showed no flexibility and, unfortunately, no other alternative proposals were provided, so the meeting couldn’t take place".
American officials, steeped in internal intrigues, thus did everything to prevent Putin and Trump from talking. For some reason, the US President wasn’t even present at two meetings of the APEC summit. His place was simply empty. But Putin and Trump still met and more than once, and even achieved concrete results. The statement on Syria is intended, among other things, to promote final reconciliation in the country.
“The military work to eliminate the hotbed of terrorism in Syria is coming to an end. The latest events in the South-East of the country show this. It was, in fact, the last stronghold of ISIS. Now, the most important thing is to complete this work, and secure the de-escalation zones agreements, secure the cease-fire regime, create conditions for the beginning of the political process”, — said Russian President.
But not only Russia, of course, is now wondering what to expect from the US. By its behavior, the American administration continues to discourage even the allies. The host of the summit, the president of Vietnam, had to slightly hit Trump, reminding that at that particular moment they were supposed to shake hands.
Then, Trump so deliberately and for so long shook Vietnam’s President’s hand that this was also conspicuous. And on the eve, when the host of the summit made a speech and everyone applauded, the American president sat with his hands folded. The Vietnamese couldn’t help but notice such behavior. Moreover, it was in Danang that the Vietnamese war, which was shameful for the US, actually began. No one forgot the atrocities, the use of chemical weapons against civilians in the country.
Phạm Trương Uy, hero of the People's Army of Vietnam: "They bombed a lot. Everything was as told".
In the United States, this bomber was called a "flying fortress." It was simply impossible to knock it down. But in just 12 days, the Vietnamese, with the support of the Soviet Union, shot down 34 such aircraft at once.
The wreckage of the B-52 is on display in the center of Hanoi. One of the American stormtroopers was piloted by young and now well-known both in the US and Russia Senator John McCain.
- What is your name?
- Lieutenant Commander John Sidney McCain.
- How is your food?
- Not like in Paris, but it’s fine.
The prison, which American war prisoners called "Hanoi Hilton" with bitter irony.
In its dungeons, current Senator John McCain spent five and a half years. Despite the fact that the Vietnamese tried to treat the prisoners humanely, it’s unlikely that life here could be called pleasant. Apparently, McCain remained bitterly angry at the Soviet Union for this humiliation and disgrace forever.
Double humiliation. His plane was shot down by a Soviet missile. But moreover, McCain owes the salvation of his life to Russians. Soviet officers found out that he was from a dynasty of respected US military, and saved him from the wrath of the Vietnamese. The shame he felt clearly predetermined the views of the future politician McCain, who at every opportunity tries to take it out on Russia.
During the APEC summit, modern Vietnam tried to be extremely hospitable to everyone. And the summit took place in practically extreme conditions after the last typhoon. The rains never stopped.
Several people at once turn around a giant stand prepared for taking pictures of the presidents so that everything takes place indoors. Then they decide to try it outdoors, fold polyethylene from the red carpet paths. Barefoot women wipe the carpets, but then it's going to rain again, and again they have to cover everything with polyethylene. Negotiations and meetings come one after another. Little Danang is clearly not suited for this.
We see the Japanese Prime Minister’s car, and Shinzo Abe is now inside, we can even see him. He’s discussing business with an assistant. And obviously, there’s some kind of an organizational delay, because the Prime Minister's car has been here for several minutes and doesn’t move anywhere.
During the second and the key day of the summit, all the leaders went outside the city. Tropics, a secluded place, a luxury hotel on the beach. And even the strongest rains ended exactly on the day of the summit. But the political and economic atmosphere is still rough, and many even speak of a storm that has begun.
Hello, grandpa Xi Jinping and grandma Peng Liyuan. It wasn’t the first time that Trump used this trick at the meeting with the head of China. He shows his granddaughter reading and singing in Chinese. This time, she sang about beautiful rice fields.
And already after Xi Jinping received the US President in Beijing at the highest level, Trump publicly and sharply makes it clear that he’ll no longer allow the cultivation of the Chinese economy fields at the expense of, as he believes, the US.
Said Trump:
From now on, we’ll compete on a fair basis. We won’t allow others to use the US. We won’t stand it any longer and turn a blind eye to it. These days are over! I’ll always put America first.
We are being dragged into the abyss. This thought was literally thick in the air among the long-standing partners of the US. If we do what Trump says, then the entire global economy needs to be turned by 180°.
This, of course, is a coincidence, but it was during the days of the summit that a post appeared on the Internet about how a golf game ended between Trump and one of the US main allies, Japanese Prime Minister Abe, a week ago.
Abe stumbled and didn’t just fall, but flew into the pit.
Even the US officials themselves didn’t understand at the APEC summit how to win a match that the United States started with the whole world, and insisted during the discussion of the final declaration that trade should be honest and not free.
Maxim Oreshkin, Russia’s Minister of Economic Development: "The main problem is that Americans can’t decide what they want, how they see it, and can’t clearly define their position".
Oreshkin doesn’t say what exactly President Putin was reading on his smartphone. This happened during one of the bilateral meetings. But since this is the phone of the Minister of Economy, it can be assumed that the topic is economic. That morning, everyone was discussing Trump's harsh rhetoric and Xi Jinping's quiet but very precise response.
Xi Jinping, President of China: "China won’t slow down moving towards transparency".
China is calling Russia its strategic partner. Thanks for the meeting. Large-scale economic cooperation, nuclear power plants, the creation of aircraft, helicopters, gas pipelines.
Alexey Miller, CEO of Gazprom: "In the very near future, the Asian market will become equal in its potential and in terms of the consumption and supply of our exported gas with our main European market".
Says Putin:
“China and Russia agree on the acutest international problems. Literally, the hottest topic of recent months, North Korea. Here our view fully coincide. Russia and China proposed a roadmap for solving this problem. Everything that needs to be done is explained step-by-step.
At first, we need to stop the rhetoric, then stop all manifestations of aggression from all sides and eventually, sit down at the negotiating table. But, as you heard, we’ve seen encouraging signals lately, including from the administrations of the United States, Japan, South Korea, that in general, everyone has an understanding of the non-alternative nature of this method of problem-solving.”
We hope that it’ll be so.
According to the reasons clearly shown at the APEC summit, more and more countries want strong relations with China and Russia. The president of the Philippines was lavish in praise. Great, excellent, very strong friendship.
When the doves of peace flew around at the solemn concert in honor of the APEC summit, Trump wasn’t in the hall. He didn’t wait until the end. The next day, the American president got on board his plane alone and flew away. The departure of the Russian president went a little beyond the protocol. The members of the honor guard that were supposed to see him off asked for a photo.
Pavel Zarubin, Andrei Melnikov, Yuliya Vorobyova, Dmitry Yermolenko, Tatyana Korolyova, Anastasiya Sakhovskaya, Mikhail Artyukhin and Yury Lebedev, Vesti News of the Week.
