Leonid Slutski. Photo: Sergei Fadeichev / TASS
The head of the Liberal Democratic Party assessed the main provisions of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual Address to the Federal Assembly. And above all, the sensational announcement that Russia was suspending its participation in the Strategic Nuclear Weapons Treaty.
– Leonid Eduardovich, as far as I remember, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the founder of his party, has repeatedly proposed to revise Russia’s agreements with American partners in this area. How do you rate this step by our leader?
– I think it’s natural and right. We defend a world order based on laws, not rules. For a multipolar world order, it simply cannot be otherwise, with respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, language, traditions of each country, of each people.
As for the situation under the START treaty, the suspension of participation in it is an absolutely timely and rational step in relation to threats of violation of the strategic nuclear balance.
You could even take this step some time ago. The dangerous militant rhetoric of the collective West is on the rise. It is necessary to maintain the strategic nuclear balance on the planet. If there are any destructive steps from the West, Russia will respond symmetrically. This is how we save the world. Let’s maintain stability. And let’s not allow some hotheads to shake up strategic nuclear security. Therefore, this is a completely justified step. And we in both chambers of the Federal Assembly will respond immediately.
– Is it possible for Russia to resume new nuclear weapons tests?
– We’re ready for it. You just don’t have to run them. There is no need to waver what was built long ago by the efforts of both the Soviet Union and Russia, namely strategic nuclear balance. But if our Western opponents, and indeed today the enemies who are trying with all their might to crush Russia, take similar steps, we, as the President said, will take similar steps.
– Leonid Eduardovich, what is the reason that the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party so often visits the new Russian territories – in the Donbass?
– Everything that will be significant in the country in the coming years will also happen there. Therefore, we must be together, help people solve their problems. And a colossal number of problems have accumulated over the years of the genocide of Donbass by the kyiv regime. Therefore, what happens in the human mind, what happens with the restoration of the destroyed infrastructure, what happens with the entry of these territories into the legal field of the Russian Federation – these are processes that require our presence there. The Liberal Democratic Party has already created three of its branches, the fourth, Kherson, we will create in the near future.
– Leonid Eduardovich, in the film “Chapaev” Commissar Furmanov asks the red commander Chapaev, for which International is he, for the second or third? What international are you in?
– Slutsky is listed in the international LDPR. And he supports this international both in Russia itself and outside Russia. Today we are a party whose influence and authority is increasing. But only through working with people. We do not use our assistance to citizens in the new territories for public relations, we do not tell the media about our work in Donbas. Only now I make an exception for Komsomolskaya Pravda.
– When you met with the president the other day, you presented him with party projects. And now they have been sent to the government. What is the reaction of the head of state and the head of government?
– Almost all the proposals received the support of the president. it is too soon to say more. But in the near future we will continue to work with the government.
– What are these proposals, if not a secret?
– It is a single minimum support package for mobilized and volunteers and their families.
It involves the creation of daycare groups for children from 2 months to a year and a half to support women who wish to develop a professional career. We need to help them balance motherhood with work.
We propose to establish a new state award – the Order or Medal of Kuzma Minin, similar to the award “For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War” for workers of the home front who support the front in every possible way.
In our opinion, it is necessary to exclude from the methodology for calculating the average per capita income that associated with a mortgage on a single home.
We have a lot of questions about the implementation of the vital drugs list. The fact is that the commission of the Ministry of Health names 22 items, and only 4 were included in the government decree before the New Year.Many other things also require immediate consideration, because they are vital for tens and hundreds of thousands of our citizens.
The Liberal Democratic Party is working on that, being a party that reaches all families, all people. In the near future we will report to Komsomolskaya Pravda the results of our efforts already at the government level.
