H.E. Mr. Yuriy Filatov:

I will try to be as concise as possible. With the first question, I suspect the Deputy has been referring to the Budapest memorandum of 1994.

That was the agreement concerning Ukraine giving up nuclear weapons that remained on its territory after the break-up of the Soviet Union. The signatories, Russia, the US, the UK and Ukraine, pledged not to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine and to use all the OSCE principles without exception. We remain fully committed to honouring these obligations. The memorandum was made strictly in the realm of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. In legal terms, that is the area of its legal power. The memorandum does not provide for a commitment by any of the signatories to put up with silence in respect of, or much less support for, an unconstitutional, armed coup d'étatin Ukraine. In signing the memorandum, Russia did not undertake any obligation to force any part of Ukraine to remain in Ukraine against the will of the people living there. We believe that memorandum has been violated by the US and the European Union, which openly provoked and supported this coup d'étatin 2014. We do not accept any arguments about the 1994 memorandum. This is a completely different story and there is nothing in that memorandum that pertains to the events of recent years.

The embassy construction is a long story. We have applied for and received the permit, which suggests all the relevant State agencies have examined it, as the Chairman knows well. After we had broken ground, we heard news of a decision taken by a different element of the Irish Government to suspend or revoke this permit, on the grounds of national security. We have been talking to the Government since then because we do not accept that argument. We do not think the construction of our embassy could, in any imaginable way, bear any risk to the national security of Ireland. We are in dialogue still to try to find a compromise. The Deputy has his figures wrong. It is not by any standard the largest Russian embassy in Europe and it will not be five times larger than it was. In essence, we are seeking to build a protocol reception area with the necessary equipment, such as a kitchen, a storage facility and so on, and to install two new housing blocks. The extension of the office space is quite insignificant. The current building is 100 years old and it was designed for living in, not for office use. It is just about working according to modern standards, if I can put it that way.

On the question about our staff, I do not want to comment on the very unfortunate and unwarranted episode in our relations, namely, the expulsion of a member of staff, which was severely mishandled by the Irish Government. The Government knows my opinion on that. It simply wanted to show solidarity with other countries in Europe without any due regard to our relations. The moment has passed, although we do have some current visa programmes that may be relevant. That is diplomatic life. The complement of our staff is slightly lower because of these circumstances of personnel but it is not a big deal.

On the issue of the notification of the air authority, that takes time and the forces made a decision to relocate. As a result, they had to redo all the paperwork from scratch. They are doing that and it will take time. As for whether it will involve air notification or only maritime notification, I do not know.That is not my job. I am pretty sure they will do everything according to the law and to standard procedures.

We did not occupy Georgia. The fact of the matter in 2008 was that we had a small peacekeeping contingent stationed in South Ossetia. Unfortunately, the leader of Georgia at the time, Mikheil Saakashvili, probably thought he was almighty and could resolve the issues there. The area dates back centuries. Ossetia, north and south, has been back and forth in respect of Georgia and the Soviet Union redrew the borders. It does not matter. The only reason we have been there with our military personnel is to ensure the disengagement line between Georgia and South Ossetia. Saakashvili made a decision to attack South Ossetia and, in the process, we lost a number of our servicemen. The decision was made to answer that attack with force, which we did. We did not go to Tbilisi, although, as military experts have noted, there was plenty of opportunity to do that. We simply restored the status quo. Politically speaking, we recognised South Ossetia because there was no way for it to return to Georgia after what had happened. It was war that had been waged on them. That was a clear oppression on the part of the Georgian Government, which led to the downfall of Saakashvili, if you take an internal political view in Georgia.

I do not have details on the previous time we conducted exercises in the vicinity of Ireland, although I can look into it and supply it to the committee later if that is desired. This is not about sending a message. It was not in the past and it is not now. There can always be a first time, as they say, but there is nothing behind it. There is no message, no harm and no trouble for Ireland. It is not related to Ireland. That is not to diminish the stature of Ireland within the world but is rather a reality of life.

On Covid-19 in Russia, we are a step behind because we were quite well during the December period of peak here, but now things are okay in Ireland and we are experiencing our peak with Omicron. It has the same characteristics as here. There are massive numbers with illness but it is a mild form. There is not as much hospitalisation so the system is quite all right and capable of handling that.

That was a very nice try with the question on the political and economic system in Russia. It is pretty much clear that it is in the eye of the beholder. The way it is being portrayed is that it is a dictatorship by Vladimir Putin. It is clear to me that the Russian people do not think so because they have voted for the president on numerous occasions, and have voted directly. It is not the way, for example, people vote in the United States. One will never ever discern what is really the count there and who won or lost. That is their way of building democracy. Ours is a direct vote. We have always invited international observers. People are free to watch. We have an elaborate system of monitoring the elections and the voting procedure. It is on the screen constantly. I do not have any doubt that the outcome of the elections is the outcome that people want. By that standard, and this is the only standard, it is democracy, no matter what people elsewhere think. What matters is what Russians think.

Regarding the economic system, it is a market economy. We had a period of more or less wild capitalism. We have moved through the period of the early accumulation of capital, as Karl Marx put it, which took perhaps decades in the West. We ran through that in a few years, leaving the country in a very poor state. Now it is starting to level off. The economy is working. By the way, the Covid-19 pandemic showed the resilience of the economic system. We moved through that with decent figures. We did not have a huge downturn in domestic product. Inflation is manageable and unemployment is more or less okay, so it is working.

On troops and satellite images, the only image I have seen is troops stationed in their garrison in Yelnya, which is in the Smolensk Oblast region. It is very far away from the Ukrainian border. It is the only image being printed over and over again in known newspapers. They say in Langley that they have other images, but they do not show them. That is my only comment. I am of the opinion that it is being played out as an intelligence propaganda disinformation campaign, all combined with certain political purposes. I am sorry that I was probably so mute in my initial statement because the Deputy asked what initiative was taken. The initiative is that on 15 December we passed to the US and NATO draft agreements, texts of legally binding treaties on mutual guarantees of security in Europe. That has been published. The Deputy can read it in English on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, if he is meticulous about the diplomatic legal things. That is our initiative. It is based on the concept of indivisibility of security. One simply cannot live in security if one's security is based on devoiding one's neighbour of security. That creates instability. That is a law of physics almost. That is our initiative and let us hope it works. That is our intention.