Hi everyone and welcome. I'm joined today by Alexander McCurris and also Dimitri Polanski,

the first deputy permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations.

Welcome.

So we really appreciate you taking the time because we have been wanting to speak with you regarding this invasion of Kursk to get the Russian perspective.

From the seemingly objectives of this to how the Ukrainians have been doing and also the Western position, the impact on the direction of the war, Russia's response to both Ukraine and NATO for that

sake. So I thought maybe you can start with the Western position because it seems to be

riddled with a bit of ambiguity. The UK obviously seems very excited, but the US has been very

quiet in terms of commenting on the invasion.

They appear to have at least some involvement in terms of supplying the intelligence.

I was just wondering how what's happening on the diplomatic front.

How are the Americans explaining these actions to you and their involvement?

It's very easy to answer your question, Glenn, because they are not explaining it at all in terms of

diplomatic action at the UN.

And in general, I need to say that our Western colleagues

are very modest in expressing any reaction

to what's happening, and this is quite visible if you

compare the situation a year ago we take like you know a benchmark the Ukrainian Independence Day

so I recall that a year ago there there was a big performance, people standing in front of Security Council,

telling that they will support Ukraine until the end and all these things.

This year, nothing happened like this.

One reason, of course, is that it is Saturday, but it has never prevented UN members

and security council members to express their support if they want to. They can do it on Friday or

...