WEBVTT

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We’ve been hit with sanctions because of Ukraine.

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To hell with those sanctions.

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According to various estimates,

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we have lost around 50 billion but we have earned the same amount.

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That’s quite a bit.

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Quite a bit, but it made us use our brains.

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We spent quite a lot of money on the so-called ‘import substitution’ programme 

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and started to produce such items and technologies that we did not have before

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or simply forgot about them and lost them.

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We recreated all of this. And we are undoubtedly benefiting from it.

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It diversifies our economy.

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In fact, it helps us address our overriding priority.

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But counter-sanctions give the impression  

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that we were deliberately hurting ourselves.

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Nonsense. Counter-sanctions helped us 

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boost the agroindustry. They freed up our domestic market.

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In our country, if we look at the past years from 2000s and onwards,

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everyone here spoke about the agroindustry as if it was a black hole,

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surely you do remember.

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Where is it now? I don't even remember how far ahead 

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agricultural production has leaped. I think 2.6-fold.

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We have always been a grain importer 

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but now we are the world’s top wheat exporter.

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We have even outperformed the United States, Canada and Australia.

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They produce more but also consume more. We supply more to the market.

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We started to produce enough to meet our basic food needs: 

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dairy, poultry, pork, all staples.

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We need to work more on vegetables and beef. And we are doing it.

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Nobody could have imagined that our export was going 

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to total $25 billion last year.

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This year it will be $24 [billion], I think.

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Our arms sales are only $15 billion.

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Nobody would have ever thought that we would become 

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such a major exporter. And we will increase this volume.

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In this sense – and from the point of view of developing high-tech productions 

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and in terms of agriculture development, import substitution – 

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is it god or bad? 

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On the one hand, it’s good, it has served us well.

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Another thing is bad – it’s bad that this distorts the entire global 

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and European economic space. This is what’s bad.

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Competition should be natural without any external restrictions.

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But the fact is our partners also lose approximately the same.

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Europe has lost roughly the same,

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according to their own estimates.

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They’ve been losing even more sensitive things.

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But there are 40 countries in Europe, and we are one country.

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You see, they are losing jobs.

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Right now, we have the lowest level of unemployment in history.

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In this sense we lost nothing.

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And they are losing jobs because imports have nosedived 

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as a result of a wide range of circumstances, including sanctions.