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we continue the politclub program on the espresso tv channel. natalia plexienko butyrska, an expert on east asia, is in touch with us. congratulations ms. natalie. congratulations. well , let's talk about the important visits that will take place soon. this is the visit of russian president vladimir putin to china and a visit. president of the people's republic of china xizen ping to france, to what extent these visits can really reflect china's desire to be such an intermediary between moscow and west, or is it primarily just a part of this chinese policy to maintain its influence in moscow and europe? well, this is primarily about china's interest, and it is very wide-ranging. as for putin, it is obvious that today... china

also does not deny, does not hide, that they are close strategic partners who coordinate some external global issues, and as for putin, of course, he needs to demonstrate his importance after re-election. both for the internal audience, as well as for the external audience, and the chinese are like that a significant force, besides, these visits will take place in the month of may, as you said, and it is important that we do not now...exact dates, because chinese diplomacy, it has such a peculiarity not to talk, not to advertise about all these events, but however, it is obvious that putin's visit may take place before his trip to europe, and in addition to the things they will discuss regarding their bilateral relations, there will also be a discussion of the position regarding the so-called peace initiative, perhaps china. which he is now actively

promoting, what about two more countries, for example, i am now observing a lot of materials that chinese banks have seriously limited financial transactions even with yuan, that is, if previously they limited only financial transactions with the dollar, then with yuan they made serious checks in relation to russian companies, they are afraid of double secondary sanctions. because the ministry of finance has now undertaken to check all these financial transactions, has more tools, so, for example, i still read a lot from specialists who deal with bilateral business relations, as for business, they also do and think that there will be talks between putin and sydzenpin about how they should currently conduct economic activity in these conditions , given that their turnover ... has seriously

increased and will increase, and russia seriously relies on this relationship. as for europe, china also has its own serious interest, first of all economic, because china would really like to separate the economy from security, but it is unable to do so in relations with the european union, and against this background, china has to be convinced what do you need... to establish relations, well, there are a number of factors , and this is china's internal policy, which concerns, for example, pressure on companies there, and as a result, for example, european western companies do not invest in china, do not expand theirs and take it very seriously serious scrim about how their relationship will develop further, this is the first question, that is, walls. which

is going to europe for the first time in five years, needs to be convinced that it is still a very reliable market. the second question, for example, every european the leader has repeatedly emphasized that ... the relationship between china and the european union and european countries will be developed separately, relying on how china will behave in the russian-ukrainian war, and expects from china quite constructive actions, and i hope that china will not to help russia circumvent sanctions in general in the war, and since china does not understand well, we will not let it not help, and does not pay attention to it. that is , three chinese companies were included in the latest sanctions package of the european union against russia the promotion of russia's military and defense complex, that is, in this way, there is a certain signal that in the future chinese companies may

get involved, the chinese do not like their representative, who came from the shuttle diplomacy regarding the settlement of the ukrainian crisis. they say that in european capitals he discussed precisely these sanctions, obviously they are worried about them, because he said, he emphasizes that china does not recognize unilateral sanctions there, which are not recognized by the un security council, well , everything is clear with that, because in the security council un they would never pass, that is, there is a question of such, strictly speaking, of such an internal nature, but that is, i have already said that the relations of the european... with china are seriously tied to the economy on the one hand, and behavior in war on the other , and china, as we see with you, is now trying to demonstrate its very constructive role and willingness to become a mediator and an intermediary, and what's interesting is that china, from my point of view, now

sees a great opportunity for itself to become that mediator and offer its services and thus improve relations with europe'. union, well, it is connected with what is happening in political circles, with those discussions in the united states of america, with the possible re-election of trump and the possible focus, change of focus in support of ukraine and europe, in general, and during the munich security conference, wangwei, the chief diplomat of china, he taught such certain experiences in europeans. circles regarding relations with the united states, and security in general, and first of all, certain worries about the fact that russia may attack european countries, nato countries, that is, from its on the other hand, china is trying to offer itself

as a country for the european union, as a country that can be a mediator and bring peace to the european continent. china, by the way, he always wanted to... create such an alternative to the united states, but he did not succeed, because in any case, for european countries, american support, even more so, security, it was a dogma, and now, well, that is, a conversation about that strategic autonomy that china has regularly called for, they seem like they can become a reality, and it is obvious that this too one of the important issues and one of the important missions for china in the proposal complex. you and diplomatic support and the settlement of the so-called ukrainian crisis, and instead to settle economic relations, because when we look, for example, at chinese sources, they talk less about their own problems, this is implied, but they are obviously kept secret, but

nevertheless, they often talk about the fact that this is the so-called ukrainian crisis, it has a negative impact on the economies of europe, that they are very are seriously suffering - suffering from inflation, and, well, obviously... there is also such a goal that it is necessary to establish and strengthen economic relations, because there are problems in the economies of countries, and france in particular, it is, well, from the point of view of china, it is considered as more so, with on the one hand, the most influential country in europe, in terms of its economic weight, in terms of the desire of both the french president himself and france to be the leader of the european union. and well, we will remember last year’s reception of macron in beijing, china rolled out the red carpet there and tried, well, absolutely somehow to appease, and even then it looked like china was trying to split european

unity, western unity, it was then more consistent in matters of support for ukraine, opposition to russia, and in matters of derision and risk removal. which were seriously discussed and are being discussed and implemented in the european union, and then it was very contrasting and visible how, for example, ursula von derlein, who came with macron, received. such a cold reception, one might say, and it was absolutely simple, despite the fact that the door was open for macron and so on it was almost xijinpin's native house, so this explains why, when choosing a place for his visit, xijinpin chooses and influences ukraine, and the one in which, from his point of view, and china, with whom it is possible to get along. and tell me, when china says that its... participation in the so-called peace forum, which is to be held in switzerland in the near future, should depend on

whether moscow is invited, why should china tie its presence to these or those such conferences, which in principle have rather diplomatic than concrete character with the presence of russian representatives. well, in fact, this global summit, it is not only organized by ukraine, but it also, as a matter of fact, goes... to the peace formula of president zelensky, and from the point of view of china it is difficult to support precisely the ukrainian version of peace, because , well, first of all, russia expressed his absolute dissatisfaction and absolute rejection of this formula, and well, we have to understand that china, unfortunately, is not on the side of ukraine, and at the moment china is playing for division, that's what i would say. that work which ukraine and our partners have been doing for a long time, and is trying to make

its own corrections, which are of such a pro-russian nature, because on the one hand it was stated by the ambassador in switzerland that china could participate, it was such a signal, perhaps for switzerland , because china is interested in having good relations with european countries and... switzerland, in particular, from the point of view of these investments, and from the point of view of economic relations, that is , i said that he is trying to cut the windows to europe with which he seems to be , is possible to settle, well, switzerland is one of them, and that is to refuse switzerland, which has officially asked china to participate, because their foreign minister visited beijing in early february and officially invited it is important for switzerland, it is a country. which organizes such a serious global summit, and it also needs to make this presence maximal, that is

, it is impossible, but at the same time, when we look at the sources of the ministry of foreign affairs of china, when we look, for example, at the press conference with and the content of the press conference, which after the trip to europe and russia was given by the special representative of china, he says that we advocate an international conference. with the representativeness of both sides on equal terms and the discussion on equal terms of various peace proposals, and here we see a completely opposite proposal from what this global summit actually entails, that is, china was not asked to make any proposals, china was invited to participate in because there is, well, but he is now starting to do. such steps in which to convince the swiss

side and when their representative was on the trip he voiced his position to every capital that russia should also be brought to the negotiating table, because without it they will have a zero result, and we can see that on equal terms, of course, that on equal terms it is not about anything, because russia will put what we have heard about your aggressive intentions, and what's more, when i say... we are talking about peace proposals, then obviously china also means this plan of its own, which it presented, and here it is important to immediately return to the words of the representative of china , the special representative according to the results of the trip, where he speaks from one side that china has always insisted that the parties sit down for negotiations, it supports the sovereignty and... territorial integrity of ukraine, not ukraine, different countries, he says, but at the same time this crisis, it has

very deep roots, because after of the cold war, the bloc confrontation remained, and the interests of different countries were not taken into account, and security cannot be built without taking into account the interests of other parties. that is, here we see immediately behind this sovereignty, immediately what russia is talking about. about what if the expansion of nato, it forced it to start a war, and china in a wallowing form confirms this, and thus the neglected interests of russia are safe. so, it is they who force it to wage war, that is, well, at the moment we see such a destructive position, decorated in such a beautiful candy form and the desire to bring peace, so to speak. thank you

. already talked with ms. natalya, about... france , about the french position on all these issues with maria oleksa yeschenko, a journalist and editor on french television, congratulations ms. maria, congratulations, well, it has already passed, some time has already passed since president macron talked about the possibility of the presence of troops of nato countries on the territory of ukraine, what does the situation look like now with these considerations? you know, a lot. it seems like a roller coaster because he first made this statement in late february, the first reaction was very negative, inside france there was already sociology, 68% of the french said that they did not agree with the position of the president, the opposition completely criticized and destroyed all his arguments. the european partners, as we know, also disagreed with the french president, but

he continued to toe the line, and the latest example is last saturday was... an interview in the daily newspaper liu parisian, where he even used an expression like ground operations, and he said that france would never initiate such an approach or such operations or the sending of troops, but he does not want to reject anything, any scenario, and therefore, just a week ago, emmanuel macron returns to this topic again, despite the fact that several of his ministers have already chewed and explained. to the population the fact that , first of all, it is about non-combat tasks , it is about demining and so on, but the president, well, it is clear that he continues to push this line, well, in principle, why do you think he continues to be a supporter of the idea, which is clearly not popular among the french, what he is counting on, is it a political idea or not a safe idea, i think there are two components here,

this is a safe idea, because macron himself said about it, france is 6-12 months late. in his strategic thinking and decision-making, he also said this after the meeting with volodymyr zelenskyi, after the international conference on ukraine, which took place in the elysee palace, that we all said no to tanks, no long-range weapons, no air defense, we always showed our eyes red lines, but only we, the europeans , were the ones who drew these lines, russia in no way escalated with by european partners without... on average after european partners crossed these red lines one after the other, because we started, let me remind you, with helmets and sleeping bags in february, march 2022, and now long-range weapons from the same france , scalps, anti-aircraft, air defense systems, and so macron has learned from his own experience, and he

thinks in security terms and knows that in 6-12 months, it may already be too late to start. to talk about sending troops, it must be done now, and the second component is, i think his personal ambitions, well , it is still very important not to forget that macron personifies this european leader, he wants to be one, he thinks, whether it is legal or illegal, that he is the one behind this european initiative to help ukraine. while olaf scholz is disappointing more and more, although according to the numbers, germany is slightly ahead of france. but maybe not in some strategic decisions, at the moment when the states are completely blown away, and macron takes this leadership, and it is important for him, to be this visionary who will possibly lead ukraine to victory, and he will be able to write it down in his track record in 2027, when he himself will not be able to run for a new term. by the way, do you think that after

this meeting of the weimar triangle, emmanuel macron, olaf scholz and donald tusk, somehow the atmosphere changed , primarily in french-german relations? they at least tried to convince everyone that yes, there is no conflict, there is no deterioration of relations, and in general it is important to understand that this franco-german friendship, well, it is this is the foundation of europe, at least in berlin and in paris they are convinced of this, this is such a duo that, as it were, carries this old europe, and this is extremely symbolically important, because after the second world war these two countries. became friends and still every time a new chancellor or a new president is elected in france, the first visit to europe must take place precisely in germany or in france, respectively, they hold a series of summits. during the year, and this relationship is extremely important, so after the meeting, of course, macron and olaf scholt with on their part, they did everything necessary to smooth these corners, to say that yes,

no, there are some disagreements and different visions on certain issues, but, well, we did not quarrel, and it is very interesting that at the press conference emmanuel macron nevertheless , he took some more words, well, the vocabulary , let's say, german, he said that france would never go... er, well, to the initiative of escalation, france would never stand for provoking in any way there is some unfolding of events in europe, and then just this interview that i am i mentioned, it happened on the plane, on the way back to paris, and very often, by the way, this is already such a tradition, emmanuel macron always communicates very sincerely with journalists on the plane after his visits, and here and there such small, interesting phrases appear after that, and by the way, if we continue with this... the weimar triangle, already after the summit , it suddenly became known that poland and france essentially agreed on a common position regarding restrictions on the supply of ukrainian grain, and

this has already led to the fact that the european the commission cannot continue this situation with the final cancellation of restrictions for ukrainian products for another year, how much does france need these restrictions on ukrainian products, how much are ukrainian supplies really interfering with french farmers? well, how do you say, for what they say, it's a hindrance, yes. the amount of ukrainian wheat on the french market has increased by 17, 17 times, and of course, transit is often mentioned, but there are some european groups, in particular spanish, not french, by the way , who buy this grain because they had a long period of drought, and they want to resell this grain later, because they bought it at a good price, so there is a lot of talk about it, in general france now. is experiencing such a difficult period in terms of farmer protests, they lasted a very long time , there were many of them, and macron simply had to somehow calm the french farmers, and by

the way, if we talk about restrictions, restrictions on the import of ukrainian chicken, corn, also, oats, that is, this is only the beginning, if only, this is the beginning of this a trend which, unfortunately for ukraine, will continue to emerge, an argument... which is also put forward in favor of the suspension of these so-called preferential conditions for ukrainian grain and other goods, is that since august some corridor through the black sea did start to work , there are alternative routes, they are not completely safe, but they exist, and this is an argument that is more and more often given, and the fact that more money needs to be invested in the security of the odesa port, in security. that this transport takes place, the transportation of this grain took place without any obstacles, and then europe as a transit route will disappear as a necessity altogether, but this is very often

talked about now, in principle, if we are talking about the european integration of ukraine, then the position is already the same as that of the french, the poles, or not will be a problem for our further european integration, because european integration is not only a slogan, it is primarily a free market, yes, of course, and you know, it is very interesting here, here is something new. are they already old, no longer new, they make a little fun of the new, new ones, like ukraine, roughly speaking, poland, romania, the countries that joined the eu relatively recently compared to france, germany, and the founding countries, they suffered their own losses, they also experienced their quotas, their adaptation, their own accession to it market, and said that now it is ukraine's turn to adapt and that no one will make any discounts or preferences there. only because there is a war in the country, after all , business, business as usual, as they say, er, the fact that polish farmers and so on, not have to adapt to some special

requirements of ukraine, and they always add that over the course of two years, after all, there were a lot of concessions, and now ukraine somehow has to cope on its own, these are, well, let's say, such backroom discussions, of course, they are not voiced, although sometimes they are voiced publicly by some marginal political forces. but in fact it is so, it is just a hint to ukraine that no one will take you to the eu with open arms, you will have to go through the same difficult path that other countries that have been integrated have gone through there decades ago. how do you generally see the situation between france and russia today, we can see that from africa the french have to go more and more seriously, i would say at such a pace, and... now we have learned that from niger, which was a strategic base for france , the new military junta, it is still expelling the americans, but how do paris look at these, i would say, african

successes of the russians? i think there are two, two aspects of this issue, a political issue and sociology. if we talk about sociology, then 60% of french consider russia, russia a danger for france. this is very interesting sociology, because after all, it is more than half of the population who understand that in one way or another russia threatens the interests of france. another aspect is political: all the operations in africa were very important for macron, for his... his so-called political career, for seeing himself also as a leader who managed to expel jihadists from the african sahel region, and the barkan operation was extremely important for macron to its collapse. why was this operation curtailed? there are also two reasons for this: it is the russian presence that is growing more and more, this is a fact, but it is also sociology. french military operations in africa were not popular among the french population.

and perhaps, it is already so here, running ahead. and french operations potentially in ukraine will also not be popular among the french, this sociology persists, the french do not like to send their soldiers to fight abroad for some illusory, possible strategic interests of their country, but you asked about the general relationship between france and in russia, i think emmanuel macron has a personal grudge against vladimir putin, it exists because at some point macron really believed that he could convince putin. that he can with his diplomatic skill, his talent, his charisma, i don't know what else, convince the dictator not to attack ukraine, during his last visit, two weeks before the full-scale invasion. macron believed in it. putin lied traditionally, and actually betrayed this trust, and macron took offense in a very european naive manner. he doesn't talk about it openly, of course, but it is

it can be seen from his speeches about... interviews about how his tone regarding the movement of russia has changed over the past two years, well, just radically, it even comes to the point that those close to him say, no other way than putin's regime, well, the elections, if they didn't react to the elections, by the way, russian elections, it was interesting, for some reason i expected until the end that there would be some kind of remark from the elysee palace that we absolutely do not recognize these elections and so on. therefore there is no relationship as such, although in the same interview in the plane de macron said a lot of interesting phrases and lines, he agreed with the idea that if putin calls him, macron will pick up the phone, he, he is interested to hear what putin has to say to him if he calls him one day, so it is again this is the french opening of the door, no longer sitting on two chairs, because it is still chosen to stay with ukraine until victory, but this is an open door, but, i understand that it is

putin who will also wait for him to call. they can so look forward to the conversation between they are in this situation for many more years , maybe, but do they really need to talk, or if we are interested to know what will come of this conversation, i don't know, there were so many of these conversations before a full-scale invasion, when somewhere potentially theoretically it is still possible was to stop something and prevent something from happening, now i don't see much sense in it, personally, if macron and putin see it from their side, then it will be interesting. look at the results, and how do people in france comment on the terrorist crocusihol, did it increase interest in russia, maybe empathy? you know, unfortunately, the empathy of the french for the russians has not disappeared anywhere, from time to time, when some russian topics appear, be it putin's speech, or a terrorist attack, or some other information-pretext, i will tell you honestly, as a french media worker,

a french journalist. rush to these topics, because they have this desire to talk about russia , to try to understand it, this deep russian mysterious soul, it is, i don't know how to explain it, if it is the duration of historical ties between the two countries, some kind of the russophilism of the french is hidden or undisguised, but this interest is there, on the evening of the terrorist attack, all news channels went into a non-stop marathon about the events in moscow, this is just to give you an example when he makes some big statements, for example, there was a big speech, when he annexed four ukrainian regions, it was broadcast on news channels, they broadcast putin's speeches and translate them with simultaneous translation, here are some examples of curiosity, a little unhealthy french towards russia, which, of course , is explained by the fact that the enemy must be known in face, he needs to be understood, and maybe it will help to predict his next move, but it is also...