Interviewed by Dr. Syed Mehboob
Senior Research Editor, The News Lark, Karachi
A brief detail about Consul General of Russian Federation in Karachi,
His Excellency Andrey Viktorovich Fedorov
His Excellency Andrey Viktorovich Fedorov is a dynamic, committed and far sighted diplomat, who has a deep sense and acumen about diplomatic services and is a highly responsible person. He has a keen desire to promote Pakistan Russia relations, enhance bilateral ties and bring business, intellectual and political communities of both the countries closer to pave the way for further cementing ties between the two countries. His all staff is very friendly, cooperative and are full of patriotic spirit.
Mr. Andrey Viktorovich Fedorov was born in 1972. He took keen interest in his country’s as well as international affairs since his youth. He held various responsible positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and abroad since 1998. He has a vast experience of more than twenty-six years in serving for the cause of his beloved country. His brief career track record has been given below: –
1992–1998 – Graduated from Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) (English, Bulgarian languages);
1998-2012 – Held various positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
2002–2004 – Graduated from Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation;
2012–2013 – Counsellor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation;
2013–2018 – Senior Consul (DCM) of the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Karachi;
2018–2022 – Senior Counsellor of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in India.
Since April 2022 he is serving at Consulate General of Russian Federation in Karachi, as Consul General.
Furthermore, His Excellency Andrey Viktorovich Fedorov is a dynamic, down to earth and patriotic person. He is well-versed in communication and speaks friendly and discuss openly on global political issues and explains his country’s point of view on several international issues. He and all his staff are very cooperative with media and business community of Pakistan and whenever approached they have always provided necessary information and guidance to them. Since his inception in April ,2022 as Consul General of Russian Federation in Karachi, he made no stone unturned to enhance Pakistan and Russia relations. Due to the sincere efforts of His Excellency Andrey V. Fedorov and his staff, media in Karachi now has access to more reliable and authentic information about Russia and can make independent and unbiased analysis.
Senior Editor the News Lark, Karachi Dr. Syed Mehboob paid a visit at Russian Consulate on 19th February,2024 and had a detailed interview of His Excellency and discussed with him several issues regarding current situation in Ukraine, Pakistan Russia relations and others. Here are the details of his interview with the News Lark.
The News Lark has an honor to be the first one among the media which started providing positive and authentic information about Russia when there was a lot of misinformation and fake news about it. Instead of relying on western media, The News lark and its Senior Research Editor Dr. Syed Mehboob did thorough research and made independent and unbiased in-depth analysis about Russian economy, education, science and technological advancement and its powerful influence and vital role in global politics. He is fully supported by Mr. Jawed Malik, Editor in Chief, The News Lark, Karachi as well as the consulate general of Russian Federation and its staff. The News Lark is highly thankful to His Excellency Mr. Andrey V. Fedorov and his staff particularly Mr. DmitryA. Petrov, Mr. Stanislav, Mr. Pavel Lamanov and others for their kind cooperation.
The News Lark: His Excellency what is the current scenario of Russia-Ukraine war.
H.E Andrey V. Fedorov:First of all, I have to correct you that this is not a war, rather a Special Military Operation. The “war” was launched by the West in 2014, after a coup, when they created a threat to Crimea, after which the people of Crimea appealed to us for protection, and we could not ignore it. They started a war in Donbass in 2014, using aircraft and artillery against civilians. They conducted a large-scale military operation, then another one. When they failed, they began to prepare the next one. All this against the background of military development of this territory and opening of NATO’s doors, directly threatening our security. It was they who started the war in 2014. We did not start this war in 2022. This is an attempt to stop it.
And what triggered the Special Military Operation? Firstly, the current Ukrainian leadership declared that it would not implement the Minsk agreements, which had been signed after the events of 2014, in Minsk, where the plan of a peaceful settlement in Donbass was set forth. However, the current Ukrainian leadership, foreign minister, all other officials and then President himself said that they do not like anything about the Minsk agreements. In other words, they were not going to implement them. A year or a year and a half ago, former leaders of Germany and France said openly to the whole world that they indeed signed the Minsk agreements but they never intended to implement them. They simply led us by the nose.
Secondly, Vladimir Putin announced denazification as one of the primary aims of the Special Military Operation, which is the prohibition of all kinds of neo-Nazi movements. In this regard, we are constantly told that nationalism and neo-Nazism exist in other countries as well. Yes, there are seedlings, but we uproot them, and other countries fight against them. However, Ukraine is not the case. The people like Bandera, Shukhevich, who were literal Nazis, are made national heroes in Ukraine – that is the problem. Monuments to these people have been erected, they are displayed on flags, their names are shouted by crowds that walk with torches, as it was in Nazi Germany. These were the people who exterminated Poles, Jews and Russians. It is necessary to stop this practice and prevent the dissemination of this concept.
In this context, let me remind the case when the President of Ukraine recently visited Canada. This story is well known but is silenced in the Western countries. The Canadian parliament introduced a man who, as the speaker of the parliament said, fought against the Russians during World War II. Well, who fought against the Russians during World War II? Hitler and his accomplices. It turned out that this man served in the SS troops. He personally killed Russians, Poles, and Jews. The SS troops consisted of Ukrainian nationalists who did this dirty work. The President of Ukraine stood up with the entire Parliament of Canada and applauded this man. How can this be imagined? The President of Ukraine himself, by the way, is a Jew by nationality.
As for the current state of the Special Military Operation, we clearly see that their so hyped-up counteroffensive has miserably failed. They used thousands of people as a cannon fodder, but achieved literally zero success and announced transition to “defence”. Right now, they found themselves in impasse. On the one hand, they are finally realizing they cannot win on the battlefield. On the other hand, they restricted themselves from negotiating with us. Let me remind you that President of Ukraine himself issued a decree prohibiting negotiations with us. This is not Russia, who avoids negotiations, we have never refused negotiations indeed. It was they who publicly refused!
We negotiated with Ukraine in Istanbul, and we actually reached an agreement. Moreover, the negotiation group leader, Mr. David Arakhamia, who still heads the Presidential faction in the Ukrainian parliament. He even put his preliminary signature on that agreement. But then he publicly stated to the whole world: “We were ready to sign this document, but Mr. Johnson, then the Prime Minister of Great Britain, came and dissuaded us from doing this saying it was better to fight Russia. They would give us everything we needed to return what was lost during the clashes with Russia. And we agreed with this proposal.” For some reason, everyone had the illusion that Russia could be defeated on the battlefield. As Vladimir Putin suggested, it could be because of arrogance and a pure heart, but not because of great intellect.
The News Lark:Mr. Zelensky sacked his armed forces chief and it seems there is great frustration among Ukrainian armed forces and government. Do you think that the concluding phase of the war is very near now resulting with the victory of Russia?
H.E Andrey V. Fedorov:First of all, as I have mentioned in the answer to my first question, they are finally starting to realize that the situation is unwinnable for them on the battlefield. It seems like in order to clean this mess they try to take some desperate measures. However, this does not affect our progress in implementation of the special military operations goals in any way. Secondly, what happens in the Ukrainian government and military commandment is their own business. Unlike Western powers, we do not interfere in the domestic affairs of Ukraine.
As for the second part of your question, I have to tell you that diplomats are not meteorological department to predict exact outcomes of the global events. However, one thing is quite certain – the victory of Russia is inevitable!
The News Lark: Despite several measures including sanctions imposed by USA and European countries on Russia, all attempts failed to isolate Russia in global power scenario. How do you see Russian role in global politics?
H.E Andrey V. Fedorov: Firstly, not only the US and European countries joined the sanctions. Australia and New Zealand along with some Asian countries like Japan supported this movement. They consider themselves a “golden billion”, while thinking that they are special and can impose some arbitrary “rules” upon other nations just because they have a slightly higher GDP per capita. By the way, despite XX century decolonization, racism and xenophobia have never been rooted out of their elites, I may simply remind you of the famous quote by Joseph Borrel, who explicitly called Europe a “garden”, and the rest of the world a “jungle”. And just last year the US president Joe Biden called Pakistan “one of the most dangerous nations which has nuclear weapons without any cohesion”. In this connection, only two simple questions come to mind: who are they to create the “rules” for the rest of the world and do they really believe in their moral superiority in order to teach anybody how they should build relations and organize a government?
As for the attempts to isolate Russia, you simply cannot isolate a country with the size of more than 17 million km2, which has a border with 18 nations and 11 time zones. Russia has always played and will always play an important role in world politics, no matter what Western powers think about it. The majority of the countries, including Pakistan, are eager to maintain trade relations with Russia, despite thousands of illegal sanctions imposed by the West. They also support our movement for the creation of a democratic multipolar world based on the superiority of the international law and the principles of the UN Charter. Which is why all the efforts to isolate us from the rest of the world are doomed to fail.
The News Lark: Israel with the support of USA and western countries is busy in planned and organized genocide of Palestinians. All efforts are failed to stop it. What consequences do you see on the region of this barbaric support of US and European countries for Israel and what is the position of Russia on this matter?
- E Andrey V. Fedorov:Russian position on this matter goes as follows. We have been consistently in favour of exercising the legitimate rights of Palestinian people to establish their own sovereign state within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is what we see as the key condition for achieving a comprehensive, long-term and just Palestinian-Israeli settlement. Initially, it was about establishing two independent sovereign states: Israel and Palestine. As we know, Israel was established, while Palestine as an independent sovereign state was never created.
As far as the recent escalation goes, immediate measures must be taken to bring about a ceasefire and stop the suffering of people in Palestine not just for major political reasons but also in the name of universal human morality. Decisive steps must be taken to prevent further destabilization in the other parts of the Middle East. And the role of the West in destabilizing the region is hard to underestimate. For example, just a month ago at the UN Security Council Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov supported a draft statement demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. However, the United States and its allies have blocked that document, thereby confirming that saving Palestinian civilians is not a priority for them. By blocking the much-needed efforts of the council to bring about a ceasefire, the United States and its allies would like to close this embarrassing page, which is making them accomplices in the slaughter of civilians in Gaza.
The News Lark:There is still a huge propaganda against Russia by western media. What measures do you think needed to counter this negative and fabricated propaganda?
H.E Andrey V. Fedorov: Yes, you are definitely right about the massive propaganda campaign launched by the Western media. However, in order to construct their narrative and make it somewhat cohesive, they have to turn to blatant manipulations and turning the whole thing upside down. At the same time, they do not realise that people are not buying this. As many independent research papers show, the trust in the Western media is in an all-time low. Most people are not fools and they can recognize when blatant lies and distortions are being shoved into them.
Tackling this negative propaganda requires hard work, but the strategy is actually not that complicated. You just need to present objective truth, facts and common-sense vision. This is exactly what we are doing right now, and the West is clearly afraid of it. We need more honest and objective journalists and media outlets like you and The News Lark to spread the truth about what is happening today in the world.
The News Lark: How do see Pakistan and Russian relations and what prospects are there to convert these relations into strategic one?
H.E Andrey V. Fedorov:Currently, Russia-Pakistan relations are developing in a very dynamic pace. Last year, when we celebrated the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic ties between our nations, was especially productive. We launched the direct shipping line from St. Petersburg to Karachi and the first batch of Russian crude oil was delivered to Karachi port. In addition, Pakistan also passed a special order to allow barter trade with Russia and a two-way trucking line from Pakistan to Russia was established shortly after that. Thanks to these projects, Russia-Pakistan trade volume is expected to exceed one billion USD for the first time in history!
As for conversion of our relations into strategic, I often like to say that to dance tango you need two people. We need to see a genuine desire and exact steps of the Pakistani government in order to elevate our ties to another level. However, I am very optimistic about the future of our relations. During the last six years, we have seen constructive and balanced positions of all the four different governments of Pakistan. We are also especially grateful to Pakistan for not joining the illegal Western sanctions.
The News Lark: His Excellency the News Lark is among the first one in media which started publishing positive, reliable and authentic news, reports and articles on Russia. Our Senior Research Editor, Economic and Political Analyst, Dr. Syed Mehboob has written dozens of research-based articles with facts and figures. What comments would you like to give about this contribution?
H.E Andrey V. Fedorov:I would like to sincerely thank you, Dr. Syed Mehboob, Mr. Jawed Malik , Chief Editor and CEO The News Lark, and the whole management and editorial board of The News Lark, for your hard work. We appreciate your independent views about the global events happened today. You are making an inevitable contribution to the promotion of Russia-Pakistan friendship. Your articles provide an objective and detailed research of the current international agenda and serve as an extra nourishment and inspiration in our everyday analytical work.
The News Lark: What message would like to give to the people of Pakistan and how was your experience here in Karachi?
- E Andrey V. Fedorov: I would also like to sincerely greet my Pakistani friends and thank them for hospitality, kindness and cooperation. As I told you before, this is not my first tenure here in Karachi – from 2013 to 2018, I was a Deputy Consul General here in Karachi, and I have spent enough time here to make a good judgement. My experience here in Karachi has been generally positive. There are many friends to hang around there, the atmosphere is very vibrant and the cuisine is fantastic!
Thank you very much for your questions!
