(16 May 2022)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
++PLEASE NOTE: AP IS OPERATING IN RUSSIA ACCORDING TO NEW RUSSIAN RESTRICTIONS ON ALL REPORTING RELATED TO THE ONGOING MILITARY OPERATION IN UKRAINE++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Moscow - 16 May 2022
1. Zoom out pan right of table with CSTO meeting participants and Russian President Vladimir Putin speaking
2. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vladimir Putin, Russian President:
"We will also work to equip the CSTO forces with modern weapons and machinery and raise the operative compatibility of the military contingents, improving the teamwork of our military bodies and special services. Those aspects get worked through on a constant basis during joint CSTO drills, which we certainly intend to conduct more often."
3. Mid of meeting
4. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vladimir Putin, Russian President:
"As you know, the Pentagon established tens of special bio laboratories and centres in our joint region. And they are not tasked with providing medical assistance to the populations of the countries they started operating in. Their main task is collecting biological matter and studying the specifics of spread of viruses and dangerous diseases for their own benefit."
5. Wide of room of the meeting
6. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vladimir Putin, Russian President:
"Yes, we hear, and I register it in conversations, they tell us - well, there are extremists everywhere. Yes, that is true, there are extremists everywhere, and they come out of the underground and show themselves in one way or another. But no place, let me stress it, no place glorifies Nazis on a state level. No place. And no civilized country has their government bodies encouraging thousands of neo-Nazis marching with tiki-torches and Nazi symbolics. No place does that. Unfortunately, that happens in Ukraine."
7. Mid of meeting table
8. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vladimir Putin, Russian President:
"As far as expansion - new members Finland and Sweden included - Russia - I would like to remind you, dear colleagues - doesn't have any problem with those countries. Therefore, there is not an immediate threat to Russia with the inclusion of those countries. But the expansion of military infrastructure over that territory will obviously call for our response. And we will determine what that response is based on the threats created."
9. Putin signing document
STORYLINE:
President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Finland and Sweden's NATO bid doesn't pose "an immediate threat" to Russia.
He added that "expansion of military infrastructure over that territory will obviously call for our response" that will be "based on the threats created."
Putin was speaking at a summit of fellow CSTO leaders, vowing to "equip the CSTO forces with modern weapons and machinery and raise the operative compatibility of the military contingents, improving the teamwork of our military bodies and special services."
The Russian president was hosting the leaders of five other CSTO member states - Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan - to mark the organisation's 30th anniversary.
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