UPDATE - REVIEW - Putin Discusses Kerch College Attack, Syria, Russia-US Relations At Valdai Forum In Sochi

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th October, 2018) Russian President Vladimir Putin has discussed a wide range of topics, including the recent shooting and bombing attack in Crimea's Kerch, counterterrorism, Syrian crisis, Russian-US relations and nuclear weapons with the participants of the 15th annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi.

The discussion, which has become a traditional event on the club's agenda, lasted for about two and a half hours.

Putin's participation in the Valdai discussion started with addressing the Kerch tragedy, which took place on Wednesday when a fourth-year student of the Kerch polytechnic college in Crimea killed over 20 people and injured 50 more before committing suicide.

According to the president, the massacre was the result of globalization and widespread use of social media.

"We see that entire communities are being created in the internet and social media. Everything has started from the well-known tragic incidents in US schools," Putin said Thursday.

The president stressed that young people took fake heroism for real in the absence of interesting and valuable Internet content.

Asked about the possibility of nuclear weapons being used, the president recalled that Russia's nuclear doctrine did not envision a preemptive strike. However, Moscow is determined to respond to any first strike by a potential aggressor, Putin said.

"Our concept is a response to a preemptive strike ... This means that we are ready and will use nuclear weapons only when we make sure that someone, a potential aggressor, strikes at Russia, at our territory," Putin said.

For this reason, Russia will never be the initiator of a nuclear catastrophe, but "the aggressor must know that retribution is inevitable," the president added.

Putin highlighted that terrorism could only be fought only by the efforts of the international community as a whole.

"Unfortunately, we have not managed to ensure the joint work in its true sense so far," the president added.

While there were certain attempts of cooperation, they were not enough to fight terrorism worldwide, Putin said.

Russia, just as other states, faces terrorist threats, and Moscow's operation in Syria was launched to protect Russia, the president explained.

"We have not defeated terrorism globally, but definitely caused immense damage and dramatically changed the situation in Russia," Putin added.

Russia has liberated 95 percent of the Syrian territory and managed to prevent the Syrian state from collapsing, Putin said.

"The worse development for us would be complete 'Somalization' of the territory, full degradation of the statehood and infiltration of militants from the Syrian territory to Russia and our neighbors with whom we have no customs barriers and effectively, no visa regimes," Putin said.

By maintaining the Syrian statehood, Russia stabilized the situation in the region and at large achieved the aims that it had set when starting an operation in Syria, Putin said.

The president pointed out that nobody knew what was happening in Syria east of the Euphrates, the part controlled by the United States. The Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia) is still operating there, Putin added.

Asked whether he got the impression that US President Donald Trump could not hear any arguments but his own, Putin said that he did not think that Trump ignored other people while communicating with them.

"We are engaged in a normal, quite a professional dialogue, and he certainly hears [me], and he does not just hear, he reacts to the interlocutor's arguments, and I can see that. He may disagree with some things, just like I do not agree with him on some things. We have different views on certain issues, but this is normal for a discussion of two partners," Putin said.

The Russian leader positively assessed his meetings with Trump.

"Have our meetings with Trump been harmful or useful? I believe that in spite of the attempt to bring these meetings into discredit they were positive rather than negative. ... We see what is happening there [in the United States]. It is better to communicate, to be in contact with each other than ... quarrel and argue non-stop," Putin added.

Trump sought to stabilize the Russia-US relations, Putin believed.

"In my opinion, the current president is primed to certain stabilization and alignment of the Russian-US relations. Let us see how it goes," Putin said.

CRIMEA'S REUNIFICATION WITH RUSSIA

Speaking about Crimea's reunification with Russia, Putin emphasized that it was a democratic choice of the Crimeans.

"Everybody has a democracy here. What is democracy? Power of people. How can we check it? By holding referendums, elections and so on. People came to a referendum in Crimea and voted first to be independent than to be part of Russia," the president said.

Nations have an inherent right to self-determination, which is stated in the UN Charter, and Crimea's reunification with Russia was the result of the Crimean people exercising this right, Putin said.

According to the Russian president, Moscow and Tokyo needed to build trust in bilateral relations in order to sign the peace treaty, as some of Japan's steps were not favorable to the development of relations.

"For our part, we have been creating, trying to create the necessary conditions for trust. Japan introduced sanctions against us ... Nevertheless we are still not giving up, we are ready to continue the dialogue," Putin said.

In September, at the Eastern Economic Forum, Putin offered Japan to sign the peace treaty by the end of the year without any preconditions and include a provision on the two sides' commitment to resolve territorial issues.

Tokyo, however, refused to negotiate the treaty without resolving the territorial dispute first.

Speaking about the situation in Ukraine, Putin said that Russia was interested in resuming full-fledged cooperation with Kiev, but the Ukrainian authorities were driving the relations into a deadlock by trading in Russophobia and anti-Russian sentiments.

"Russia is certainly interested in a full-format revival of relations with Ukraine. The current Ukrainian authorities are... not only driving the situation into a dead end, they are pursuing an anti-state and anti-people policy just as once [ex-Georgian President Mikheil] Saakashvili ... tried to pursue, attacking South Ossetia," Putin said.

He expressed his hope that the Ukrainian authorities would not follow in the footsteps of Saakashvili.

"As a result of these criminal actions, Georgia lost significant territories. It was a result of Saakashvili's actions ... It would be very sad if current Ukrainian authorities followed in his footsteps. I hope this will not happen," Putin said.

Putin also expressed his hope that it would be possible to build relations and hold talks with the new Ukrainian leadership after the presidential elections there.

ANTI-RUSSIA SANCTIONS AND KHASHOGGI VANISHING

Putin pointed out that sanctions, introduced against Russia without presenting any proof of its alleged involvement in the US elections, were however, not levied on Saudi Arabia, which is suspected of being behind the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Turkey.

Khashoggi, who has been working for The Washington Post newspaper as a columnist and has been known for his criticism of Saudi authorities, went missing in Istanbul on October 2 after he entered the Saudi Consulate and never came out.

"Regarding Russia, this kind of steps are being taken every now and again, even sanctions based on some made-up causes, like I said ... There is no proof regarding Russia, but steps are being taken. Here they say that the murder took place in Istanbul, but no steps are being taken. Something should be done about a unified approach to the issues of this kind," Putin said.

The president believed it was necessary to wait for the results of the probe into Khashoggi's disappearance before taking any steps in relation to Riyadh.

Speaking about nationalism, the Russian president stressed that the so-called "caveman nationalism" could be detrimental to Russia, which has always been a multinational state.

"Nationalists say that they are the best protectors of interests of this or that ethnicity, this or that people, this or that nation ... Russia has come together as a multinational state, and ... as a state with many religions as well. It has existed for 1,000 years and is stable, first of all, because there has been from the start the idea of great tolerance between all nations and representatives of different religions that are part of this state. This is the base for Russia's existence," Putin said.

Putin had explained the difference between "caveman nationalism," which presupposes lack of respect for different ethnicities that are part of the country, and "the right kind of the nationalism," which is focused on preserving the country.

"If we put the caveman nationalism first, permit the cruel treatment of other ethnic communities, we will break up the country, and this is not in the interest of the Russian people," the Russian president noted.

Putin also spoke about the proposed changes to the Russian pension system, which include raising the retirement age from 60 to 65 years for men and from 55 to 60 years for women.

"The state has to do this ... As I said, if we do not do this today, we will still have to do this tomorrow. By the year of 2024, we plan to reach the [average] life expectancy of 78 years, and 80 years by 2030. But we will still inevitably have to increase the retirement age," the Russian president said, adding that other countries do the same.

Commenting on the society's aspirations for changes, Putin said that it was understandable, stressing though that it was unlikely that the majority of the Russians wanted these changes to be achieved through a revolution.

"It seems to me that this is a completely natural phenomenon - the desire of people for the change. Is there no desire for the change in Germany?.. In general, Europe does want the change. The United Kingdom voted for Brexit, and it is incredible. People want changes. And in Russia they also do want changes. However, the overwhelming majority of the Russian citizens hardly want revolutionary changes. We are already fed up with these revolutions... even in contemporary history," Putin stressed.

According to the president, the task of the Russian authorities is to make changes "in a timely manner and in close cooperation with civil society."

"And this is the main key to success in our domestic politics," Putin added.

Putin said during the discussion that in recent years his love for Russia had become even stronger. The president admitted that he "did not know Russia very well" some time ago when he worked abroad and served at an intelligence office in Dresden in 1985-1990.

"I got to know Russia when I came to Moscow and started working at the Federal level, and then became the head of government and president of the country. I saw what a deep and strong country it is, a country with strong historic and moral roots," Putin stressed.

During the discussion, Putin was addressed by one of the event's participants, cheesemaker Oleg Sirota, who thanked the president for economic sanctions which provided an opportunity for Russian producers to develop their businesses. Sirota also said that he tried to present a brick of cheese to the Russian president nine times but each time it was withdrawn by security employees, who "worked well."

NEED TO AVOID WORSENING OF DONBAS CRISIS

Putin also covered the crisis in the east of Ukraine by warning Ukrainian politicians against the temptation to aggravate the situation in Donbas.

"In these conditions, can we really count on the implementation of the Minsk agreements? In these conditions, I think, we need to wish only one thing: that there is no temptation to aggravate the situation and use this aggravation, including in preparation for the presidential and parliamentary elections. It seems to me that this is what we could expect for today as an ultimate goal," the president said.

Referring to the recent killing of Alexander Zakharchenko, the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, Putin said that such murders and terror acts by the Ukrainian security services were the worst way for Kiev to improve its relations with the embattled region.

UNPRECEDENTED MOSCOW-BEIJING UNDERSTANDING

At the Valdai Discussion Club, the president praised the current state of Russian-Chinese relations.

"The Russian-Chinese relations had everything, but ultimately we signed the Treaty on Friendship, we reached a level of mutual understanding between Russia and China, which, according to our mutual assessments, is unprecedented," Putin pointed out.

Moscow and Beijing carry out "huge" exchange in the area of technical cooperation and have agreed to engage in technology transfer, according to the president.

Russia was interested in sharing its technologies with its Asian neighbor but not to the detriment of its own security, Putin also noted.

The annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club opened on Monday and lasted through Thursday.