is russia changing in any structure? is there evolution? increase the number of clients of small medium-sized entrepreneurs by one and a half times, the loan portfolio by at least 1.4 times and not increase the volume of foreign economic activity in friendly currencies. these are the goals we set for ourselves. vtb as part of a new strategy for working with small medium-sized businesses until 2026. at the same time, the bank relies on fundamentally new standards of relations and service. we talked about this and more with the deputy president and chairman of the board of vtb bank, denis bortnikov. denis alexandrovich, hello. hello. we meet with you in kaliningrad at one of the iconic points, the museum of the world ocean. and here you are on a work trip. within the framework

of which you talk about vtb’s new strategy for the development of small medium-sized businesses, tell us with what results vtb completed the twenty -third year in this segment and how do you assess the bank’s position in this market? firstly, we completed the previous strategy, it was great, as i would probably rate it, the growth in our business was more than we have grown by 2 and a half times compared to the eighteenth year, our loan portfolio has grown to...

and the result of this activity is the active growth of the client base, which means that we have exceeded 1,300 active clients, again in 5 years, to we’ll come back to this interview, it’s now live broadcast, we agreed to take additional practical steps to develop trade and economic cooperation, which still lags significantly behind...

this spring we will begin work on their implementation, we noted positive dynamics development of our military cooperation, military-technical cooperation, highly appreciated cooperation in the humanitarian sphere, including the training of malian personnel on the basis of our higher educational institutions in mali, if we count graduates of soviet universities and universities of the russian federation, more than 10 thousand live and work for the benefit of their country citizens who received education in our country, well, we maintain an increased quota for the continuation of this practice, annually we allocate 290 scholarships from our budget for malian students, we were informed. our friends about the current

situation in mali, about the actions that the country's leadership is taking to establish a peace process, including through... direct inter-mali dialogue, which the transitional president gaita initiated in january of this year, and our friend, mr. minister, abdullah ediop emphasized the special importance of russian support in the fight against terrorism, in increasing the combat capability of the malian army and law enforcement forces.

equality, which is fundamental to the united nations. we are grateful to our malian friends for their support of our initiatives at the un and other multilateral formats. in most cases, mali becomes a co-author of draft resolutions proposed by the russian delegation, and they agreed on further, on further development externally. nigeria and chad listened with great interest to

the gentleman's assessments regarding the efforts that mali, burkina faso and niger are making to develop what they have created. alliances of sahel states, listened and information about the situation in the economic community of west african countries, we expect that existing problems in relations between the countries of the region can be overcome on the principles of good neighborliness, we have always supported the formula: african problems, african solutions, if no one interferes, we...

our own interests, we pay great attention to the implementation of the results of the second russia-africa summit, which i have already mentioned, it was held last year in st. petersburg, and one of its decisions was the creation russian-african forum at the ministerial level at the level of heads of foreign policy departments, and we are holding the first such meeting this fall in sochi. i expect that our friends will, of course, be represented at this event. we also discussed the task of reforming the united nations so that its structure would better reflect the interests and weight of african countries on

the world stage, we talked about the fight against terrorism, the palestinian-israeli conflict, the state of affairs around yemen, and confirmed our... once again today we talked about this, we talked about it. the negotiations were useful, the assessments were perceived absolutely correctly, and they will continue, as i said, in the next couple of months on the trade and economic track. i am sincerely grateful to our friends for their joint work.

and this visit allowed us to take our relations to a new level, today in moscow we continue this trend of political consultations between our two countries, we continue to discuss our cooperation, mali stands in solidarity with russia in those challenges, with which russia faces.

the region and the city of kidal were recently liberated by the malian army on november 14. for approximately 10 years it was occupied by groups hostile to the world, and today this is evidence of the success in ties that exist between russia and mali.

his first visit outside malia was last year at the russia africa summit. the presidents were able to communicate and discuss ways to strengthen our economic , trade, and security cooperation. as mr. minister has already said. i would like to to express the respect of the russian federation for bilateral support for, in

principle, the support that the russian federation provides to mali at the international level, in particular at the level of savbe for the un in other international organizations, in particular i am talking about the lifting of sanctions on the withdrawal of stabilization missions in mali.

launch direct inter-mali dialogue, internal dialogue so that a peaceful solution is found and developed in mali. the corresponding committee has already been organized, and it will just decide how best to carry out negotiations on this world, we ask our partners, our friends, to

also participate in this dynamic, because no one except malitsa... loves our country so much, so we, including uniting with the russian federation, so that this choice, our choice was supported and respected. we share values ​​and principles, respect for the un charter and non-interference in internal affairs. respect for the political choices of countries, we also oppose the politicization of human rights, we oppose sanctions, at least if these sanctions act as a means of enslavement and domination, we

oppose any neo-colonial approach in our relations. and the russian federation and mali, we oppose the politicization of international institutions, regional institutions, including international judicial institutions. as for bilateral cooperation, i think everything has been going very well in the last year. we have a lot of communication at the ministerial level, at the technical level, we all work to fulfill instructions, adopted by simingoita and vladimir putin in various sectors, these are energy, agriculture, natural resources, mines. we want

to push our cooperation even further. therefore, we accept russia’s proposal to hold a meeting in april to expand our cooperation, to deepen this cooperation. in humanitarian terms. i would like to once again express my gratitude to the russian federation for its support, for the constant support that russia provides to africa and mali. i would like to remind you that russia respects its obligations. in the field of humanitarian assistance , we were promised humanitarian assistance, all this was specified, we are talking about fertilizers, about wheat, about diesel fuel, today all this came true, and this was very important, as

for regional issues, we talked with mr. minister and his colleagues. of course, we are aware of the connections that we have , these are extremely important priority areas for us, with neighboring countries, with friendly countries in the region, with the peoples, with the governments of these countries, i think that we we will continue to act together and

we will maintain dialogue with these countries. i would like to once again thank the russian side and emphasize the productivity of the past dialogue; we see russia’s determination to work together with us at the international level, including, it is important that politics be put to an end.

mali, in relation to niger and guinea. how do you assess such a measure on the part of icovas, is it possible to say that in this way icovas admitted that its policy of sanctions had failed? and do you count on return? last month, as you know, mali, burkinofasso and niger officially left ecovas, and decided to immediately cease participation in the work of this organization, this decision was made on the basis of...

i think this is why the creation of the sahel state alliance is important, we are working together to cope with this situation, including the one that happened to you. hello, rt in french, igor kuroshenko. my question is to the minister of foreign affairs of the russian federation, dear sergei viktorovich. in your opening remarks you we have already said that russia continues to actively provide humanitarian assistance to mali, these include supplies of wheat, supplies of fuel,

which means how russia intends to assist mali in further overcoming socio-economic problems, and if i may, the second question to both ministers, if i may, i will ask it at french, excellence, last december minus.

and will organize practical work in all the areas that we mentioned, including natural resources, energy, agriculture, transport, information technology, much more, and the first meeting of such a group will take place in april, today our colleagues confirmed the acceptability of these deadlines, so the process is underway, we want to speed it up, because the trade and economic... turnover between us, it is, of course, does not correspond to either the potential or our mutual interests, but as for, i will immediately answer the topic.

in our country, as i already said, we are actively interacting in the military and military-technical spheres, and we see how mali’s defense capability is strengthening, thanks to the work of our instructors, and training on the territory of the russian federation for the malian armed forces, and thanks, of course, to the supply of russian equipment.

indeed many people who lost their lives were injured. this peacekeeping mission, it was not adapted to our conditions, because we had an asymmetrical war with terrorist groups, and this mission was supposed to maintain peace, even the un secretary general admitted this. a mission to maintain peace where there is no peace. during over the past 10 years, significant efforts have been made that have not achieved results , the threat has only spread to mali, it was necessary to change the paradigm, and the transitional president, asimi goita, and his cabinet decided to prioritize the fact that the security of the molits should be the business of the molits first and foremost, and to do this, it

was necessary to strengthen capacity. therefore, it is very important to note that cooperation with russia precisely contributed to this goal, mali, mali had money, but our partners simply refused to sell us weapons and equipment, and here... our potential has been strengthened, now we are seeing results, because, as i already said, the mission left the country, we occupied all these objects, among them there are objects that were not under the control of the malian state, now mali is present in all regions, and for 10 years this was not the case, now we must.

so i think this is very important, this should be welcomed, today the army has the ability to defend its territory, and we are establishing security cooperation with burkina faso, with niger, which regarding the prospects, i think that we need to continue to strengthen, strengthen this cooperation with russia, but also with other partners, with china, with turkey, with others who work with us, who also seek to expand this cooperation at the military level, we are happy the fact that russia provides training for a large number of our specialists, but naturally. we need to

diversify this cooperation, we need to achieve good economic cooperation, so we will come to brilliant relations. of course, safety is important, but good relations must be matched by good trade and good economic cooperation. this was a live broadcast of sergei lavrov’s press conference following negotiations with his colleague from malia. well, we continue the news release and return to the main topics. macron is trying to fill the vacuum of european leadership, but such muscle flexing goes against the entire eu foreign policy. so a journalist for the journal publication.