Openai/69692e77-1740-8006-8e16-055fc2ba066e

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User: Supposedly Putin's deputy Kirienko told in 2017 that "Russian state is not based on treaties".

Supposedly Putin's deputy Kirienko told in 2017 that "Russian state is not based on treaties". What was the context of this statement?

Assistant: Yes — the quote you’re referring to comes from a specific statement by Sergei Kirienko in August 2017 about Russia’s in…

Yes — the quote you’re referring to comes from a specific statement by Sergei Kirienko in August 2017 about Russia’s internal constitutional order, not about foreign treaties in general.

📌 What Kirienko Actually Said

In August 2017, Sergei Kirienko — then First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration — commented on the legal basis of the Russian state while addressing issues related to an expiring agreement between the federal government and Tatarstan (a republic within the Russian Federation). Kirienko said that “the Russian state is not built on the basis of treaties.” His point was that the Russian Federation’s statehood and constitutional order are not founded on separate contractual arrangements between the center and its regions, unlike the situation in the 1990s, when bilateral treaties were concluded with Tatarstan and some other republics to define powers and relations. Interfax.ru

📌 The Context: Russia–Tatarstan Power-Sharing Agreements

In the early post-Soviet period, Moscow negotiated treaties with republics like Tatarstan and others to distribute powers within the newly formed federation. These treaties had political and legal significance in the 1990s, when Russia’s federal structure was still being defined. Interfax.ru

By 2017, the treaty with Tatarstan was expiring. Kirienko was explaining — to local politicians and officials in Kazan — that the modern Russian state does not rely on treaties between the federal center and subjects as the basis of its legal or constitutional status. Instead, he emphasized, state authority derives from the Constitution and federal law, not from a patchwork of bilateral power-sharing agreements. Interfax.ru

📌 Why This Matters

His remark was widely reported because it seemed to dismiss the legal relevance of those old treaties that once helped ease the federal centre’s relations with republics like Tatarstan. But the quote was specific to internal constitutional arrangements, not an outright denial of the importance of international treaties or Russia’s participation in them.

If you’d like, I can also explain how that statement fits into broader debates about federalism and constitutional authority in Russia today.

User: Was he also quoted as saying "Treaty is a restraint on the Tsar's power, a condition he abides to committ.

Was he also quoted as saying "Treaty is a restraint on the Tsar's power, a condition he abides to committ. That's a dishonour and he breaks treaty at the first chance"? Or is this some kind of pharaphrase or interpretation?

Assistant: That specific sentence “Treaty is a restraint on the Tsar’s power, a condition he abides to commit.

That specific sentence “Treaty is a restraint on the Tsar’s power, a condition he abides to commit. That’s a dishonour and he breaks treaty at the first chance” is not a direct quote from Sergei Kirienko himself. Rather:

✅ What Is Real

Kirienko was quoted in 2017 saying that the Russian state is not based on treaties* — in the context of Russia ending its power-sharing treaty with Tatarstan and explaining that modern Russian statehood is founded on the Constitution and federal law rather than bilateral treaties with republics. Interfax.ru

❌ What That Longer Phrase Is

• The extended sentence about treaties being a “restraint on the Tsar’s power” and broken at the first opportunity is not from Kirienko’s original speech. Instead, it appears in secondary commentary or opinion pieces online (e.g., a blog post, Twitter thread, or analysis republishing Kirienko’s remark and framing it with wider historical or political interpretation). laissez-faire.ch - Those sources attribute the extension to commentators (e.g., Kamil Galeev or others) drawing an analogy between Kirienko’s remark and a broader narrative about Russian political culture — not to Kirienko himself. laissez-faire.ch

🧠 Why This Matters

• Kirienko’s actual statement was specific to internal federal relations within Russia, especially about the Tatarstan contract and how the Russian Federation defines its federal structure. Interfax.ru
• The elaborated phrasing about treaties and “the Tsar” reflects someone’s interpretation or rhetorical framing — not a verbatim quotation from Kirienko’s public remarks.

In short: The longer, colorful sentence is a paraphrase/interpretation by someone else (used in commentary or social-media threads), not a literal quote from Kirienko.