Yakov Kedmi, public figure, Israel: One of the most remarkable events this week is that the Russian Foreign Minister put the final nail in the coffin of sanctions against Russia. Sanctions which sought to change Russia's policies by putting economic pressure on it. And how did the Russian Foreign Minister finally respond to it after years of sanctions? He said: "We don't care about the sanctions. It's your problem." That is, the sanctions failed to either make Russia change its policies or harm, if not benefit, the Russian economy and the Russian government. It's a shame that only sanctions could reveal it, but they revealed to Russia the truth about the world it lives in and those it can rely on. All these illusions about this or that cooperation, somewhat profitable to Russia, sunk into oblivion. Secondly, what the Russian president said earlier is connected to Lavrov's statement. He said that Russia would never operate on promises or victims, but only on results. This comes in the context of the upcoming meeting with Trump.
Some hapless experts wondered what gesture Russia would make. Well, if it wasn't Putin, but some other president, the gesture would be very unpleasant for them. But Putin doesn't make gestures, he behaves himself. So, he won't make any such gesture so as not to hurt them.
I actually have a feeling that many Western leaders live in a parallel universe which has nothing to do with reality. Take the EU. The EU was founded by six Catholic states to address the problems of the steel and coal industries — the European Coal and Steel Community. They were Catholics! They sought to solve a certain problem of certain states belonging to a certain culture. Now it's transformed into an androgyne that lives its own life. And... The gap between the EU's policies and the interests of each of its member states is only growing. No meetings, like the recent one, no long talks to cancel one resolution and implement another one; none of those addresses the underlying issue that the EU is a bureaucratic system unable to solve the problems of each of its states. Meanwhile, Trump has a proper understanding of it. Large unions make almost all states subordinate their interests to those of other countries because they are bound together. Thus, probably, big unions founded in a different time for different purposes are a thing of the past.
— I know what they should do. The EU should invite Mr. Cherchesov, he'll help them. He'll teach them to play as well. He'll make a decent team even out of them.
— Nothing can help the EU.
— Well, if even Cherchesov can't help them, then it's over.
— Well, he can play, train a team, but he can hardly resist Trump and the American economy.
— Yes, but we can do it!
— Trump is pursuing a strategic goal to destroy the European Union. His strategic political goal is to cooperate with each separate state.
— He's announced that bluntly.
— He's pursuing this goal step by step, and he'll succeed sooner or later. Anyway, such unions are the thing of the past. Top Eurocrats keep clinging to it, trying to convince others that they need them, but nobody actually needs them.
— I see that there's nothing new with our country. We intended to join to something for so long that it collapsed even without us. That's always the case with us: We hesitate for so long that when we finally decide on it, it doesn't exist anymore. But still, we keep fulfilling absolutely crazy and pointless responsibilities assumed in the 1990s. Soon, they'll disappear too, but we'll continue to fulfill them.
— You can't follow the rules of the 90s in the 21st century.
— She speaks fluently.
— She can barely write it off as a translation problem.
— I'd like to clarify something. France found a very simple solution to the problem of a possible war against Germany: it developed nuclear weapons, which buried Germany's ability to wage war against France. France didn't need the EU.
— De Gaulle understood it. That's why he didn't join the EU or NATO for a long time.
— Meaning, military organizations.
— He joined NATO immediately but left this military organization in 1966.
— But he did leave.
— Yes, he did.
Yakov Kedmi, public figure, Israel: Secondly, as for the EU, more isn't better here, just the opposite. Only a few states are economically independent: Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark. Not to mention Norway because oil has a crucial role there. The rest of the countries face problems. France failed to solve its economic problems. Spain is on the edge. Italy's situation is even worse. All the other states live on donations. The EU hands them out to make them join the EU. What will Poland do? Next year it will get its last donation of 13 billion euros. What then? What lures Latvia, Estonia, Montenegro into the EU? They're paid cash. Who pays them? Germany does. At the expense of the German people.
— That's why we lose soccer matches.
— Getting back to the EU, its expansion didn't imply the improvement of the countries' economies. The EU ruined the economy of Greece, Bulgaria, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and other countries. How does Poland earn its living? Or the Baltic states? Well, Eastern Europe gave the EU white labor, not Arabs or someone else. However, when it came to Gypsies, they all screamed they wouldn't let Romanian Gypsies in, as European values go. Thus, the European Union, in its current form, is unable to solve any economic problem of its member states. In addition, Trump has declared a holy war against Germany and the German economy, which he is consistently pursuing. If the Russian president says that Russia-US relations have never been so bad, then Germany-US relations have never been so rude
— ...the policies of the past 5-7 years.
— At the beginning of Macron's tenure, Trump was distinctly courting Macron. What has been made public is an open secret. The USA, Trump, wants to withdraw France from the EU and ruin it by doing so. It doesn't matter if Macron will give in or not, accept it or not. If it isn't France, it's Italy. But Trump is uncompromising, he seeks the collapse of the EU. It's his competition. It hinders him.
Secondly, every expert, not politicians, dealing with the Russian threat, when 20 Soviet tank divisions were deployed in Germany within a 2-3-day ride from the Atlantic coast, they did consider it as a threat. Today Russia doesn't have any technical capability to conquer Europe, but only to protect itself. Almost every military expert knows that Russia poses no threat. The Russian army isn't big enough to conquer Europe. Indeed, it can deliver a heavy blow, destroying the armies of England and France. And, as the previous US Secretary of Defense acknowledged, Russia can destroy the USA within 30 minutes. But Russia has no practical intention to conquer Europe. This is not the purpose of the army. Thus, they know well that what they say about the Russian threat is a lie. They exploit the issue to get their budgets and justify their existence.
So when Trump came to Europe and got a hold on that he wondered, "What are we doing in Germany?. Who are we protecting it from? Why is the US pouring so much cash into there?". Nobody threatens them. He has a businesslike approach. What I want to say is that there's actually no Russian threat. You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. This bubble of the Russian threat is bursting before them. Who's putting a needle into it?
