State Duma member Maria Butina reflects on Russia’s role in the region, being a haven for conservatives amid degrading morals and values in the West, which are set to send humanity to its doom if they continue.

In an interview with Julia Kassem, Butina discussed a myriad of topics, from Trump’s role in any negotiation deals to end the war in Ukraine to the role of the BRICS in ending US-led Western hegemony, the human rights the West no longer respects in violation of the Geneva accords, and the US not only building walls but also weapons that will only lead to the destruction of humanity. 

She also highlighted the flow of people of Russian descent from Western countries, despite not having Russian citizenship, to Russia as they face persecution for their political views.

The State Duma member insisted that the attack on Russia is not limited to Russia as a country, but also the conservative values it holds on to, thus becoming a safe haven for people seeking to maintain their conservative values.

Another point she made is that the West will fail in the confrontation it is leading against other nations' culture and philosophy, asserting that they will never win in such a war, which she dubbed "a mental war with Russia, with the Middle East," and that the West is not only declining, but it wants to really bring down the whole world with it.

The Russian official also reflected on the importance of education, especially for children, who, she said, should be treated as young adults to make them responsible, highlighting her country’s high literacy rates even in rural areas, contrary to the US whose own people don’t speak the language as it should be.

In this context, she advised US and Western officials to read books, listen, and take care of their own countries “instead of trying to mess up the whole world and put the whole world back on the history line.”

On Palestine, Butina asserted that she stands on the side of justice, saying that “Palestine and Palestinians are gonna get their land.”

Calling on the US to “take off the Middle East garment” and “stop messing up,” that is when, she maintained, “Palestine shall be accepted as a state as it was set up by the United Nations.”

Following is the full transcript of the interview:

Q: So how do you think Trump will try to dig himself out of the mess that Biden's putting him in, and do we expect to see, I mean it looks like there's an irreversible escalation taking place; but how do you think that there, if there is any kind of prospect for uh rapprochement by the time Trump gets into office?

A: The simple answer is, I don’t know. I mean, that's very complex on the one hand. On the other hand, this is the only truthful answer you can get, because Trump is somewhat, for me, kind of an unpredictable person. He knows how to make deals, but you never know what he has in his pocket. But we’re past the stage where we have had expectations as Russia, and now there is just hope, and he claimed multiple times that he wants to set up certain, you know, peace negotiations, and we all know that the situation in Ukraine could be only resolved if the United States actually removes its efforts to escalate the possibility of a World War III, but now it doesn't look like it. And don't forget, Trump today is in the office, and he has a lot of opportunities to actually already do something to de-escalate the conflict, but he doesn't, you know, push that very much. We hear words, but we don't see the actions. 

You know, recently I talked to one Western journalist, and she asked me why Russians are so slow in terms of responding to the crossing of the red lines. Well, you saw the response recently, and I told her that we might be very, very patient people. However, the moment will come, and the moment came, and we demonstrated quite directly that we are getting very serious here, and all patience has a limit, and we have our limits as well. So I hope that Biden's team is going to stop playing their games, because what we see now, it's not so much, believe it or not, against Russia, it's more now against Trump. So they're trying to get the satisfaction of their certain revenge they're doing without even thinking of the outcomes and what could really happen with their escalation of the conflict. So we [try to] have a hope for Trump, but it doesn't mean that it's necessarily expectations.

Q: Exactly, and you alluded to kind of Trump's unpredictability, which is definitely true, because even though he might have a refreshing approach toward Russia, he is part of a system, first of all, that's overall kind of vested in escalation. And he hasn't really hidden that he has a more confrontational approach against other rising powers in the world, like China, DPRK, and Iran. All of these nations have good growing bilateral and security relationships with Russia. So even in assuming the best with Trump’s de-escalation with Russia, he might just escalate everywhere else. Will that pose more headaches to Russia? 

A: Well, here's the deal. I would put a great hope today in BRICS countries that by forming the union, they actually have a great power all over the world. And I do myself personally invest my hopes in BRICS. So it's all about checks and balances. It's all about a multipolar world. In terms of keeping the world in peace, there should be multiple centers of power that compete, but it's a good competition in trade and a political competition, probably, in different ideological approaches that would actually keep the world stable. But for right now, when we have one center and the dominant power, like the US is trying to be today, well, it's not going to end well. So they need to expand. And they want to, as any empire does in history, always, they try to expand. And by expanding, they have to conquer different countries. By conquering different countries and markets, they are involved in multiple wars. Like what is the US doing in Europe even? What are they doing in the Middle East? What are they doing in China? It's not their business. They have their own land. They have their own population and economy.

But they're trying to bring themselves everywhere. They failed in Afghanistan. They failed in Syria. But it's not enough. They still want many people dying so they can earn more and more money for their military-industrial complex. Well, it doesn't look very good for me. And I have a great hope that by empowering BRICS, they could actually form an adjustable, just balance and keep the world stable. That's my biggest hope.

I don't believe that the US is going to push back by themselves. They have to be pushed back. That's the difference.

Q: Exactly. Exactly. I believe that 100%. That's why the only thing that we've seen that counters kind of this destructive hegemony that the US has, has been resistance historically, you know, Russia's resistance, the Resistance Axis in the Middle East. These have been the only things that have really kind of reversed the course. And BRICS is a sort of kind of economic and diplomatic resistance in that sense too. And that's the only thing that really has been pushing the US back on its rampage globally.

So also, like, as we've seen from the beginning of the special operation, we see that the US doesn't even really seem to distinguish between just random citizens and you know, the Russian government, which also has made an enemy out of for literally no reason.

So we've heard that Russians have had bank accounts closed in Western countries for no reason. So isn't this a clear punishment, a collective punishment that's a violation of the Geneva Accords? So after what we're seeing around the world, do human rights even matter to the West anymore? 

A: Well, it means, well, it actually means Nazism. That's, that's how it's called. And I don't talk about Nazism mentioning this only regarding the history, and the Jews and the Germans and all this stuff. No, this is a modern Nazism, where the US is violating the principles they are based on. So they're based on the security of private property, but they violated their own principles. So before you sit and play with somebody in a board game, you have to know the rules, they establish the rules, they declare the rules, and they violate the rules. So it means the emperor has the power to do anything he wants. And that's not the right approach. Well, it used to be in the monarchy time, when a monarch would justify any decision by saying, 'I am the law' and I was chosen by God to enforce my will, even if this will is against the law.

But it was hundreds and thousands of years ago. So in terms of policy issues, in terms of approaching political standards that push in the world, ages back, the whole idea of having a law system, having laws in the country, and having international laws was a big improvement for the whole world. So we sat at the table, we agreed, here are the rules, here's the board game. But now they messed up. And what I see today, their approach to human rights is completely nonsense. It doesn't exist anymore.

The United Nations, pardon me, but they do nothing. Whatever is going on in the world, they're just talking. And they take any position that the US tells them to. I have been talking to many people from France, Germany, and Italy, and many of them moved to Russia because they do not see any opportunities for them and their families to be safe and secure in their own native countries. This is sad, because regionally, these countries were formed, and they formed, I mean, European countries, first of all, their actual law system and the balance system, but now it's just gone, and we have to start from scratch. 

Do you remember, probably, that there was an attempt before the Second World War to establish the League of Nations, or the Nations League, whatever you call it in English, and it failed? Well, exactly because of this reason, because some countries who agreed at first then said, well, I'm not going to follow this agreement. Well, if you don't follow this agreement, we don't do it, too. If we don't do it, then the whole world becomes a mess.

So the only thing that I see now is the US trying to push the whole world to a whole mess.

Well, they benefit from it. They benefit by earning, and they earn a lot of money by selling guns and arms, and they're trying to establish their ammunition system in Europe. So they want to sell their ammunition and then, well, their weapons, and then they will sell ammunition, and it's going to happen over and over again. They set up their standards, but to what point, I mean, to what point they're going to invest in wars? How about investing in peace? And they’re not interested in investing in peace. 

I remember when I was living in the United States, I remember that the whole world celebrated Sputnik Day. Sputnik Day stands for the first time the USSR launched a Sputnik satellite into open space. And in the US, it's a drama day. It's a tragic day because they were told by their government that they should expect that the USSR is going to attack them.

No, the USSR was bringing humans and Sputnik those days into space, for [the sake of the] human being, yet they view it in a different way.

So my conclusion is that the truth is in the eyes of the beholder, and the approach to the world is different. If you want to, how about not building walls, but building bridges? The US today is building not just walls. It builds constantly, it builds weapons.

Q: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think that they don't really have a conception of just the whole win-win cooperation approach that Russia and China champion, where at this point, they'd be better off at just kind of abandoning the whole destructive hegemonic approach that they have and just cooperating based on equitably.

Do you think that BRICS, as well as having kind of an economic alternative to the hegemonic-based system, does it also have a component that can maybe kind of serve as an infrastructure to an alternative to the rules-based order in kind of a global diplomatic sense? Or right now, is it mostly just limited to kind of an economic union?

A: Well, if it does not, it will, because it's a new system that is in the process of development, and we have a great chance here to be all, you, me, and many other people to be a part of this.

So these rules will be set up with us, and we can see the process of forming it, and we can offer suggestions, and that's great. So BRICS is a living organism. If an organism is not developing itself, it's dead. And I view BRICS as an alternative in an absolutely economic sense. Today, in the BRICS countries, we have the majority of the population of the world, which is an important point. Some people would say, oh, that's just propaganda. No, it's not. It's real people. People are, well, they are spiritual, they are customers. They are shoppers and buyers, and those people produce goods and do all this stuff. And sometimes I think the US is just living in such a virtual world of their, you know, different social network platform that they forgot about people, that people generate economy, people generate the holiness, the religion, and the beauty of the world. So people create philosophy, people create history, and they just eliminate themselves from the picture. Well, it's not going to end well.

Q: Yeah, absolutely. So kind of how does Russia, this is a question that kind of came up from someone else in our team. So how does Russia plan to resolve some instances that come into the public eye of people of Russian descent in some of these other countries, some that may or may not have Russian citizenship yet, but there are Russians that face persecution for their political views, or possibly those that just end up as unlucky scapegoats for the West's new McCarthyist campaign?

A: Well, tell me more about the scapegoats. Well, I know it by myself, but my best recommendation to those people would be to move to Russia. That's the time to come back.

There will be a bit of time when you can go abroad and you study and you leave and maybe enjoy, but that's all the time. So they don't hear arguments. The absence of guilt is no longer an argument. The absence of evidence is no longer an argument. So you've been judged just by not just being Russian, but by just sharing Russian values and conservative values. Look, they declare the United States traditional Catholics as domestic terrorists. They're not Russian. They have nothing to do with Russia, but they share conservative values with Russia, which means, well, they will be considered Russian agents. That's not fine. So people who disagree with the neoliberal dictatorship agenda, because this is a liberal fascism today, those people they throw into jails. And so everybody today who is a conservative, who wants to say his family is not safe in the West... that's why our President passed this 7022 decree, which states that it's called a spiritual asylum and that I'm in Russia. In the State Duma, I'm responsible for making this decree work. And, you know, all the paper sets and everything. I help people who want to move to Russia to do it. I mean, I do it every day, and I get tens of applications, not hundreds though, tens of applications every day of full families who move to Russia.

Why do they do that?

Because they understand that the day will come when they go public and they disagree with this neoliberal agenda. Then, they're going to be prosecuted for just thinking that and calling things by their own names, like saying that family is the most important thing in the world, that land and caring about the sovereignty of your country is the value of the world. But the West doesn't want to hear that. They want a universal person that will have no gender, that will have no nationality, no views, nothing. It's just a piece in a big scheme that shall do the function. People are not functions. People are people. And the number one thing that we have is soul. And they don't want you thinking about soul and talking about soul. They just want you to follow the orders.

This is why some people make fun of this modern, you know, quadrobic movement when people are dressed like animals and they act like animals. Some people think it's funny. I don't think it's funny. They actually are teaching people to follow orders. Every time it starts as a little game and then it gets serious. By the time it gets serious, it's going to be too late. That's why I think we should resist by being educated, by being fully spiritual and philosophical, because we are human beings. And sometimes I think that the world just started to forget about it, that it's not just eating and, you know, going to work, but it's also about exploring and helping, exploring the world and helping the world to thrive. They don't want that. They don't want that.

Q: So kind of like with this program that reaches out to people that resist this cultural agenda in the West, how does this program benefit Russia by accepting those from the West finding themselves in this situation from these countries where they have to leave?

A: Well, if you believe in Salvation Ark, and I do believe in the Salvation Ark, and I believe it doesn't matter what God you believe in, God is the one... I believe that people should come to Russia just to save themselves, their souls, and their families. I believe a Noah's Ark, and I believe that today the Western world unfortunately does not make me anyway happy. Went too far to the point when they actually let children be abused, sexually abused, and they view it as normal. That's normal.

Q: It's horrific.

A: So it's just too far. That means that many people who come here, who move to Russia, they don't want to resign their citizenship, their native citizenship. Many of them don't want to get Russian citizenship. The majority of them do, but that's their choice. But I hope that they will have a chance to go back to their countries, to take their countries back, because they have been stolen from them. The deep philosophy of Europe and the Middle East, the Middle East actually was a place where this civilization was born, and all different cultures that make the world so great, now is corrupted by their jeans and bubble gum from the United States, Coca-Cola, and Hollywood, that's it. But that's not it. People are more than that. That's why they come to Russia.

So I believe we have to save the people, first of all, and their stories, the family stories that they bring. The US is trying to steal the treasures. I mean, they steal art pieces from museums, and they bring all these goodies to them. They bring all the ancient things that they steal from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria, whatever they find, and they believe they can steal philosophy. You can’t steal philosophy. You can steal some things, but we are talking about preserving people, and not by making them do something. No, just come here to save your generation, to save your family, to save your own story. And the world is global. So Russia today needs to give these people the salvation arc to be able to keep themselves alive. I mean, physically alive.

Q: Exactly, exactly. And that's so true because what is going to eventually make the West fall is that confrontation that it's going to lose against philosophy. I mean, I see philosophy every time. I see philosophy being played out on the battlefield between Ukraine - and the US through Ukraine - and Russia, and that's why the West is losing there. And I see it also plays out in the Middle East. That's why, again, they're losing, because they have all the money in the world, and they have all the institutions in their hands, but they're losing particularly based on these philosophical and spiritual elements.

A: Money is just paper. Money is just paper. Money is just paper. It's just a piece of paper. It's nothing else. We establish the rule saying like, oh, that's important. It is not important. It's just paper. I remember myself when I was serving my time in prison, and, you know, I look at you and I see you're a very fashionable woman. I mean, I can see it. So you know how to dress well, you love dressing well, and I admire that, okay? As a woman, I admire that. But I should tell you, when I was in prison, I had one piece of uniform. Did it make me unhappy? No. I was as happy as I am today, like you, all the types of little nice things and dresses and skirts and everything, and, yeah, I enjoy being a woman. I love it. Okay? I love it. I love being dressed well, and I choose all the colors and all the stuff, but that's not the measure of happiness. Having the money does not make you anyway happier because, well, okay, you have money to do what? To eat steaks? How many steaks you can eat per day? Can you live in two houses at the same time? Can you maybe be in a yacht and ski at the same time? No. That's just you, and by the way, we all die, bad news, but anyway, when you do, you cannot take anything with you. You come alone with nothing on you, and you leave alone with nothing on you, and those people just forgot. They put money on the front, forgetting that money is just ash. It's nothing. So they will never win in the war, in the mental war with Russia, with the Middle East. By the terms of Middle East, Russia on the history line does not exist, okay, because those guys are so deep, and when they go to the, we have a wonderful museum of Eastern culture here in Moscow. When I go there and I see pieces that are like 5,000 years old, 7,000 years old, and you think that, I mean, unbelievable. So those people already knew all these ways how to build, well, think about Egypt, okay, going to Africa, apartments. So it's just unbelievable, and they're trying to just change it with ash, money, yachts, houses, stakes, clothes. No, I don't take it, okay. I saw the eternity when I was there in prison. This is the way how I found God, and it's not about things that you have. It's about your relationships with God. That's why when people come here to Russia, they're not looking for Russia. They're not looking for any goodies. They're looking for God. That's what is important, and this is what Russia offers today without any quotas or the necessity to learn the Russian language, though I would recommend doing so because the Russian language is beautiful.

Q: Yeah, absolutely, because you were saying that when we die, we don't have these material possessions, but what we do have is our soul, so that's why we have to make sure we say that this whole world is just a test for that, essentially, and that's what the major civilized religions believe, so it's just very important that you have powers like Russia, kind of instilling these values definitely based on that premise, like that salvation.

A: Yeah, someone should step forward and say, okay, guys, if you're oppressed and if you're still conservative and you believe that people actually... our future are the families and the children because if there are no people, there is no world. That's what matters. If you make everybody transgender, you're not going to be able to live in the future because those people will die. There are no new people. Well, sorry for that, but that's the truth, so someone might create a law that the sky is green.

But the sky is blue. The sky is blue. That's the truth. That reminds me of a very old Danish fairy tale of the king who had no clothes, and there should be one person who would step forward and say [it], but the king is naked. There's nothing on him, and they forgot their own wisdom. I mean, that's not their wisdom. That's European, though, but they should probably read better books.

Q: Exactly, exactly. I think that, you know, there's this general nihilism, almost like with the way that the West is not only declining, but it wants to really bring down the whole world with it. That's why you just kind of see this nihilistic destruction in every facet of the culture that it's spreading, the antinatalism, the nihilism that also is in its degenerate culture right now, that's heightening along with its military and economic collapse. Is that also kind of the basis behind Russia's new, the anti-child-free law, which is against this propaganda campaign, also an antinatalist thing that's kind of coming out of the West and the US? Just kind of talk about more how that was, how that kind of came into the Russian parliament to be an issue that they resolved.

A: Yeah, and listen, I believe that in the future, if they don't change their attitude, they're going to lose all the good people. So all the good people, because I see every single day, people just write me to my X, they found me Maria Butina on my X, and they send me the request that they want, they have money, they have everything, they just want to take their families and come to Russia. And I welcome families coming to Russia from Canada, France, Italy, the United States, Germany, all these countries every single day. They can lose people. But I don't want them to lose. I want the Holy Spirit to win. Yeah, that's what matters the most to me. Okay, so I think it's just, you know, it's going to end the empire, all the power empires fall. And this is the time now for the United States.

Q: Yeah, absolutely. So just like on the lighter note, as we close off, what's it like working in the smaller more Eastern towns, like your hometown, for example, do people in, you know, in the more rural areas, do they kind of perceive the geopolitical situation, same as people in like the more Western parts of the country or like St. Petersburg or Moscow?

A: I think they do. It's very interesting. And this is normal, by the way. The difference between a free person, free by spirit, free by will, and free by politics, is a person who is interested in what's going on in the world. If you isolate yourself to just, you know, minor things, it doesn't make your life better.

So what I see and I admire is people even in little villages in Russia are still, they still watch politics and they're still interested in what's going on in the world. And you come there and you see they're discussing Biden and Trump campaigns. Russians have always been curious because they have a good education. They're smart. The literacy level, even in a small village, is extremely high. Every single kid knows how to read. That's not the case in the United States, by the way. Not anymore. They have these ghettos when, I know, I've been in prison with the kids of those people who do not speak the language. They don't speak the language.

So they grow up, and these ladies who are in jail with me, they have no clue how to read. So education is the key. And since Russians are very well educated, I remember how many Westerners get surprised when they go to the Bolshoi theater and see Russians in the lines of families with little kids. And they would ask them questions like, why would you bring the kids here? Because people do not understand. It's not about understanding. It's about absorbing the culture. They would never understand that. This means they'd better read books, listen, and take care of their own countries instead of trying to mess up the whole world and put the whole world back on the history line.

Q: Yeah, absolutely. And I did notice that; that was definitely the most striking thing for me coming into Russia is just how cultured and educated everybody was and how children are just like a natural part of that too. Like there's really culture and history in every corner of Russia that you see.

A: They are not children. They are little adults. Okay? Let me give you an example. Have you ever been to Nizhny Novgorod? I just came back from there. If you haven't, I strongly suggest you go here. They have a wonderful embarkment and a great museum over there, it looks like the Russian Empire-style 19th-century house. Okay? That belonged to some merchant, some guy. And when I went to the museum, I was very surprised because I saw children's toys, and they were all made of porcelain. And I was like, no, that cannot be true. Kids cannot play with such a fragile thing. He said, no, no, no, they can. And you know what? What is surprising?

When we're discovering all the boxes with them, we almost never found broken pieces, which means they were taught to play carefully, which means don't baby your kids but treat your kid as a young little adult. This is what I do. I'm a teacher. I am actually teaching students.

I'm a teacher; this is my passion. And I don't treat them as infants as they try to treat kids in the United States. They were dummies. Kids are not dummies. They just don't have enough experience.

Yes, but their character and the way they absorb the knowledge is evolving extremely interestingly. So how about treating kids as little adults? That's what's going on in Russia. I don't remember my parents playing with me like I was a little, little child. No, you have to grow up and you have to become serious. And I think this is a good thing. I'm very proud of my family and my parents for that.

Q: Yeah, the problem of infantilization in Western culture in the US is bad. Not only are little kids infantilized, but also like adults are also infantilized.

I just wanted to go back to another geopolitical question I was really curious about as your perspective as a Russian in parliament. Kind of given the volatility in the Middle East in our region, in our country right now. I know that Russia for a long time, they've been really trying to maintain a very peaceful balancing act with all powers and players in the region.

But I feel like that's really being challenged. It's really becoming more and more difficult as the situation becomes more violent and more polarized. So how do you view Russia's basic relationship with the Middle East situation evolving?

A: It's more about, believe it or not, not Russia, but the US is backing up "Israel".

So the US just should take off the Middle East garment. They should stop messing up, and Palestine shall be accepted as a state as it was set up by the United Nations, okay?

How about if we set up a board and set up a board game, we set up board rules, so how about following the rules, okay? I'm on the justice part. And the actual initial agreement, with all my love to all the nations, was that Palestine and Palestinians are gonna get their land.

And so far they were cheated, horribly cheated. That's why Russia was talking out loud about that in the United Nations and everywhere. Because you guys, you can't forget it, okay? You promised it. You go ahead and do it. That's what I hate the most about the United States is they do not keep their word. You promised them and now you mess up with the Middle East without even knowing even a part of the history. Anyone who's gonna go deep into history would realize that this is a just deal that was not just promised to stop the conflict, but people actually, when they sat at the table in front of each other, they agreed on it to be done. And when the US goes inside and tries to, believe it or not, help everybody to set up the dangerous situation as they did in Afghanistan sometimes... and then we remember September 11.

So they learned no lesson, no al-Qaeda lesson, nothing like that. So anyone, I mean, all your actions like that backfire. All your actions backfire. Even if Russia sits and does nothing in this case, are they going to pay the price? I know it's not the, you know, so much, you don't feel well saying like, so what? However, they're going to pay a price. I wish that just, I'm a Christian, so I believe that God is very forgivable, but God is just. They're gonna face the things they create by themselves.

Absolutely, absolutely.

You can watch the full interview here.