Russian forces shot down three Ukrainian warplanes over the past day during the special military operation in Ukraine, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Saturday.
"Fighter aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces shot down Ukrainian Air Force Su-24 and MiG-29 planes in areas near the settlements of Rozovka and Dmitrov in the Donetsk People’s Republic. In the area of the settlement of Tyaginka in the Kherson Region, air defense capabilities shot down a Ukrainian Su-25 plane," the spokesman said.
Russian air defense forces destroyed eight Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, two HIMARS rockets and three Tochka-U ballistic missiles over the past 24 hours, the general added.
Russian forces inflicted damage on Ukrainian manpower and equipment in the Kupyansk area
Russian forces inflicted damage on Ukrainian manpower and equipment in the Kupyansk area, eliminating roughly 60 enemy troops over the past day, Konashenkov reported.
"In the Kupyansk area, army aviation and artillery of the western battlegroup inflicted damage on the enemy units in areas near the settlements of Masyutovka and Ivanovka in the Kharkov Region and Novosyolovskoye in the Lugansk People’s Republic," the spokesman said.
The strikes eliminated enemy manpower and equipment, the general said.
"The Ukrainian army’s losses amounted to 60 personnel, three pickup trucks, a US-made M777 artillery system and a Polish-manufactured Krab self-propelled artillery gun," Konashenkov reported.
Russian forces eliminated roughly 180 Ukrainian troops in the Krasny Liman area
Russian forces eliminated roughly 180 Ukrainian troops in the Krasny Liman area over the past day, he said.
"In the Krasny Liman area, active operations by units from the battlegroup Center, air strikes, artillery and heavy flamethrower fire inflicted damage on the Ukrainian army’s manpower and equipment in areas near the settlements of Yampolovka in the Donetsk People’s Republic, Stelmakhovka, Chervonaya Dibrova and Kuzmino in the Lugansk People’s Republic," the spokesman said.
Russian forces eliminated enemy manpower and military hardware during the battles, the general said.
"About 180 Ukrainian troops, six armored combat vehicles, a Grad multiple rocket launcher, a D-20 howitzer and a counter-battery radar were destroyed in that area in the past 24 hours," Konashenkov reported.
Russian forces eliminated over 120 Ukrainian troops and an ammunition depot in the Donetsk area
Russian forces eliminated over 120 Ukrainian troops and an ammunition depot in the Donetsk area over the past day, he said.
"In the Donetsk area, over 120 Ukrainian troops, three armored combat vehicles, D-20 and D-30 howitzers were destroyed in the past 24 hours as a result of active operations by units of the southern battlegroup, air strikes and artillery fire. In addition, an artillery ammunition depot was destroyed in the area of the settlement of Avdeyevka in the Donetsk People’s Republic," the spokesman said.
Russian forces destroyed over 90 Ukrainian troops and three tanks in the southern Donetsk and Zaporozhye areas
Russian forces destroyed over 90 Ukrainian troops and three tanks in the southern Donetsk and Zaporozhye areas in the past day, Konashenkov reported.
"In the southern Donetsk and Zaporozhye areas, operational/tactical aircraft and artillery of the battlegroup East delivered a massive strike on the Ukrainian army units near the settlements of Ugledar and Dobrovolye in the Donetsk People’s Republic and Gulyaipole in the Zaporozhye Region. Over 90 personnel, three tanks, two infantry fighting vehicles, two armored combat vehicles, two pickup trucks, a Msta-B howitzer and a D-20 howitzer were destroyed in those areas in the past 24 hours," the spokesman said.
Two Ukrainian ammunition depots destroyed near Ugledar in the Donetsk People’s Republic and Malinovka in the Zaporozhye Region
In areas near the settlements of Ugledar in the Donetsk People’s Republic and Malinovka in the Zaporozhye Region, two Ukrainian ammunition depots were destroyed, the general added.
Russian forces destroyed a US-made M777 howitzer in the Kherson area over the past day, Konashenkov reported.
"In the Kherson area, a US-made M777 artillery system and two Gvozdika self-propelled artillery guns were destroyed in counter-battery fire," the spokesman said.
Russian forces struck deployment sites of the Ukrainian army’s marine corps and special operations units in the Dnepropetrovsk Region
Russian forces struck deployment sites of the Ukrainian army’s marine corps and special operations units in the Dnepropetrovsk Region over the past day, Konashenkov reported.
"In the past 24 hours, operational/tactical and army aviation, missile troops and artillery of the Russian group of forces struck 97 Ukrainian artillery units at firing positions, and also manpower and equipment in 135 areas. In the area of the settlement of Glukhoye in the Dnepropetrovsk Region, the temporary deployment sites of marine infantry and special operations units were struck," the spokesman said.
In all, the Russian Armed Forces have destroyed 390 Ukrainian combat aircraft, 210 helicopters, 3,236 unmanned aerial vehicles, 405 surface-to-air missile systems, 8,027 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,045 multiple rocket launchers, 4,215 field artillery guns and mortars and 8,538 special military motor vehicles since the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine, Konashenkov reported.
Thousands of people in the US intelligence community knew about illegal surveillance by the NSA, but Edward Snowden was the only one to speak out, renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said in an exclusive interview with Afshin Rattansi’s show ‘Going Underground’ on RT.
Hersh described as “quite interesting” the story of the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, who back in 2013 leaked a massive trove of classified documents revealing the agency’s extensive spying on the communications of American citizens and other shady practices.
Snowden was “a kid really into computers, not into political science,” which is why he “recoiled” when he learned that the law, which banned intercepting the conversations of Americans without a warrant, was changed under the pretext of the War on Terror.
There were 25,000 people employed by the NSA at that time, according to the Pulitzer Prize winner, and many of them knew that “the rules have changed.”
“Out of those many thousands, one (Snowden) spoke out about a direct violation of one the most sensitive things in the American Constitution,” he said. “There is something about the community that is bizarre.”
It took Snowden a lot of “guts” to do what he did and he’s now paying a high price, Hersh said, adding: “I don’t think it’s safe for him to ever come back in the country (the US).”
The former NSA contractor was charged in the US with theft of government property and giving classified data to unauthorized persons, among other things. His American passport was annulled, with Snowden now staying at an undisclosed location in Russia, where he received political asylum.
Hersh argued that the Snowedn affair should serve as a response to those who label him a “conspiracy theorist” over his reporting, including his recent bombshell article blaming the Biden administration for the explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea last year.
The White House has rejected the story as “fiction,” but Snowden appeared to be convinced of its authenticity. “Can you think of any examples from history of a secret operation that the White House was responsible for, but strongly denied?” he wrote on Twitter a few weeks ago. “Besides, you know, that little ‘mass surveillance’ kerfuffle,” the NSA whistleblower added, referring to his own revelations.
Hersh told "Going Underground" that "many in the US intelligence community, many in the military value the Constitution" and they have often been the sources for his reports.
Those people, some of who are high-ranking, "talked to me privately about the stuff they couldn't stand... Those people are the people I know. And I will tell you right now – those are the people I'll protect forever,
Hasil musyawarah rakyat (Musra) XVII yang digelar gabungan relawan Presiden Joko Widodo, di Kendari, Sulawesi Tenggara, pada 12 November 2022, dimaknai sebagai pesan tersirat kepada Koalisi Indonesia Bersatu (KIB).
Sebab dalam Musra itu, nama Gubernur Jawa Tengah, Ganjar Pranowo, hanya mendapat dukungan 17,98 persen, atau di bawah Ketua Umum Partai Golkar Airlangga Hartarto (21,98 persen) dan Ketua Umum Partai Gerindra Prabowo Subianto (18,93 persen).
“Hasil Musra dari relawan Jokowi menunjukkan realitas dinamika politik yang sedang direspon oleh mereka. Nama Ganjar yang biasanya berada di posisi pertama malah terlempar di posisi ketiga,” ujar analis politik dari Citra Institute, Efriza, pada Sabtu, 25/02/2023.
Bacaannya, kata dia, nama Ganjar sengaja disingkirkan relawan Jokowi untuk memancing Koalisi Indonesia Bersatu yang dimotori Partai Golkar, PAN, dan PPP, untuk segera menetapkan tokoh bakal calon presiden (bacapres) yang mendapat dukungan paling banyak di Musra.
“Nama figur Airlangga Hartarto berada di posisi pertama, ini cukup mengejutkan,” sambungnya.
Dengan fenomena politik yang ditunjukkan relawan Jokowi dalam Musra XVII, Efriza memandang ada kekuatan politik Pilpres 2024 yang coba dibangkitkan relawan Jokowi, mengingat nama Airlangga yang juga menjabat Menko Perekonomian selalu berada di papan terbawah survei.
“Musra ini juga menunjukkan ada realitas dan memberikan dorongan juga keyakinan bahwa KIB punya calon sendiri yang layak dari tiga partai yang tergabung di dalamnya,” pungkasnya.
China sincerely wants a diplomatic solution to the conflict, but the main obstacles to peace are the Ukrainian leadership and its backers in the West, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
“We highly appreciate the sincere desire of our Chinese friends to contribute to the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine by peaceful means,” ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement, commenting on China’s 12-point “roadmap” for peacefully ending the hostilities.
Moscow shares Beijing’s position that any sanctions not authorized by the UN Security Council are “illegitimate” and “a crude instrument of unfair competition and economic warfare.”
The two countries also agree on the UN Charter, the norms of international law, and the principle of the indivisibility of security. Those considerations informed Russia’s proposals for security guarantees, made to the US and NATO in December 2021 – proposals which the West rejected, Zakharova noted.
When it comes to Ukraine, “Russia is open to achieving its goals through political and diplomatic means,” Zakharova said, laying out the criteria for a “comprehensive, just and sustainable peace.”
This involves the West ending the supply of weapons and mercenaries to Ukraine, the end of hostilities, the return of Ukraine to a neutral non-aligned status, recognition of the new territorial realities that have developed as a result of the people’s right to self-determination, the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, as well as the elimination of all threats emanating from its territory.
All citizens of Ukraine, including Russian-speakers and ethnic minorities, should be guaranteed their inalienable rights, and Kiev must end “all illegal restrictive measures and politicized lawsuits,” Zakharova added.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the main obstacle to peace is currently the Ukrainian ban on negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin, enacted by the government in Kiev at the end of September 2022.
The insistence of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky on withdrawing Russian armed forces “from our new territories – Donbass, Crimea, Zaporozhye and Kherson,” testifies “to what extent official Kiev is detached from reality,” Zakharova said.
She also noted that the Ukrainian government stopped the peace negotiations with Russia, which Kiev had initiated, in April 2022. According to pro-government media in Ukraine, that decision was made after Boris Johnson – who was the British prime minister at the time – visited Kiev and said the West was unwilling to make peace with Russia.
NATO and the EU have rejected the Chinese proposal out of hand, saying Beijing had “no credibility” when it came to Ukraine, because it did not join them in denouncing Moscow.
Raendi Rayendra, kandidat calon Walikota Bogor 2024. (Instagram/raendi_rayendra_spkk)
Kandidat calon Walikota Bogor 2024 mulai bermunculan. Satu di antaranya Dr. dr. Raendi Rayendra, SpKK, M.Kes, FINSDV, FAADV. Simak profil Raendi Rayendra sampai selesai.
Nama Raendi Rayendra sudah tidak asing lagi di lingkungan pendidikan dan kesehatan, khususnya di Kota Bogor.
Raendi Rayendra kerap menjadi pembicara seminar di berbagai tempat dan rajin memberikan edukasi kepada masyarakat umum.
Dalam salah satu seminarnya, Rayendra memberikan edukasi kepada para pelajar tentang kepemimpinan dan pengembangan diri lewat media sosial.
Dokter spesialis kulit ini merupakan founder Rayendra Dermatology dan Aesthetic Center.
Pria berusia 45 tahun tersebut merupakan dosen Fakultas Kedokteran Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta atau UIN Jakarta.
Rayendra saat ini dipercaya menjadi Ketua Komite SMAN 3 Bogor periode 2022-2025.
Rayendra dikenal hobi belajar. Meskipun titelnya sudah berderet-deret, dia masih terus menimba ilmu di perguruan tinggi.
Saat ini, Rayendra mengambil program magister (S2) hukum di Universitas Pakuan (Unpak) Bogor.
Padahal, sebelumnya dia sudah meraih gelar magister kesehatan di Universitas Padjadjaran pada 2009.
Tak hanya itu, dia juga telah menyelesaikan program doktoral di IPB University pada 2017.
Kini, Rayendra mulai terjun ke dunia politik. Ia akan mencalonkan diri sebagai calon Walikota Bogor, pengganti Bima Arya Sugiarto.
Bima Arya sendiri tidak bisa lagi maju dalam Pemilihan Walikota Bogor 2024 karena sudah dua periode menjabat walikota.
Berikut profil Raendi Rayendra, kandidat calon Walikota Bogor 2024.
I. Profil Raendi Rayendra
Nama : Dr. dr. Raendi Rayendra, SpKK, M.Kes, FINSDV, FAADV
Tempat/tanggal lahir : Lebak, 27 Maret 1978
Pekerjaan : Dosen Fakultas Kedokteran UIN Jakarta dan Owner Rayendra Dermatology & Aesthetic Center
Instagram : raendi_rayendra_spkk
II. Pendidikan Formal
Sarjana Kedokteran, Fakultas Kedokteran Universitas Padjadjaran Bandung, 2001
Dokter Umum, Fakultas Kedokteran Universitas Padjadjaran, 2003
Spesialis Kulit dan Kelamin, Fakultas Kedokteran Universitas Padjadjaran, 2009
Magister Kesehatan, Program Pascasarjana FK Universitas Padjadjaran, 2009
Program Doktoral, Ilmu Biomedis Pascasarjana FKH IPB University, 2017
Magister Hukum, Sekolah Pascasarjana Universitas Pakuan Bogor (candidate)
III. Pendidikan Informal
Medical Educational Programs Tokyo University – Japan, 2010
Fellow Indonesian Dermatology & Venereology, 2019
Fellow Asian Academy of Dermatology & Venereology, 2021
IV. Riwayat Organisasi
Ketua Bidang 2 (pendidikan dan profesi) Perdoski Bogor, 2021-2024
The U.S. sanctions imposed against Russia on Friday are mindless and will not lead to Moscow abandoning its independent policy, the Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said commenting on the restrictions by Washington.
"On February 24th, the world has witnessed yet another round of mindless economic and personal sanctions against Russia and its citizens. They once again want us to "suffer". Does anyone really believe that such measures will make our country give up its independent course, divert from the chosen path towards a multipolar world based on the principle of indivisible security, international law and the UN Charter?" Antonov said as quoted by the embassy’s press service.
According to him, the Washington administration fails to understand that "new supplies of weapons, like all the previous ones, only prolong the conflict, leading to continued bloodshed and in no way helping bring peace any closer."
He noted that the Russian army "keeps making strong progress in completing the tasks set before it to defend the Fatherland," and "is supported by the entire country."
"Washington and its allies are not succeeding in their attempts to "strangle" Russia with sanctions. We have learned to live under economic and political pressure. The Russian economy is being readjusted, and our capabilities in import substitution are increasing. Russia's agriculture is demonstrating impressive and enviable for many countries results. Even Bretton Woods institutions are predicting growth for our country already this year, the Ambassador stressed.
In most of the countries that have instigated the restrictions "the crisis is raging, they face a growing shortage of goods and a galloping inflation," Antonov noted.
"Previous experience with sanctions has shown that these primarily harm the global market and worsen the situation for ordinary citizens in the countries that initiate or support reckless sanctions," the Ambassador said.
The diplomat called the US claims about Russia being "isolated" "completely false."
"We are cooperating with the international community even more actively than before. The only difference is that we are now placing the emphasis on states that are ready to work on a mutually beneficial and equal basis, rather than on former partners who have lost our trust.
"Take a look at the web-resources of our Embassy, see the photos. You will find dozens of our friends from Latin America, Middle East, Asia, Africa, who came to the Russian diplomatic mission on February 23 to join us in celebrating Defender of the Fatherland Day," the Ambassador stressed.
"In fact, Washington is deliberately destroying the bilateral dialogue and international relations. And no one, including in the US administration, looks willing to search for a way out of this dive," the Ambassador concluded.
Why Western Sanctions Against Russia Failed
Sanctions were meant to deliver a swift and devastating blow to the Russian economy, one that would take years to recover from. Much to the dismay of Western politicians, however, not only did Russia survive the sanctions storm, but it has the potential to emerge even stronger than before.
During a speech in Poland last year, US President Joe Biden boasted that sanctions had reduced the Russian ruble to “rubble” and confidently predicted that the Russian economy was on “track to be cut in half.” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire went even further, declaring that the West would bring about Russia’s economic “collapse.”
“We are waging total economic and financial war on Russia,” he told a French broadcaster last March. “The economic and financial balance of power is totally in favor of the European Union, which is in the process of discovering its own economic power.”
Despite these loud promises, the Russian economy contracted by a mere 2.5 % last year – a decline considerably smaller than those experienced during the 1998 financial crisis (5.3%) and the 2008 Great Recession (7.9%). In a report published last month, the International Monetary Fund forecast that Russian economic growth would outpace that of Germany and the United Kingdom in 2023.
Nor did sanctions succeed in turning Russia into a global pariah. A recent report by the University of St.Gallen in Switzerland found that only 8.5% of European and G7 companies had divested from Russia between February and November 2022. At the same time, Russia’s trade turnover with non-Western economic powers such as China, India, Turkey, and Indonesia soared.
Earlier this month, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell was forced to admit that the West’s sanctions strategy was not going according to plan. "It is true that the Russian economy has not collapsed and that the GDP is not what has been forecast, and it is true that last year it got extraordinarily high revenues that came from oil and gas," he said during a speech at the European Parliament plenary session.
Our interlocutors emphasized that although sanctions undoubtedly created economic challenges for Russia in the short and medium term, they also presented a powerful opportunity to revive domestic industry and scientific potential, as well as establish new partnerships with Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African economies.
Failed Strategy
In the weeks and months following the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, the US and the EU rolled out some of the expansive sanctions packages in recent memory. Western governments pressured the SWIFT global payment system into expelling several of Russia’s largest banks, barred Russian ships and airplanes from entering their ports and airspace, and imposed export controls aimed at restricting Russia’s access to various advanced technologies and key production components.
Although this sanctions barrage initially caused the Russian ruble to dip in value and inflation to spike, the shock-effect proved to be short lived. Within weeks, the ruble recovered all of its pre-conflict value and then some. Likewise, inflation reached a peak rate of 17.8% in April 2022 and then began to steadily decline, hitting 11.8% in January 2023 (a rate less than many countries in central and eastern Europe). Contrary to the expectations of many Western economists, Russia’s unemployment rate not only did not increase, but actually hit a post-Soviet record low of 3.7% in December 2022.
Despite the new financial and logistical restrictions against Russian exporters, foreign trade contacts also remained strong. Russia’s current account surplus – which measures the difference between a country’s trade outflows and inflows – reached a record high of $227.4 billion last year, an 86% increase from 2021.
Why did such unprecedented sanctions deliver such unimpressive results? Jacques Sapir, an economist at the Paris-based School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, told Sputnik that the main reason was because they were based on false premises about the size and resilience of the Russian economy. A large part of the problem, he explained, was that American and European policymakers were looking at the wrong statistics.
The main metric used in the West to measure the Russian economy is nominal gross domestic product (GDP), which is calculated by simply converting its value in rubles into US dollars. Sapir argued that nominal GDP underestimated the strength of the Russian economy because it failed to account for purchasing power parity (PPP), which adjusts for differences in costs across countries. He noted that whereas Russia’s nominal GDP was comparable to Spain’s, its GDP based on PPP was roughly the same level as Germany’s.
Another key factor was the fact that the Russian economy was far less oriented on services than its Western counterparts. Sapir explained that although services could serve as an important source of economic growth during peacetime, they inevitably took a backseat to the manufacturing and commodities sectors during times of geopolitical turmoil. He noted that Russia still maintained a sizable industrial base and was a leading global supplier of natural gas, oil, rare earth metals, and agricultural products.
“Russia has a very specific place on the world markets and, therefore, attempting to isolate such a country would inevitably lead to an international economic catastrophe,” he said. “Unsurprisingly, a lot of countries would never agree to join efforts aimed at isolating Russia because they need trade with Russia.”
Sapir also said that the West underestimated Russia’s ability to find alternative suppliers for various types of machinery and key components used in production. He noted that although Russian imports fell substantially during the second quarter of 2022, they rebounded during the third and fourth quarters. “Russia is now importing more or less the same quantity of products that it was importing by the end of 2021,” he said.
Russia reorienting its trade flows from Europe to Asia, especially China, Sapir explained. Another important factor was that Russian companies had become fairly adept at circumventing Western sanctions with the help of counterparts in third-party countries. As a result, many European and American goods were still finding their way into the Russian market.
Rebirth of Industry
Sanctions have the potential to become a blessing in disguise for Russia, according to Konstantin Babkin, president of the Rostelmash, one of Russia’s largest agricultural equipment manufacturers.
Decades of economic integration with the West had caused Russia to sacrifice some of the industrial potential it inherited from the Soviet Union, Babkin argued. Instead of manufacturing airplanes and trucks from start to finish as it once did, Russia began to import such complex machinery from the West.
The Western sanctions imposed last year have created an urgent need for Russia to rebuild its industrial base. During a speech before the Federal Assembly on Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin declared that Russia needed to reorient its economy from selling raw materials to the West to developing its own advanced technologies and equipment.
Babkin told Sputnik that Russia possessed all the necessary conditions to support an industrial revival — immense natural resource wealth, vast swathes of available land, a market of 150 million people, and strong scientific institutions capable of training the next generation of innovators.
The main thing needed to translate Russia’s economic potential into reality is strong government support for domestic manufacturers, he said. Some of the policy measures Babkin recommended include lower interest rates and taxes, as well as new tariffs.
“Many countries have already reached the physical or spatial limits of their development – there are no more markets left to conquer, no more fields left to sow, no more opportunities for expansion. That’s why much of the modern world is experiencing such a crisis” he said. “Russia is one of the few countries, perhaps even the only country, that has plenty of room to develop further. We can grow many times over if we rely on our resources, ourselves, and our civilization.”
Some Russian companies are already moving to fill newly-created niches in the domestic market. Last November, the Russian manufacturing sector experienced its largest expansion in over five years, according to a business survey by the S&P Global financial analytics firm. A surge in domestic demand was the primary driving force behind the increased output and employment.
Babkin noted that after the West imposed sanctions against Russia in 2014 over the reunification of Crimea, the share of Russian-made agricultural equipment on the domestic market jumped from 25% to 65%. He argued that the current round of sanctions could provide a similar impetus to resurrect Russian aircraft and automobile production.
“Today, the priority task in civil aviation is to launch the serial production of fully Russian-made passenger aircraft, without any foreign components, as quickly as possible” the United Air Corporation, a Russian aerospace company that is part of the Rostec state corporation, told Sputnik. The company explained that the decision of Western airliner giants Boeing and Airbus to exit the Russian market last year was forcing domestic manufacturers to not only step up aircraft production, but also start making their own engines and other key components.
For its part, the United Air Corporation plans on manufacturing 500 aircraft by 2030 to help replace Russia’s existing fleet of foreign planes, which will be gradually retired. One of its most promising projects is the MC-21, a next-generation passenger aircraft that is already in production. The main advantage of the MC-21 is its cutting-edge composite wing, which provides the plane with superior aerodynamics.
Technological Sovereignty
One of the central objectives of Western sanctions is to suffocate Russian technological innovation. When Biden unveiled the first Ukraine-related sanctions package last year, he promised that the US and its allies would impair Russia’s “ability to compete in a high-tech 21st century economy.” The technological aspect of sanctions has only become more important since then. Although Western politicians now admit that sanctions have failed to collapse the Russian economy, they still express hope that technological restrictions will stunt Russia’s progress in the long run.
That is an assumption challenged by many Russian scientists and entrepreneurs. Evgeny Nikolaev is a project manager at Health Test, a Russian company that is working to develop a machine-learning program that will help doctors to diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease in patients during the earliest stages of its development. The technology, which has no foreign analogues, is currently undergoing clinical tests at a Moscow hospital, after which it will be distributed to other medical institutions in the Russian capital.
Nikolaev said that Western sanctions have not had any meaningful impact on the project’s development, noting that all the “necessary reagents and consumables could be replaced with domestic ones or obtained through parallel importation.” At the same time, he emphasized that Russian scientists did not need foreign sponsorships in order to make breakthroughs. He noted that government institutions such as the Moscow Department of Health and the Moscow Innovation Cluster were offering the project significant support in terms of product development and practical application.
A similar argument was advanced by Valentin Makarov, president of the Russian Software Developers Association (RUSSOFT). He told Sputnik that Russia had two advantages it could rely on to keep innovating despite Western sanctions. The first was Russia's strong scientific education, which has a legacy of excellence dating back to the Czarist-period. Additionally, Makarov argued that Russia was well positioned to build new technological partnerships with non-Western economies such as China and India.
Ironically enough, sanctions had provided Russian software and cybersecurity systems with an opportunity to show their resilience in the face of unprecedented external pressure.
“Following the start of the special military operation, we saw a manifold increase in cyber attacks against Russian systems, a ban on the use of foreign software, and the termination of support licenses for this software,“ he said. “Despite everything that happened, Russian systems continued to work as before. It turned out that giant American corporations, which dominate the global information technologies, cannot destroy the operation of these Russian systems. This showed everybody that Russia has the capacity for technological sovereignty.”
According to Makarov, the world was on the brink of a new technological order – one centered on artificial intelligence and cyber-physical systems. Instead of remaining a junior partner in the Western-led technological ecosystem, Russia needed to seize the initiative and develop its own ambitious, revolutionary projects in coordination with its allies.
One promising idea, Makarov said, was for Russia to spearhead the creation of a new Eurasian digital financial payment system. Such an initiative would not only facilitate greater regional trade, but also shield its members for Western sanctions and other forms of economic pressure.
“We cannot become leaders in the new technological order by continuing to sell oil and gas to the world market and then using those profits to buy technological systems developed by other countries,” he said. “If we do not focus on developing our own systems, in cooperation with partners from friendly countries of course, then that means we will again be dependent on someone else. Russia has a huge number of specialists capable of creating new technologies that will change the world, so we must take advantage of that.”
