Interview with Rossiya TV channel
The President answered questions from Pavel Zarubin, a journalist with Rossiya 1 TV channel.
November 13, 2021
11:15
The Kremlin, Moscow
During the interview with Rossiya TV channel.
Pavel Zarubin: Mr President, tensions are escalating on the border between the EU and Belarus. The European Union has already deployed army troops. Moreover, they are building up the contingent. You spoke with Angela Merkel twice, and you also spoke with Alexander Lukashenko. Why they do not speak to each other directly is probably also a question I would like to ask you. In general, what do you think of the developments there?
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: To begin with, why they do not speak with each other is not a question for me. We have nothing to do with that. But I inferred from my conversations with President Lukashenko and Chancellor Merkel that they are ready to speak with one another. I hope it will happen soon and some sort of direct contact will be established between the European Union, the EU leading nations, or at least between the Federal Republic of Germany and Belarus. This is crucial because the migrants’ goal is primarily to get into Germany.
In this connection, I would like to remind you what our Foreign Ministry has already stated. We should not forget the roots of these migration crises. Was it Belarus that unleashed these problems? No, the problems were caused by the West, by the European countries. These problems have political, military and economic dimensions. Military because everyone participated in the Iraq operations, and now there are many Kurds from Iraq [among the migrants]; they had also fought in Afghanistan for twenty years, thus there are more and more Afghans there. Belarus has nothing to do with that. The migrants were also moving via different routes. And it is not surprising that they are now going through Belarus because, as Mr Lukashenko told me, Belarus has visa-free arrangements with the countries of origin.
First come military and political causes, but there are also economic factors: there are very high social benefits for migrants in Europe, very high indeed. Say, given high unemployment, a good worker in the Middle East, including in oil producing countries, even if he is employed in the oil industry, earns a fraction of the social benefits that non-working migrants get, for example, in the Federal Republic of Germany. It is natural that people are heading there. Why should they work in turbulent conditions when basic safety rules are not observed when they can live idly with their families and get twice or three times as much? Because these benefits cover both adults and children, free education and, as a rule, free medical care. Let me reiterate, this is the policy of Europe’s leading nations.
On the other hand, however, we kept hearing that humanitarian issues must be given top priority. However, when Polish border guards and army troops on the Belarus-Poland border beat up potential migrants and fire combat weapons over their heads, blast sirens and spotlights onto their camps at night, where there are children and women in the final weeks of pregnancy, all that does not go well with the ideas of humanism which supposedly underlie all policies of our Western neighbours.
Nevertheless, I still proceed from the premise that a solution must be found to suit both Belarus and European countries, including Poland, the Federal Republic and other countries, because there is too much strain on their social systems. Conditions must be created for employing those people one way or another, and resolve problems between the parties since, as President Lukashenko told me, readmission problems have not been resolved, efforts were suspended on such issues as migrant accommodation, building camps for them, and so on.
I hope that direct contacts between the leaders of Belarus and the EU leading countries will help resolve these issues. This is number one.
Second. I would like to say the following. I want everyone to know this. We have absolutely nothing to do with any of this. They are trying to shift the responsibility to us at the slightest pretext or even without any pretext. Our airlines do not carry those people. Not a single one of our airlines is involved. By the way, President Lukashenko told me that Belavia Airlines does not carry migrants either. They take charter flights, and with a visa-free arrangement these people just buy their tickets and come over.
Indeed, there are certain groups that are shipping those people to the European countries, but those groups have been operating for a long time.
The key link is in the EU countries. Those who are located there organise all those chains. Let their law enforcement and security services deal with them if they are violating their laws. But I get the impression that it is rather hard to bring them to account there, because if we look at the national legislation of the European countries, they are not violating anything. Someone living in one country wants to move to another one due to their concerns – security concerns or even for economic reasons.
If a law is violated, then the law enforcement and security services of those countries must deal with those groups. And they should certainly collaborate with those countries that the migrants cross to get to Europe, including Belarus. Let me stress this again: Russia has absolutely nothing to do with that. We are not involved in any processes whatsoever.
Pavel Zarubin: An odd situation is emerging there now as they practically want to ban people from buying air tickets to fly out their countries. Why has the plight of those people been moved to the sidelines and nobody seems to care about them?
Vladimir Putin: That is exactly what I said. There are humanitarian issues, there are small children there. Honestly, when I watch that, I first of all feel empathy for the children. Look, the temperature drops below freezing at night while those people are sitting there without any resources, which are running out. When they arrive, they have some money with them, but money does not appear out of thin air, and they spend what they have there, on the border. Yes, the people arouse sympathy, of course. I am not talking about the causes or what is going on there. I certainly feel sorry for the people.
Pavel Zarubin: There is an issue that has to do with Russia. Recently President of Belarus Lukashenko threatened that he could cut off gas transit to Europe, and it is Russian gas. Moreover, Belarus addressed Russia with a request for the strategic aviation to patrol the skies over Belarus. What can you say about that?
Vladimir Putin: They did not exactly address us. The strategic aviation cannot do anything to resolve such crises. We have scheduled exercises with our Belarusian colleagues, as we do regularly. It is our Western partners who constantly hold regular and irregular drills of various kinds there.
We also do that, and our strategic aviation also regularly flies and marks the presence of our strategic aviation along its patrol routes.
Pavel Zarubin: What about Russian gas and its transit?
Vladimir Putin: To be honest, this is the first time I hear about it because I spoke with Mr Lukashenko twice recently and he never told me about that, not even a hint. But he can probably do that. Although there is nothing good about it and I will certainly talk to him about this issue, unless he just said it in the heat of the moment.
However, we already have experience with Ukraine doing similar things. In 2008, if my memory serves me right, there was a crisis when we were unable to agree on the basic contract parameters among incessant arguments over the price of gas and transit. It came to the point that Ukraine blocked our gas bound for European consumers. They simply, as specialists say, turned off the tap and closed off the transit of Russian gas to Europe. This did happen.
Of course, theoretically, Lukashenko, as president of a transit country, can issue an order to cut off our deliveries to Europe even though it will violate our transit contract. I hope it will not come to that. But on the other hand, sanctions are imposed on him and there is a threat of new sanctions. However, it would do more damage to Europe’s energy sector and would not contribute to the development of our relations with Belarus as a transit country.
Pavel Zarubin: You have already mentioned the US drills, and the atmosphere and the situation are generally very tense. In the past days and hours, we have seen multiple articles in the Western media claiming that Russia is plotting a military invasion in Ukraine, and supposedly the United Stated even warned their EU partners that Russia is preparing such an invasion. Notably, we can see concurrently that the United States and NATO are conducting an exercise right at our borders, in the Black Sea. How do you asses the entire situation?
Vladimir Putin: I have not seen such alarmist declarations, so far, at least. But I suppose it is as you say. Indeed, the United States and their NATO allies are presently conducting an unscheduled, and I want to stress that it is unscheduled, drill in the Black Sea. They deployed a powerful naval group and they are also using the air force in the drill, including strategic aviation.
Here is a part of the answer to your previous question about where and how our strategic missile carriers fly. They use the B 51, which are pretty old aircraft but it is not the carriers that matter. The point is that they have combat strategic weapons onboard, which is a grave challenge for us. I should say that our Defence Ministry also suggested holding an unscheduled drill in the area of the Black Sea but I do not think it is expedient and there is no need to aggravate the situation there even further. For that reason, the Russian Defence Ministry has limited its actions to escorting their aircraft and ships. This is number one.
Second, regarding Ukraine. We are being urged to implement the Minsk agreements and are often accused of not observing them. However, when we ask our partners, including in the Normandy format, exactly which part of the Minsk agreements Russia is not fulfilling and what, in their opinion, Russia is supposed to do under the Minsk agreements, we get no answer. This is exactly what they say: – We cannot put it into words. I am not kidding, this is the dialogue we are having. And what exactly have the Lugansk and Donetsk people’s republics failed to do regarding the Minsk agreements? There is no answer either; again they cannot put it into words. Meanwhile, they publicly demand that we implement them.
And now the second issue regarding who the party to the conflict is. The Minsk agreements do not state that Russia is a party to the conflict, we never agreed to this and never will; we are not a party to it.
Meanwhile, what are the Kiev authorities doing? Let me remind you of the most recent history. The acting president made a decision to engage armed forces to resolve the conflict in the southeast, in Donbass. It was the first attempt to resolve the issue by using military force. Then Mr Poroshenko, who by that time had become president, made the second attempt, despite efforts to convince him otherwise, of using the military to resolve the issue. We are well aware of how this attempt ended and what tragedies it brought. It was they who started it.
Now the current president merrily reports that they are using the Bayraktars, that is, unmanned combat aerial vehicles. This is aviation, even though it is unmanned it is still aviation, used in the conflict zone, which is strictly prohibited by the Minsk agreements and subsequent agreements. However, it elicits no response whatsoever. Europe said something inarticulate about it while the US in effect supported it. Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials say outright: we used them and will continue to use them further.
Concurrently they arranged unscheduled drills in the Black Sea. There is an impression that they do not want to let us relax. Well, they should know that we do not relax anyway.
Pavel Zarubin: In this format, under such conditions, does it make any sense to have a Normandy format meeting which both the European partners and Ukraine insist on?
Vladimir Putin: I have not heard the latest insistent suggestions, although we are discussing it. I think we do not have any other mechanisms, and however hard the situation is today, however difficult solving this issue might be, these mechanisms should be used so as to at least approach the settlement of the problems we are talking about.
Artificial intelligence conference
The President took part in the main discussion on the subject of AI Technology To Address Social Issues at the AI Journey 2021, the international conference on artificial intelligence and data analysis.
November 12, 2021
19:50
Moscow
Artificial intelligence conferencehttp://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/video/en/video_low/BnuHqUYA46vPpjFqL3zQiEIzCcOLAWgT.mp4
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Gref, friends,
As Mr Gref said, we have schoolchildren in the hall. But representatives of the adult audience, professionals are also watching and listening to us and will take part in our meeting. So, I would like to say to our boys and girls: if something seems a bit boring, please forgive me in advance but I must talk to all the participants in our meeting.
I will start with general things.
Artificial intelligence technology has truly become part of our lives. Today, it is a field that attracts talented, creative people that are ready to dream big and work toward their goals. It is the cutting edge of science and engineering. It is very important to make sure that these breakthroughs opening up truly limitless opportunities do not harm but help people, help save our planet and ensure its sustainable development.
I am hoping we will certainly discuss all these issues at Sber’s international conference that has already become, to quote Mr Gref, one of the main global venues for discussing artificial intelligence.
I am very glad that schoolchildren and students from Russia and other countries are taking part in our discussion today. You are already creating a new technological world. You are doing this with your hands and your heads. You are offering interesting solutions – I will be pleased to see the projects that you presented at Sber’s contest.
But first I would like to congratulate you, Mr Gref, and thousands of your employees, on an important anniversary. Savings banks were established on November 12, 1841. This is where Sber’s history begins. Over 180 years, Sber has always been and, I am sure, will remain a truly people’s bank, a financial institution that is critical to our country’s economy. Suffice it to say that Sber has over 100 million clients.
While successfully carrying out its main mission, you are actively and, most important, sincerely and enthusiastically advancing the ideas of technical progress. Using ground-breaking solutions, you are trying to adapt Sber’s entire ecosystem to serve people, providing an example of the major changes that are taking place around the world.
A completely different paradigm for how companies, businesses and whole industries operate is taking shape literally before our eyes. The goal is not just to put a new product onto the market or build effective production or business models. The main thing is to aim all work toward the interests and needs of individual customers. Let me repeat, it is not a commodity or service but people that play the central role in all economic processes. This transformation is affecting not only the economy but also the social sphere and government administration. Of course, Big Data and artificial intelligence are playing a key role in this respect.
The winners in today’s world are those who are making better use of the powerful technological potential in the interests of people and their prosperity. They are winning the global competition. We, that is, Russia must certainly be among the leaders in this regard.
Our companies, including Sber, are developing and introducing unique solutions in healthcare and education, environmental protection and agriculture, industry and transport. We have to accelerate the digital transformation across the board and as soon as possible move from isolated experiments and pilot initiatives to end-to-end projects with AI applications, primarily in areas that determine quality of life. In a word, we have to make the technologies of the future accessible right now and see that they serve all the country’s citizens and our national development goals. This is the mission of the state, scientists, engineers and innovative businesses.
Friends,
We need to carefully analyse our development plans for industry, the social sphere, transport, communications and telecommunications. The plans must be aligned and closely coordinated with sectoral and regional strategies for the introduction of artificial intelligence and, of course, with the progress of our entire development agenda.
Indeed, what is the use of the technologies of the future if a certain town or settlement still has low quality communications or lacks internet altogether (this is, regretfully, still a reality, and while cases are hard to find, they do exist), or if a medical worker, teacher or agronomist does not have the necessary equipment and skills to use it?
I think it is extremely important – and I want to draw the Russian Government’s attention to it – to launch a training programme for sectoral specialists without delay to provide them with a working knowledge of artificial intelligence. It has to be done now.
Let me remind you that at our last meeting a year ago we agreed to help businesses conduct technological upgrades and to offer tax incentives to companies and organisations which purchase domestic software, computers and telecommunication devices.
Unfortunately, these and other decisions have not been made yet, they are still, in officialese, “being coordinated” or as bureaucrats say, “pending.” The process has clearly been protracted, and we will discuss this topic in more detail with our colleagues, but I must stress that we will not resolve the issues of rapid technological development with such slow tempos.
Let me reiterate. Technologies are developing exponentially, with colossal, explosive speed, right before our eyes. Not long ago it would have all seemed straight out of science fiction. But now Russian automobile plants, our automotive industry is still moving forward in the face of fairly tough competition. Vehicles are being designed which can drive in low visibility, in a snowstorm, on the snow, and they do it not just on the testing grounds but in real life. The Yandex company is set to launch the first driverless taxi service in Moscow, albeit in test mode. I saw it for myself, and I have to say it is impressive.
We need to remove as swiftly as possible all excessive barriers to designing and introducing advanced solutions including in AI, to form a regulatory and legal environment which corresponds to the level of the technological progress.
However, there are other aspects to consider – who is to be liable for damages if, for instance, a driverless car causes a traffic accident, and cases have already been reported in the world that left authorities unsure of how to proceed. That gives way to questions of how to insure the actions, and in some cases inaction, of robots and AI algorithms.
I would like to ask the Government to adjust, in cooperation with the professional community, these and other legal aspects of introducing advanced technical solutions under experimental legal regimes. In part, it is necessary to provide guarantees for protecting the intellectual property of achievements in artificial intelligence. This is not a problem for the future. It is already becoming increasingly urgent.
Now I would like to say a few words about access to the data without which it is impossible to develop many types of digital technology. We are well aware of this and have spoken about it more than once. I believe at least two fundamental principles must be at work here.
First, it is necessary to have effective mechanisms for the anonymisation and storage of data and maximally clear, understandable rules for providing this anonymous information, as well as firm guarantees for protecting the rights and interests of people, including their private life.
Second, in current conditions any attempt to establish a monopoly on data limits free competition and economic development. In this context, I would like to ask you to adopt as soon as possible legal decisions to ensure access of Russian experts on artificial intelligence, research organisations and businesses to the state’s anonymised data bases, especially since ministries and departments have already compiled such data sets, to use professional slang.
As a next step, I would like the Government and the Bank of Russia to consider the possibility of providing similar access to anonymised data bases from the largest domestic companies, paying special attention, of course, to the safety of personal information.
There are many intricate legal and ethical nuances. Why should personal data belong not to an individual but to commercial or financial organisations from which he receives different services? This is a big question because, unfortunately, this is what is happening now in real life. If an individual has the full right to do what he wants with his personal information, he will be able to give it to another company or bank. With this information, they will be able to offer better products to their new client, for instance, a reduced interest loan.
I will emphasise that it is necessary to take a very careful and balanced approach to all these issues, considering all aspects of work with databases. Naturally, any action can only be taken with the consent of the individual.
A special decision should be made regarding information critical for citizens’ security. This concerns primarily biometric data, which are increasingly used for financial and other transactions, including for paying fares, say, in the metro as in Moscow nowadays. I think that such highly personal information must be stored in the unified state system of biometric identification, which means the state must take responsibility for storing it yet ensure free access to it for banks and other organisations, but in a fully encrypted form, which rules out any external interference and open access to one’s personal data.
Friends,
The issues of protecting personal data and digital payments and countering hidden manipulation of citizens’ preferences and actions are increasingly coming to the fore. Now it concerns not only ensuring the cybersecurity of a person but also that of their virtual double – the avatar that will live within the metaverses being established now. Their designers promise that by using these virtual worlds a person will be able to traverse space without leaving their home. I know that even those present here are dealing with these issues. All that will definitely help people to be close to other people who may even live on a different continent.
Let me remind you that the term “metaverse” was coined by a famous sci-fi writer three decades ago. According to him, people were fleeing and really found refuge there from the imperfections of the real world. However, such an approach would be too pessimistic for us today; I think we should never take this route. On the contrary, we must use the metaverse opportunities for people to be able to mix, co-work, co-study and pursue joint creative and business projects regardless of the distances between them, no matter how big.
This is a true challenge for technology companies, creative industries, for the makers of virtual and mixed reality devices. And also for lawyers who have to work out regulations for economic and public relations in a fundamentally new world, this is undoubtedly a challenge as well. Overall, the creation and application of AI technologies for the sake of society, humankind, for the preservation of our planet, for studying the world ocean and outer space – these are all truly civilisational challenges and absolutely sweeping. We can and should resolve them only by joining our efforts.
I would like to use the platform of your conference to invite everyone to participate in open, large-scale cooperation. And, of course, I would like to ask the Government of Russia to create opportunities for our compatriots and foreign engineers, software developers, scientists and teachers to take part, in a convenient online format or some other format, in joint projects carried out in Russia, primarily in science and education.
We are launching advanced technology academic programmes in our universities and creating artificial intelligence competence centres at our leading universities and research institutions. Their work will be an important step towards creating a system of interdisciplinary research incorporating both the natural sciences and the humanities, which is indispensable for developing strong artificial intelligence. Specialists say that it will learn and develop by itself, resolving the most difficult tasks in conditions of uncertainty. In fact, our audience today knows all about this.
I would like to repeat that we have ambitious plans for developing the educational and digital space for schoolchildren and students and we are very interested in this. Everything is important.
That said we all understand well that people are achieving breakthroughs and putting them to use. Paradoxical though it may seem, to be leaders in artificial intelligence what is needed is a humane environment like in a family where parents pass on important moral values to their children and, of course, at school. This is where children should acquire the “soft” skills that their parents and grandparents developed while playing with their peers, learning to make friends and help each other, overcome setbacks, form close-knit teams and invent all kinds of games and plans, or, as they say now, joint projects.
I hope we will discuss today all these complex issues – the technological, moral and ethical aspects of artificial intelligence. Naturally, I am primarily addressing the audience in this hall.
Thank you very much for your attention.
November 8 − 15, 2021
Culture
Greetings on Vakhtangov State Academic Theatre on its centenaryNovember 13, 2021, 12:00
Visit to Dostoevsky Moscow House MuseumNovember 11, 2021, 15:50
Education
Meeting with Government membersNovember 10, 2021, 15:45
Foreign Policy
Interview with Rossiya TV channelNovember 13, 2021, 11:15
APEC summitNovember 12, 2021, 16:40
Telephone conversation with President of Argentina Alberto FernandezNovember 11, 2021, 18:40
Telephone conversation with Acting Federal Chancellor Angela MerkelNovember 11, 2021, 18:30
On November 12, Vladimir Putin will take part in APEC SummitNovember 10, 2021, 15:30
Telephone conversation with Acting Federal Chancellor of Germany Angela MerkelNovember 10, 2021, 13:45
Telephone conversation with President of Belarus Alexander LukashenkoNovember 9, 2021, 15:35
Law
Congratulations on the Interior Ministry Personnel DayNovember 10, 2021, 09:00
Security
Interview with Rossiya TV channelNovember 13, 2021, 11:15
Military-Industrial Commission meetingNovember 10, 2021, 17:10
Meeting with permanent members of the Security CouncilNovember 9, 2021, 16:55
Meeting with Director General of Russian Helicopters Andrei BoginskyNovember 8, 2021, 13:55
Science and Technology
Artificial intelligence conferenceNovember 12, 2021, 19:50
Social Sector
Address to the finalists of the Bolshaya Peremena contestNovember 13, 2021, 19:20
Interview with Rossiya TV channelNovember 13, 2021, 11:15
Healthcare
Condolences on the passing of Yevgeny ChazovNovember 12, 2021, 18:00
Meeting with Government membersNovember 10, 2021, 15:45
Meeting with permanent members of the Security CouncilNovember 9, 2021, 16:55
Society
Interview with Rossiya TV channelNovember 13, 2021, 11:15
