The event shows many young people reject a Russophobic point of view, the foreign ministry’s spokeswoman has said
Participants of the World Youth Festival in Sirius, Russia on March 4, 2024. © Sputnik / Pavel Bednyakov
The collective West has tried to thwart Russia’s World Youth Festival 2024 (WYF), yet the event has proven to be extremely popular, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.
The international event is currently underway in the Russian town of Sirius, located near the Black Sea resort city of Sochi. Zakharova spoke about it in an interview with TASS on Tuesday, saying that the gathering clearly showed “the youth of the world have made their choice.”
“As for the [attempts] to meddle… of course, Western countries did everything they could. As they do in sports, as they do in culture, they do the same in the field of humanitarian ties,” she stated.
Many people who wanted to take part in the festival were “intimidated and dissuaded” in Western countries, which also tried to hide any information on the event from the public view, the spokeswoman noted. Still, more than 300,000 applications were received from some 190 countries, with special committees to select participants set-up in some 95 world capitals ahead of the WYF, Zakharova said.
She also touched upon a panel discussion held at the festival with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in attendance, stating that it has shown that many young people in the world, including those who come to the festival from the US, actually share Russia’s viewpoint and want to develop ties with the country.
“They [the representatives of American youth] said that they can no longer hear and see the horrors that the US and its officials are causing in the international arena. They make completely different choices. They want to develop relations with our country,” the Zakharova said, adding that young Americans have a right to do so, given that “they elected this US government, to which no one delegated a nationalist Russophobic message or mission.”
The WYF is being held in Sirius between March 1 and 7, bringing together some 20,000 young people selected from a vast pool of applicants. The festival hosts assorted cultural and sporting events, contests, exhibitions, and various panel discussions. Following the conclusion of the Sirius part of the festival, its regional program is set to begin, with WYF participants set to visit some 30 cities across Russia from March 10 to 17.
