Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s remarks at UN Security Council meeting on situation in Ukraine – September 20, 2023

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From the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at the UN Security Council meeting “Upholding the purposes and principles of the UN Charter through effective multilateralism: maintenance of peace and security of Ukraine,” New York, September 20, 2023

Mr President,

Mr Secretary-General,

Colleagues.

The international order as it exists today emerged from the ruins of World War II and resulted from this tremendous tragedy. The UN Charter served as its foundation, as the key source of present-day international law. It is largely thanks to the United Nations that a new world war leading to a nuclear catastrophe has been averted.

Unfortunately, when the Cold War came to an end, the US-led so-called collective West appropriated the right to rule the destinies of the entire humankind and, driven by its exceptionalism complex, started ignoring the legacy of the UN founding fathers more often and on an increasingly greater scale.

Today, the West makes selective use of the Charter’s norms and principles, on a case-by-case basis, and only when they serve its vested geopolitical needs. This inevitably throws global stability off-balance, exacerbating the existing hotbeds of tension and creating new ones, which in turn raises the spectre of a global conflict in the process. Seeking to offset these risks and ensure that events unfold in a peaceful manner, Russia has been insisting and keeps insisting that all the provisions of the UN Charter be respected and carried out in full and with due regard for their interconnected nature, rather than selectively, including the principles of the sovereign equality of states, non-interference in their domestic affairs, respect for territorial integrity and the right of people to self-determination. However, we see that the balance of requirements stipulated in the Charter is being trampled upon by the actions undertaken by the United States and its allies.

The United States and its allies have been interfering in Ukraine’s domestic affairs in a blatant and open manner since the dissolution of the USSR, when independent states replaced it. In late 2013, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland admitted publicly and even with some pride that Washington spent $5 billion on nurturing politicians in Kiev that would obey the West.

All the facts on how the Ukraine crisis was engineered have long been exposed, while everything is being done to sweep them under the carpet as if they wanted to cancel everything that happened before 2014. For this reason, the topic of today’s meeting as suggested by the Albanian Presidency is very timely. It offers us an opportunity to restore the sequence of events in the context of the way the key actors have been carrying out the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.

In 2004 and 2005, the West sought to bring a pro-American candidate to power and for this purpose gave the green light to the first government coup in Kiev by forcing the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to adopt an illegal decision for holding a third round in the presidential election, even though the country’s Constitution does not provide for it. The West acted in an even more heavy-handed manner when it interfered in Ukraine’s internal affairs in 2013 and 2014, during the second Maidan movement. At the time, Western visitors travelled there one after another to directly encourage those taking part in anti-government demonstrations to engage in violence. It was the same Victoria Nuland who discussed the future cabinet to be formed by the putsch perpetrators with the US Ambassador in Kiev. At the same time, she showed where the European Union actually belongs, in Washington’s thinking, on the international political stage. We remember the two words she said, and it is quite telling that the European Union swallowed it.

Handpicked by the Americans, the key actors took part in carrying out a bloody coup in February 2014. Let me remind you that it was organised the next day after the legitimately elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, reached an agreement with the opposition leaders, with Germany, Poland and France acting as the guarantors. The principle of non-interference in domestic affairs was trampled upon many times over.

Right after the coup, its perpetrators said that curtailing the rights of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population was their utmost priority. They designated people in Crimea and southeastern regions who refused to accept the anti-constitutional coup as terrorists and unleashed a punitive operation against them. Crimea and Donbass responded by holding referendums in full compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples as enshrined in Article 1, Paragraph 2 of the UN Charter.

When it comes to Ukraine, Western diplomats and politicians have been turning a blind eye to this fundamental tenet of international law in an attempt to cast what led to these developments and their meaning as being merely an unacceptable violation of territorial integrity. In this connection, I would like to recall the 1970 UN Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States. It reads that the principle of territorial integrity applies to “states conducting themselves in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples <…> and thus possessed of a government representing the whole people belonging to the territory.” It goes without saying that the Ukrainian neo-Nazis who seized power in Kiev did not represent the people of Crimea or Donbass. As for the unquestionable support the Western capitals offered to the criminal Kiev regime, it was nothing short of violating the self-determination principle on top on interfering in domestic affairs.

Following the government coup, Ukraine adopted racist laws to cancel everything Russian during Petr Poroshenko’s and Vladimir Zelensky’s presidencies, including education, media, culture, destroying books and monuments, banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and seizing its property. All this constituted a blatant violation of Article 1, Paragraph 3 of the UN Charter, which talks about encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion. Let alone the fact that these actions clearly ran counter to the Constitution of Ukraine under which the state is under obligation to respect the rights of Russians and other ethnic minorities.

Hearing calls to follow the so-called peace formula and return Ukraine within its 1991 borders raises the following question: are those making these calls aware of the statements by the Ukrainian leadership on what they intend to do to the people living in those territories? These people have been targeted by multiple public threats of being exterminated, either in legal or physical terms, and this has been happening at an official level. Not only is the West unwilling to hold back its protégés in Kiev, but enthusiastically encourages them in their racist policies.

Similarly, the EU and NATO have been encouraging Latvia and Estonia for decades in their efforts to deny hundreds of thousands of Russian speakers their rights by designating them as non-citizens. They are now seriously discussing introducing criminal liability for using one’s native tongue. High-ranking officials have been making public statements that spreading information about opportunities for local students to follow the Russian school curriculum remotely must be viewed as nothing short of a national security threat requiring the attention of law enforcement agencies.

But getting back to Ukraine, the UN Security Council adopted a dedicated resolution to approve the February 2015 Minsk Agreements in full compliance with Article 36 of the Charter, which supports “any procedures for the settlement of the dispute which have already been adopted by the parties.” In this case, the parties included Kiev, the DPR and the LPR. However, last year, all those who signed the Minsk Agreements, apart from Vladimir Putin, i.e., Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and Petr Poroshenko, all recognised in public and with a certain degree of satisfaction that they had no intention of fulfilling this document when they signed it. In fact, all they wanted was to win some time to reinforce Ukraine’s military capabilities and supply it with more weapons for countering Russia. For all these years, the EU and NATO engaged in an outright effort to support Kiev in sabotaging the Minsk Agreements while encouraging the Kiev regime to resolve the so-called Donbass issue by force. All this was being done in violation of Article 25 of the Charter, which says that all UN members must “accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council.”

Let me recall that the Minsk Package included a declaration signed by the leaders of Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine. In it, Berlin and Paris undertook to do many things, including help restore the banking system in Donbass. However, they did not even move a finger. All they did was stand back and watch Petr Poroshenko impose a trade, economic and transport blockade on Donbass despite all these commitments. In the same declaration, Berlin and Paris undertook to facilitate trilateral cooperation between the EU, Russia and Ukraine for addressing Russia’s concerns in trade, as well as promote the “creation of a joint humanitarian and economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific.” The Security Council adopted this declaration too, making it binding under Article 25 of the UN Charter as I have already mentioned. But this commitment by the leaders of Germany and France turned out to be null and void, becoming yet another violation of the Charter’s principles.

Andrey Gromyko, the legendary Foreign Minister of the USSR, often said, quite rightly, that “ten years of talks are better than one day of war.” In keeping with this maxim, we spent many years in talks and sought agreements on European security. We approved the Russia-NATO Founding Act and adopted OSCE declarations on indivisible security at the highest level in 1999 and 2010. Since 2015, we have been insisting that the Minsk Agreements be executed in full and without any exemptions as agreed during the talks. In all these instances, we acted in full compliance with the UN Charter, which talks about establishing “conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained.” Our Western colleagues have trampled upon this principle too by signing all these documents knowing in advance that they would not fulfil them.

As for talks, we do not refuse to talk now either. President of Russia Vladimir Putin said this on numerous occasions, including recently. I would like to remind the Secretary of State that President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky has signed an executive order prohibiting talks with the government of Vladimir Putin. If the United States is interested in such talks, I think it only needs to give the signal for Zelensky’s order to be cancelled.

Today, the rhetoric of our opponents is full of slogans such as “invasion,” “aggression” and “annexation.” They do not say a word about the inner reasons for the problem, or the fact that for many years they nurtured a downright Nazi regime, which is openly rewriting the results of World War II and the history of their own people. The West does not want to hold a substantial discussion based on facts and respect for all the requirements of the UN Charter, probably because they have no arguments for an honest dialogue.

One gets a strong impression that Western representatives are afraid of professional discussions where their empty rhetoric can be exposed. While chanting their mantras about the territorial integrity of Ukraine, the former colonial powers keep silent about the UN decisions inviting France to return the island of Mayotte to the Comoros and Britain to withdraw from the Chagos Islands and to resume negotiations with Argentina to resolve the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) issue. These “advocates” of Ukraine’s territorial integrity pretend to have forgotten the essence of the Minsk Agreements, under which Donbass was to be reintegrated into Ukraine on the condition of guaranteed respect for all the fundamental human rights, primarily the right to one’s own language. The West, which thwarted their implementation, is directly responsible for the disintegration of Ukraine and for inciting a civil war there.

Regarding other principles of the UN Charter, respect for which could have prevented the security crisis in Europe and could have helped coordinate confidence measures based on a balance of interests, I would like to cite Article 2 of Chapter VIII of the UN Charter. It calls for developing the practice of a peaceful settlement of local disputes through regional organisations.

In accordance with that principle, Russia and its allies have been consistently encouraging contacts between the CSTO and NATO for promoting the implementation of decisions on the indivisibility of security adopted at the OSCE summits in 1999 and 2010. They stipulate, in part, that “no state, group of states or organisation can have any pre-eminent responsibility for maintaining peace and stability in the OSCE area or can consider any part of the OSCE area as its sphere of influence.” Everyone knows that this is exactly what NATO has been doing, that is has been trying to create its complete pre-eminence first in Europe and now in the Asia-Pacific region. Numerous appeals from the CSTO to NATO were disregarded. The reason for that arrogance of the United States and its allies, as everyone can see today, is their unwillingness to conduct an equal dialogue with anyone. If NATO had not rejected the CSTO’s offers of cooperation, this could have likely prevented many of the negative processes that have led to the current European crisis because they refused to listen to Russia or deceived it for decades.

Today, when we are discussing “effective multilateralism” at the initiative of the presidency, we should also recall the numerous facts of Western rejection of any form of equal cooperation. One shocking example of the phrase by Josep Borrel, who said that “Europe is a garden [and] most of the rest of the world is a jungle.” It is a clear neocolonial syndrome and evidence of disregard for the sovereign equality of states and the goal of using effective multilateralism to defend the principles of the UN Charter, which we are discussing today.

Trying to hinder efforts to make international relations more democratic, the United States and its allies are taking over the secretariats of international organisations increasingly openly and impudently, violating the established procedure to create mechanisms with non-consensual mandates, which they can control and use to condemn anyone who does not suit Washington for whatever reason.

In this connection, I would like to remind you that not only member states but also the UN Secretariat must strictly comply with the UN Charter. Under Article 100 of the UN Charter, the Secretariat must act without bias and “shall not seek or receive instructions from any government.”

I have already mentioned Article 2 of the UN Charter. I would like to draw your attention to its main principle: “1. The Organisation is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.” In accordance with that principle, the UN General Assembly adopted a declaration on October 24, 1970, which I have mentioned before, to reaffirm that “every state has an inalienable right to choose its political, economic, social and cultural systems, without interference in any form by another state.” In this connection, we have serious questions for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who said on March 29, 2023, that “autocratic leadership is not a guarantor of stability; it is a catalyst of chaos and conflict,” whereas “strong democratic societies are places that are capable of self-correction — and self-improvement. They can enable change — even radical change – without bloodshed and violence.” This brings to mind the “changes” that resulted from the actions of “strong democratic societies” in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and many other countries.

Antonio Guterres went on to say that “they [strong democratic societies] are centres for broad-based cooperation, rooted in the principles of equality, participation and solidarity.” It is notable that these statements were made at the “summit for democracy,” which was convened by US President Joe Biden outside the UN framework, whose participants were chosen by the US Administration based on the principle of loyalty not to so much to Washington as to the ruling Democratic Party. The attempts to use such forums as a crony gathering for discussing global matters stand in direct conflict with Paragraph 4 of Article 1 of the UN Charter, which says that the purpose of the United Nations is “to be a centre for harmonising the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.”

Contrary to that principle, France and Germany announced several years ago the establishment of an Alliance for Multilateralism, to which they invited those who are obedient, which confirmed the initiators’ colonial mentality and attitude to the principle of effective multilateralism we are discussing today. At the same time, they promoted the narrative about the EU as the ideal example of “multilateralism.” Today, Brussels calls for the EU enlargement as soon as possible, in particular, in the Balkans. Moreover, the main focus is not on Serbia or Turkey, which have been holding useless accession talks for decades, but on Ukraine. Josep Borrel, who claims the role of the ideologist of European integration, has recently gone as far as to call for accelerating the admission of the Kiev regime into the EU. According to him, without the war, Ukraine’s candidacy would have taken years, but now it can and should be admitted without any conditions. Serbia, Turkey and other candidates can wait, but a Nazi regime can be admitted out of turn.

By the way, the UN Secretary-General said the following at that “summit for democracy”: “Democracy flows from the United Nations Charter. Its opening invocation of ‘We the Peoples’ reflects the fundamental source of legitimate authority: the consent of the governed.” I suggest comparing that thesis with the “achievements” of the Kiev regime, which launched a war against a large part of its own people, the millions of people who did not grant their consent to be governed by the neo-Nazis and Russophobes who usurped authority in the country and buried the Minsk Agreements approved by the UN Security Council, thereby disrupting the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

Those who divide the world into “democratic societies” and “autocracies,” contrary to the UN Charter, should ask themselves which of the two the Kiev regime is. But I do not expect them to answer.

When we talk about the principles of the UN Charter, we should also address the issue of relations between the UN Security Council and the General Assembly. The Western “team” has been aggressively espousing the idea of the “abuse of veto” for a long time and has ensured – by putting pressure on other UN member states – the adoption of a decision on convening a General Assembly meeting every time the veto is cast, even though it is the West that provokes this increasingly frequently. We do not regard this as a problem. Russia’s positions on all issues on the agenda are open to the public. We have nothing to hide, and it is not difficult for us to put forth our positions again. Besides, veto is an absolutely legitimate instrument that is stipulated in the UN Charter to prevent the adoption of decisions that can split the Organisation. However, since the procedure of discussing every veto at a General Assembly meeting has been approved, why not discuss also the Security Council resolutions that have been adopted, including many years ago, but are not being implemented, contrary to the provisions of Article 25 of the UN Charter? Why cannot the General Assemble discuss reasons for this, for example, with regard to UNSC resolutions on Palestine and the entire range of issues related to the Middle East and North Africa, the JCPOA, or Resolution 2202, which approved the Minsk Agreements on Ukraine?

The issue of sanctions should be given attention as well. It has become standard practice that after the UNSC adopts sanctions against a certain country, after long discussions and in strict compliance with the UN Charter, the United States and its allies adopt “additional” unilateral restrictions against that same state without the approval of the Security Council or the inclusion of these sanctions into a council’s resolution within the framework of a coordinated package. A regrettable illustration is a recent decision by Germany, France and Britain to use their national legislations to “extend” restrictions against Iran, which will expire in October under UNSC Resolution 2231. In other words, European countries and Britain have announced that they do not care that the UNSC decision has expired, because they have their own “rules.”

This is why it is so important to consider a decision according to which nobody will have a right to devalue UNSC resolutions on sanctions by adopting their own illegitimate restrictions against that same country.

Furthermore, all sanctions regimes adopted by the UN Security Council should have an expiry date, because the lack of a deadline is undermining the council’s flexibility when it comes to the ability to influence the policies of sanctioned governments.

It is also necessary to address the issue of the “humanitarian limits of sanctions.” It would make sense for the drafts of sanctions proposals submitted to the Security Council to include the assessment of their possible humanitarian consequences made by the UN human rights bodies, rather than the empty rhetoric of our Western colleagues to the effect that “ordinary people will not suffer.”

Colleagues,

Facts point to a deep crisis in international relations and the absence of the Western countries’ desire and will to overcome this crisis.

I hope a way out of this situation exists and will be found. But first all of us should acknowledge our responsibility for the future of our Organisation and the world in the historical context rather than in terms of the immediate populist electoral considerations in any member state. I would like to repeat that, when global leaders signed the UN Charter nearly 80 years ago, they agreed to respect the sovereign equality of all states be they big or small, rich or poor, monarchies or republics. In other words, back then humanity recognised the importance of an equal and polycentric world order as the guarantee of stable and safe development.

Therefore, the issue today is not about giving our consent to a “rules-based world order” but about fulfilling the obligations all of us assumed by signing and ratifying the UN Charter in their entirety and as a whole.

https://mid.ru/en/press_service/video/view/1905317/

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s statement at the UN – September 23, 2023

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From the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement at the General Debate at the 78th session of the UN General Assembly, New York, September 23, 2023

Mr President,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Many previous speakers have expressed the idea that our shared planet is experiencing irreversible change. Right in front of our eyes, there is a new world order being born. Our future is being shaped by a struggle, one between the Global Majority in favour of a fairer distribution of global benefits and civilisational diversity, and the few who wield neocolonial methods of subjugation to maintain their elusive dominance.

Rejections of the principle of equality and a total inability to reach agreement has long been the signature of the collective West. Being accustomed to looking down on the rest of the world, Americans and Europeans often make promises, take on commitments, including written and legally binding ones, and then they just do not fulfil them. As President Vladimir Putin pointed out, it is the West that is truly an empire of lies.

Russia, like many other countries, knows this firsthand. In 1945, when we, together with Washington and London, were vanquishing our enemy on the front lines of World War II, our allies in the anti-Hitler coalition were already making plans for Operation Unthinkable, a military operation against the Soviet Union. Four years later, in 1949, the Americans drafted Operation Dropshot to deliver massive nuclear strikes on the USSR.

These ghastly senseless ideas did remain on paper. The USSR created its own weapon of retaliation. However, it took the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, with the world balancing on the brink of a nuclear war, for the idea of unleashing it and the illusion of winning with it to cease being the underlying basis of US military planning.

At the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union played a decisive role in reuniting Germany and agreeing on the parameters of a new security architecture in Europe. At the same time, the Soviet, and then the Russian leadership, was given specific political assurances regarding the non-expansion of the NATO military bloc to the east. The relevant records of the negotiations are in our and in Western archives and they are openly accessible. But these assurances of Western leaders turned out to be a hoax as they had no intention whatsoever of upholding them. At the same time, they were never bothered by the fact that by bringing NATO closer to Russia’s borders they would be grossly violating their official OSCE commitments made at the highest level not to strengthen their own security to the detriment of the security of others, and not to allow the military or political domination of any country, group of countries, or organisations in Europe.

In 2021, our proposals to conclude agreements on mutual security guarantees in Europe without changing Ukraine’s non-aligned status were rudely rejected. The West continued its ongoing militarisation of the Russophobic Kiev regime, which had been brought to power as a result of a bloody coup, and to use it to wage a hybrid war against our country.

A series of recent joint exercises by the United States and its European NATO allies was something unprecedented following the end of the Cold War, along with the development of scenarios for the use of nuclear weapons on the territory of the Russian Federation. They stated their aim of inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia. This obsession has finally blurred the vision of irresponsible politicians who have grown accustomed to impunity and bereft of the basic sense of self-preservation.

Washington-led NATO countries are not only building up and modernising their offensive capabilities, but are also shifting the armed confrontation into outer space and the information sphere. An attempt to extend the bloc’s area of responsibility to the entire Eastern Hemisphere under the pernicious slogan of “indivisible security of the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific region” has become a new dangerous manifestation of NATO expansionism. To this end, Washington is creating subordinate military-political mini alliances such as AUKUS, the US-Japan-Korea trilateral summit, and the Tokyo-Seoul-Canberra-Wellington Quartet, pushing their members into practical cooperation with NATO, which is bringing its infrastructure into the Pacific theatre. It is obvious that these efforts are targeting Russia and China, as well as the collapse of the inclusive regional architecture of ASEAN, and generate risks for a new hotbed of geopolitical tension on top of the European one, which has already reached its boiling point.

One certainly has the impression that the United States and the “Western collective” fully subordinate to it have decided to give the Monroe Doctrine a global dimension. These ideas are both illusory and extreme, but this does not seem to stop the ideologists of the new edition of Pax Americana.

The global minority is doing its utmost to slow down the natural course of events. In the Vilnius Declaration of the North Atlantic Alliance, the “growing partnership between Russia and China” is described as “a threat to NATO.” Speaking recently to his ambassadors abroad, President Emmanuel Macron said he was sincerely concerned about the expansion of BRICS, seeing it as evidence that the situation was getting “more complex” and that this runs the risk of “weakening the West and our Europe in particular.” That there was a “our international order where the West has occupied and occupies dominant positions is being revised.” He made a few revelations: if someone somewhere is convening without our participation, is becoming closer without us or without our consent, that poses a threat to our dominance. NATO’s pushing into the Asia-Pacific region is seen as something good, but the expansion of BRICS is a threat.

However, the logic of the historical progress is undeniable, the main trend of which being that states constituting the global majority are strengthening their sovereignty and defending their national interests, traditions, culture, and ways of life. They no longer want to live under anybody’s yoke; they want to be friends and trade with each other, but also with the rest of the world – only on an equal footing and for mutual benefit. Associations such as BRICS and the SCO are on the rise, providing the countries of the Global South with opportunities for joint development and defending their rightful role in the multipolar architecture, which is emerging beyond anyone’s control.

Perhaps for the first time since 1945, when the United Nations was established, there is now a chance for genuine democratisation of global affairs. This inspires optimism in all those who believe in the rule of law internationally and want to see a revival of the UN as the central coordinating body for global politics – a body where decisions are made by consensus, based on an honest balance of interests.

For Russia, it is clear that there is no other option. However, the United States and its subordinate “Western collective” continue to spawn conflicts that artificially partition humanity into hostile blocs and hamper the achievement of its common goals. They are doing everything they can to prevent the formation of a truly multipolar and fairer world order. They are trying to force the world to play by their notorious and self-serving “rules.”

I would like to urge Western politicians and diplomats once again to carefully re-read the UN Charter. The cornerstone of the world order established after World War II is the democratic principle of the sovereign equality of states, large and small, irrespective of their form of government, or their domestic political or socioeconomic structure.

However, the West still believes that it is superior to everybody else, in the spirit of the notorious statement made by EU diplomacy chief Josep Borrell that Europe is a blooming “garden,” while everything around is a “jungle.” He is not bothered by the fact that in this garden, there is rampant Islamophobia and other forms of intolerance towards the traditional values of most world religions. Burnings of the Quran, desecration of the Torah, persecution of Orthodox clergy and the disdaining of the feelings of believers have all become commonplace in Europe.

In gross violation of the principle of sovereign equality of states, the West is using unilateral coercive measures. Countries that are victims of these illegal sanctions (and there are increasing numbers of them) are well aware that these restrictions harm first and foremost the most vulnerable strata of society. They provoke crises in food and energy markets.

We continue to insist on an immediate and full cessation of the United States’ unprecedented inhumane trade, economic, and financial blockade of Havana and for the lifting of the absurd decision to declare Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism. Washington must, without any preconditions, abandon its policy of the economic suffocation of Venezuela. We call for the lifting of unilateral US and EU sanctions against the Syrian Arab Republic, which openly undermine its right to development. Any coercive measures that circumvent the UN Security Council must be ended, as must be the West’s weaponised practice of manipulating the Security Council’s sanctions policy to exert pressure on those they find objectionable.

The Western minority’s obsessive attempts to “Ukrainise” the agenda of every international discussion while pushing onto the backburner a number of unresolved regional crises, of which many have been in place for years and decades now, have become a blatant manifestation of its self-centered policy.

Full-fledged normalisation in the Middle East cannot be achieved without resolving the main issue, which is the settlement of the protracted Palestine-Israel conflict using as its basis UN resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative put forward by Saudi Arabia. The Palestinians have been waiting for more than 70 years to have their own state, which was solemnly promised to them, but which the Americans, who monopolised the mediation process, are doing everything in their power not to allow this. We call for a pooling of efforts of all responsible countries to create the conditions for a resumption of direct Palestine-Israel negotiations.

It is gratifying that the Arab League has got its second wind and is stepping up its role in the region. We welcome the return of Syria to the Arab family, and we welcome the start of the normalisation process between Damascus and Ankara, which we are shoring up with our Iranian colleagues. All these positive developments reinforce the efforts in the Astana format to promote a Syrian settlement based on UN Security Council Resolution 2254 and the restoration of Syria’s sovereignty.

We do hope that with the assistance of the UN, the Libyans will be able to properly prepare for general elections in their long-suffering country, which for more than ten years has been struggling to get back on its feet after the NATO aggression that destroyed the Libyan state and opened the floodgates to the spread of terrorism to the Sahara-Sahel region and to waves of millions of illegal migrants to Europe and other areas. Analysts note that as soon as Gaddafi abandoned his military nuclear programme, he was immediately eliminated. Thus, the West has created the most dangerous risks for the entire nuclear non-proliferation regime.

We are concerned by Washington and its Asian allies who are whipping up military hysteria on the Korean Peninsula, where the US is building up its strategic capabilities. Russian-Chinese initiatives to consider humanitarian and political tasks as priorities have been rejected.

The tragic development of the situation in Sudan is nothing less than the result of another failed Western experiment to export its liberal democratic dogma. We support constructive initiatives to expedite the settlement of the Sudan’s domestic conflict, primarily by facilitating direct dialogue between the warring parties.

When we see the nervous reaction in the West to the latest events in Africa, in particular in Niger and Gabon, it is impossible not to recall how Washington and Brussels reacted to the bloody coup in Ukraine in February 2014 – a day after an agreement was reached on a settlement under EU guarantees, which the opposition simply trampled on. The United States and its allies supported the coup, hailing it as a “manifestation of democracy.”

We cannot fail to be concerned by the ongoing deteriorating situation in the Serbian province of Kosovo. NATO’s supply of arms to the Kosovars and assistance to help them establish an army grossly violates the key Resolution of the UN Security Council 1244. The whole world can see how the sad story of the Minsk agreements on Ukraine is being repeated in the Balkans. There was a stipulation that the republics of Donbass were to have a special status; however, Kiev openly sabotaged this with the support of the West. Such is the case now, when the European Union does not want to force its Kosovo protégés to implement the agreements that were reached between Belgrade and Pristina the 2013 to establish the Community of Serb Municipalities of Kosovo, which would have special rules regarding their language and traditions. In both cases, the EU acted as a guarantor for the agreements, and apparently, they share the same fate. When we see the EU as the sponsor, we can expect the same outcome. Now Brussels is imposing its “mediation services” on Azerbaijan and Armenia, along with Washington, thus bringing destabilisation to the South Caucasus. Now that the leaders of Yerevan and Baku have actually settled the issue with the mutual recognition of the countries’ sovereignty, the time has come for establishing peaceful existence and trust-building. The Russian peacekeeping troops will contribute to this in every possible way.

As for other decisions of the international community that remain on paper, we call for the completion of the decolonisation process in accordance with the resolutions of the General Assembly and for an end to all colonial and neo-colonial practices.

A vivid illustration of the “rules” by which the West wants us all to live is the fate of its commitments that were made in 2009 to provide developing countries with $100 billion annually to finance climate change mitigation programmes. If you compare what happened to these unkept promises with the amounts that the US, NATO and the EU have spent on supporting the racist regime in Kiev – an estimated $170 billion over the past year and a half – you will come to realise what the “enlightened Western democracies” with their notorious “values” really think.

In general, it is time to reform the existing global governance architecture, which has long been failing to meet the needs of our time. The United States and its allies should abandon their artificial restraints on the redistribution of voting quotas in the IMF and the World Bank and the West must recognise the real economic and financial weight of the countries of the Global South. It is also important to unblock the work of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body without delay.

There is an ever-increasing need to expand the composition the Security Council simply by eliminating the underrepresentation of countries from the World Majority – in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It is important that the new members of the Security Council, both permanent and non-permanent, be able to use their authority in their regions, as well as in global organisations such as the Non-Aligned Movement, the Group of 77, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

It is time to look at fairer methods of making up the UN Secretariat. The criteria that have been in place for many years do not reflect the actual influence of states in global affairs and artificially ensure the excessive dominance of citizens of NATO and EU countries. These imbalances are further exacerbated by the system of permanent contracts, which link people to positions in host countries of international organisations’ headquarters, the overwhelming majority of them located in capitals that promote Western policies.

A new type of association is being called upon to reinforce the reform of the UN, where there would be no leaders or followers, teachers or students, and all issues would be resolved based on consensus and balance of interests. One of those is certainly BRICS, which has significantly increased its authority following its summit in Johannesburg and has gained truly global influence.

At the regional level, there has been a clear renaissance of organisations, such as the African Union, CELAC, LAS, GCC, and others. In Eurasia, there is an increasing harmonisation of integration processes as part of the SCO, ASEAN, CSTO, EAEU, CIS, and China’s Belt and Road project. A natural formation of the Greater Eurasian Partnership is underway as well, and it is open to all associations and countries on our shared continent without exception.

These positive trends, unfortunately, are being undermined by the increasingly aggressive attempts by the West to maintain their dominance in world politics, economics, and finance. It is in the common interest to avoid fragmentation of the world into isolated trade blocs and macro-regions. But if the United States and its allies do not want to negotiate on making the globalisation processes fair and equitable, those remaining will have to draw their own conclusions and think about steps that will help them make their socioeconomic and technological development not dependent on the neocolonial instincts of their former colonial powers.

The main problem lies with the West because developing countries are prepared to negotiate, including in the G20, as the recent G20 summit in India showed. The main conclusion in its report is that the G20 can and should be free of any political agenda and given the opportunity to do what it was created for: to work out generally acceptable methods for governing the global economy and finance. We have opportunities for dialogue and agreements. We must not miss this opportunity.

All these trends should be fully taken into account by the UN Secretariat as its statutory mission is to seek consent from all member states within the UN and not somewhere on the side.

The UN was established at the end of World War II and any attempts to revise this would undermine the foundations of the UN. As a representative of a country that made a decisive contribution to the defeat of fascism and the Japanese militarism, I would like to draw attention to a glaring trend to rehabilitate Nazis and their collaborators in a number of European countries, primarily in Ukraine and the Baltic States. A particularly alarming fact is that last year, Germany, Italy, and Japan for the first time voted against the UN General Assembly resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism. This regrettable fact calls into question the true repentance of these states for the mass crimes they committed against humanity during World War II and runs counter to the conditions under which they were accepted into the UN as fully-fledged members. We strongly urge you to pay special attention to this “metamorphosis” that runs counter to the approaches of the global majority and to the principles of the UN Charter.

Mr President,

Today, humanity is at a crossroads again, as has happened many times in the past. It is entirely up to us what will become of history. It is in our shared interest to prevent a downward spiral towards a large-scale war and avoid the final collapse of the mechanisms for international cooperation that were put in place by generations of our predecessors. The Secretary-General has put forward an initiative to hold a Summit of the Future next year. This can only be successful if a fair and equitable balance of interests of all member states is ensured and with due respect for the intergovernmental character of the organisation. At our meeting on September 21, the members of the Group of Friends in Defence of the UN Charter agreed to actively contribute to achieving this.

As Antonio Guterres said at a news conference shortly before this session, “if we want a future of peace and prosperity based on equity and solidarity, leaders have a special responsibility to achieve compromise in designing our common future for our common good.” This is an excellent response to those who divide the world into “democracies” and “autocracies” and dictate their neo-colonial “rules” to others.

https://mid.ru/en/press_service/video/posledniye_dobavlnenniye/1905973/

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov: Russian diplomacy in a changing world

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Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s article for Razvedchik (Intelligence officer) news magazine, March 24th, 2023

Russian diplomacy in a changing world

It is a privilege for me to submit this article to Razvedchik news magazine and share with its readers my understanding of the current international developments, as well as Russia’s foreign policy priorities.

We live at a time of historic geopolitical shifts. “The change of eras is a painful albeit natural and inevitable process. A future world arrangement is taking shape before our eyes,” President Vladimir Putin said.

Today, the emerging multipolarity constitutes a key trend in international affairs, as I have noted on multiple occasions. New centres of power in Eurasia, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America have achieved impressive results in various areas, guided by their commitment to self-reliance, state sovereignty, and their unique cultural and civilisational identities. They have an independent foreign policy, which prioritises their core national interests. This puts in place objective factors for the emergence of a new multipolar world order – a more resilient, just, and democratic framework reflecting the natural and inalienable right of every nation to determine its future, as well as choose its own internal and socioeconomic development models.

By the way, there are politicians in the West who are beginning to come to terms with this reality, even if reluctantly. For example, President of France Emmanuel Macron has talked about the end of the Western hegemony in international affairs on multiple occasions, even if, truth be told, all this happened before he joined the ranks of the pro-Ukrainian coalition engineered by Washington for countering Russia. It is a separate matter that a correct diagnosis may not necessarily translate into practice or reshape foreign policy thinking based on the principles of international law, equal and indivisible security. On the contrary, the US-led so-called collective West is doing everything to revive the unipolar model, which has run its course. They want to force the world to live in a Western-centric rules-based order that they invented themselves, while seeking to punish those who disagree with these rules, even if no one has ever seen them and they are nowhere to be found.

We never had any illusions as to who we are dealing with. It was clear to us that after the Cold War ended, Washington and its NATO satellites sought total hegemony and wanted to resolve their own development challenges at the expense of others. In the Euro-Atlantic, NATO’s aggressive eastward expansion became an integral part of this selfish policy, carried out despite the political promises that were given to the Soviet leadership not to expand NATO, as well as contrary to the commitments approved at the highest level within the OSCE to refrain from seeking to reinforce one’s security at the expense of security of other states.

The OSCE and Russia-NATO summits adopted multiple resolutions proclaiming that no single group of states or organisation can bear primary responsibility for maintaining peace and stability in the region, or to view any part of the region as its sphere of influence, but these documents have been trampled upon. All these years, NATO has been moving in an opposite direction.

For years, the West persisted in its efforts to penetrate the post-Soviet geopolitical space and to build the so-called axis of instability along the Russian border. The United States and NATO countries have always viewed Ukraine as one of the tools they could use against Russia. To complete the transformation of our neighbouring state into an anti-Russia, the Western spin doctors engineered and then supported an anti-constitutional government coup in Kiev back in February 2014. It was staged even though Germany, Poland and France acted as guarantors of a peaceful political settlement between the government and the opposition.

For eight years, the West not simply turned a blind eye to the genocide of people in Donbass but openly encouraged the Kiev regime’s preparations to use armed force to seize these territories. An illustration of this is the recent admission made by Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande, who have admitted that they only needed the Minsk Package to give Kiev time to build up its combat capabilities. One more signatory of that document, Petr Poroshenko, has made a similarly cynical admission. This is nothing other than evidence of hypocrisy of the Western political establishment and the Kiev regime it nurtured.

The Western politicians’ real objectives were manifested again in December 2021, when Washington and Brussels rejected Russia’s proposals on providing it security guarantees regarding the region to the west of Russia’s borders.

It is obvious that the situation in and around Ukraine is only an element of a large-scale collision created by a small group of Western states that wanted to maintain their global domination and to turn back the objective process of the rise of a multipolar architecture. Acting in the worst colonial traditions, the Americans and their lapdogs are trying to divide the world into “democracies” and “authoritarian regimes” or, in plain English, into the select few, who are exceptional, and everyone else, who must serve the interests of the “golden billion.” The ultimate essence of that cynical philosophy has been expressed by the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, who said, “Europe is a garden. The rest of the world […] is a jungle.” It was a Freudian slip that exposed their real intentions.

It is not surprising that threats and blackmail have been used not only against Russia but also against many other states. A strategic goal of the systemic deterrence of China has been formulated, including as part of the so-called Indo-Pacific strategies. The malicious practice of interfering in the internal affairs of states, including the fraternal state of Belarus, has not stopped. The years-long trade and economic blockade of Cuba has not been lifted. There are many other examples of this kind. Overall, nobody is safe now from the United States and its satellites’ raiding and mobster-style attacks.

To ensure the adoption of an international agenda in their own interests, Washington and Brussels are trying to “privatise” international organisations and to make them serve their mercenary interests. Here are a few examples. The Technical Secretariat of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has been given attributive functions that are not within its scope, and the Council of Europe has been turned into an instrument of anti-Russia policy and, in fact, an appendage to NATO and the EU. The situation with the OSCE, which was created to conduct an honest European dialogue, is almost the same. This Vienna-based organisation has become a fringe agency where the West is accumulating filth and lies to drown the fundamental principles of the Helsinki Final Act. It is obvious that the OSCE can no longer deal with serious issues of European security. The West continues its efforts to eliminate the remaining capabilities of the OSCE, in particular, by initiating an exclusive “European political community” that is closed to Russia and Belarus.

Today, our relations with the United States and the EU are at the lowest ebb since the end of bipolar confrontation. When the special military operation began, the West declared a total hybrid war against Russia. Its goal is to defeat us on the battlefield, destroy the Russian economy and undermine our internal political stability.

We have drawn the necessary conclusions from this. There will be no “business as usual” again. We will not knock on the closed door, let alone make unilateral concessions. If the West comes to its senses and offers a resumption of contacts, we will see what exactly they offer and will act based on Russia’s interests. Any hypothetical agreements with the West must be legally binding and must include a streamlined mechanism of their verification.

To tell the truth, we no longer have any illusions about converging with Europe, being accepted as part of the “common European home,” or creating a “common space” with the EU. All these declarations made in European capitals have turned out to be a myth and a false-flag operation. The latest developments have clearly shown that the ramified network of mutually beneficial trade, economic and investment ties between Russia and the EU were not a safety net. The EU did not think twice about sacrificing our energy cooperation, which was a pillar of their prosperity. We have seen that the European elites have no independence and always do whatever they are ordered to do in Washington, even if this results in direct damage to their own citizens. We take this reality into account in our foreign policy planning.

We continue to scrutinise the prospects and expediency of our membership in the international cooperation mechanisms where the West can manipulate the rules of procedure and secretariats to force these cooperation mechanisms to adopt the West’s mercenary agenda to the detriment of Russia’s priorities and equal interaction. In particular, we have withdrawn from the Council of Europe and several other agencies.

We are working with our reliable international partners to transition to foreign trade settlements in non-dollar and non-euro currencies and to create an infrastructure of interbank and other financial and economic ties that will not be controlled by the West.

If the West decides to abandon its Russophobic line and opt for equal cooperation with Russia, this will above all benefit them. However, we are realists who know that this scenario is improbable in the near future. Besides, it will take a great deal of effort to win back our trust. Washington and Brussels will have to work very hard to do it.

There are many partners in the world apart from the US and the EU. This is a global and multipolar world. The attempts to isolate Russia, build a fence around it and turn it into an outcast have failed. The global majority countries, where some 85 percent of the world’s population lives, are not willing to pull chestnuts out of the fire for their former colonial parent states. The international community no longer looks up to the West, which President Putin has aptly described as the “empire of lies” as the ultimate truth or the ideal of democracy, freedom and prosperity.

…

https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1859498/

Building a post-West world order of sovereignty, international law, and mutual respect — Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Munich Security Conference, February 18, 2017

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Leaders with a sense of responsibility must now make their choice. I hope that this choice will be made in favour of building a democratic and fair world order, a post-West world order, if you will, in which each country develops its own sovereignty within the framework of international law, and will strive to balance their own national interests with those of their partners, with respect for each country’s cultural, historical and civilisational identity.

From the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation:

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s address and answers to questions at the 53rd Munich Security Conference, Munich, February 18, 2017

Ladies and gentlemen,

Ten years ago, President of Russia Vladimir Putin addressed this conference with a speech that many in the West saw as a challenge and even a threat, although what his message emphasised above all was the need to renounce unilateral action in favour of honest cooperation based on mutual respect, international law, joint assessment of global problems and collective decision-making. Unfortunately, the warnings he sounded then about the negative consequences of attempting to obstruct the emergence of a multipolar world have become reality.

Humanity stands at a crossroads today. The historic era that could be called the post-Cold War order has come to an end. Its main result, as we see it, was the complete failure of the Cold War institutions to adapt to new realities. The world has become neither ‘Western-centric’, nor a safer and more stable place. This is evident in the results of ‘democratisation’ in the Middle East and North Africa, and in other places too.

NATO expansion has created a level of tension in Europe unseen in the last thirty years. Yet this year marks the 20^th anniversary of the signing of the Russia-NATO Founding Act in Paris, and 15 years since the Rome Declaration on a new quality of Russia-NATO relations was adopted. These documents’ basic premise was that Russia and the West took on a joint commitment to guarantee security on the basis of respect for each other’s interests, to strengthen mutual trust, prevent a Euro-Atlantic split and erase dividing lines. This did not happen, above all because NATO remained a Cold War institution. It is said that wars start in people’s heads, but according to this logic, it is also in people’s heads that they should end. This is not the case yet with the Cold War. Some statements by politicians in Europe and the United States seem to confirm this particularly clearly, including statements made here yesterday and today during this conference.

I mentioned NATO expansion just now. We categorically reject the allegations of those who accuse Russia and the new centres of global influence of attempting to undermine the so-called ‘liberal world order’. This global model was pre-programmed for crisis right from the time when this vision of economic and political globalisation was conceived primarily as an instrument for ensuring the growth of an elite club of countries and its domination over everyone else. It is clear that such a system could not last forever. Leaders with a sense of responsibility must now make their choice. I hope that this choice will be made in favour of building a democratic and fair world order, a post-West world order, if you will, in which each country develops its own sovereignty within the framework of international law, and will strive to balance their own national interests with those of their partners, with respect for each country’s cultural, historical and civilisational identity.

Russia has never hidden its views, and has always been sincere in advocating work based on equal footing in order to create a common space of security, good-neighbourliness and development from Vancouver to Vladivostok. The tensions of recent years between North America, Europe and Russia are unnatural; I would even say they go against nature.

Russia is a Eurasian state with a variety of cultures and ethnicities. Predictability and goodwill in relations with all countries, primarily, its neighbours, have always been inherent to our policies. This line of thinking underlies our close work within the CIS, the Eurasian Economic Union, the CSTO, the SCO, and BRICS.

Good-neighbourliness and mutual benefits underlie our relations with Europe as well. We are part of the same continent, we wrote our history together, and we were successful when we worked hand-in-hand to achieve prosperity for our peoples.

Many millions of Soviet people gave up their lives for the freedom of Europe. We want to see Europe strong, independent in international affairs and taking good care of our common past and future, while staying open to the world around it. We are appalled by the fact that the EU is unable to muster enough strength and give up its Russian policy based on the least denominator principle where fundamental and pragmatic interests of its member states are being sacrificed to Russophobic speculations out of sheer “solidarity.” We look forward to seeing common sense take the upper hand.

What kind of relationship do we want to establish with the United States? We want relations based on pragmatism, mutual respect, and understanding of our special responsibility for global stability. Our two countries have never been in direct confrontation with each other. Our history is steeped in friendliness more than confrontation. Russia did a lot to support the independence of the United States as it proceeded to become a united powerful state. Constructive Russia-US relations are in our common interest. Moreover, America is our close neighbour, just like the European Union. We are divided by just 4 km of the Bering Strait. The potential of our cooperation in politics, the economy, and the humanitarian sphere is enormous. But, of course, it has to be tapped. We are willing to go ahead and do so inasmuch as the United States is prepared to do so on its part.

Today there is no shortage in evaluations of the genesis of global challenges such as terrorism, drug trafficking, or the crises that engulfed territories from Libya to Afghanistan, leaving countries such as Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen bleeding. Certainly, the Munich debate will provide an opportunity to review in detail all these issues, as well as the continuing conflicts in Europe. Most importantly, a settlement cannot be achieved by military means.

This fully applies to the internal Ukrainian conflict. There’s no alternative to complying with the Minsk Package of Measures through a direct dialogue between Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk. This is a firm position adopted by Russia, the West and the UN Security Council. Importantly, the Kiev authorities should embark on that path and honour their obligations.

Today, more than ever, we need a dialogue on all complex issues in order to find mutually acceptable compromises. Actions based on confrontation and the zero-sum-game approach will not cut any ice. Russia is not looking for conflicts with anyone, but it will always be in a position to uphold its interests.

Our absolute priority is to use dialogue to achieve our goals and mutually beneficial consensus. It is appropriate to quote a directive which Chancellor Gorchakov, back in the times of imperial Russia, sent to Russian Envoy in the United States Eduard von Stoeckle in July 1861: “there are no such divergent interests that cannot be reconciled through zealous and hard work … in the spirit of fairness and moderation.”

If everyone could subscribe to such an approach, we’d be able to quickly overcome the post-truth period, to reject hysterical information wars imposed on the international community and to proceed to keep up the honest work without being distracted by lies and falsehoods. Let this be a post-fake era.

Thank you.

Question: I have a concrete question about military exercises. Why are Russian military exercises held without prior announcement, and why are they so non-transparent? This year you will hold the largest Zapad (West) exercises in 20 years, which have alarmed your neighbours. What should be done to build up confidence regarding this issue?

Sergey Lavrov: As you know, Russia-NATO relations and the Russia-NATO Council have been suspended at the bloc’s initiative, although after the 2008 Caucasus crisis our American colleagues, including then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, admitted that the suspension of the Russia-NATO Council was a mistake and that it should be more active especially in times of trouble. However, they continue to step on the same rake. NATO has decided to suspend all practical contacts with Russia, as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told me yesterday. He said they would maintain contact at the level of ambassadors at the Russia-NATO Council and between himself and me, but that they had curtailed all practical contacts.

At some stage, Sauli Niinisto, the President of Finland which is not a NATO member, expressed concern that not just Russian aircraft but also the planes of NATO states fly over the Baltic with their transponders switched off. He mentioned his concern at a meeting with President Putin during his visit to Russia. Following that, President Putin instructed the Russian military to prepare proposals to settle the issues of transponders and aviation security over the Baltic. Our military experts brought detailed proposals to Brussels in July 2016, when the Russia-NATO Council held a meeting there. We believed that these concrete proposals would prompt a response, and that experts would get together to coordinate security enhancement methods. This did not happen. We still cannot start working on this issue. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told me yesterday that an expert meeting might hopefully convene in March. It is taking too long, of course, but we are not to blame for the delay.

He also mentioned the issue of military exercises yesterday and expressed satisfaction that the Russian military held a briefing on the exercises held last autumn. He also expressed hope that special briefings would be held on the exercises we plan for this year.

As for the surprise factor, I am not a military man, but I know that military attachés working in Moscow, including from NATO countries, are invited to such military exercises. But the best answer to this question, as I told Mr Stoltenberg yesterday, is that we should resume military cooperation to remove all these concerns and suspicions. The NATO Secretary General, who was accompanied by his deputies, could not say that NATO is ready to do this, which is a pity, because without military cooperation our diplomats’ meetings will be of little importance for security issues.

As for our relations with NATO, we proposed resuming them long ago. Instead of accusing each other and discussing and implementing plans to deploy NATO combat capabilities on the border with Russia for the first time in a decade, we should sit down to discuss the situation. We proposed looking at the maps to see how many weapons and military personnel NATO and Russia have, and where. After we collect this data, we will be able to gauge the real measures of military security in Europe. And then we will be able to use this information to consider arms control agreements and additional security measures.

Once again, it was not Russia who suspended practical cooperation in the framework of the Russia-NATO Council.

Question: Russia has submitted the first three provisions of Minsk-2 for discussion by the UN Security Council: the cease-fire, the withdrawal of heavy weapons and admission of the OSCE observers to all the Ukrainian regions. Why doesn’t Russia find it possible to meet these obligations and thereby send a message about an increased level of confidence and improved overall situation?

Closer to the end of your remarks, you mentioned the post-fake era. Russia’s interference in the US election campaign was mentioned while it was underway. An election campaign is underway in France, and one of the candidates complained of Russia’s interference as well. French President Hollande even convened an extraordinary meeting of the Security Council to discuss this.

Sergey Lavrov: Regarding your first question, I’m pleased that you are familiar with the Minsk agreements, though it’s a pity you didn’t read them to the end, apparently. Indeed, the first item is the withdrawal of heavy weapons, but then it says that on the 30^th day after the start of such withdrawal, which began in April 2014, the Kiev authorities will prepare a draft law on elections and begin consultations thereon with Donetsk and Lugansk. You can ask all kinds of questions about the timeframe of a particular item in the Minsk arrangements – they don’t always offer fixed dates. However, this date is specified and it’s 30 days. The withdrawal has begun. The beginning of consultations with Donetsk and Lugansk did not hinge on the completion of this process. As you may be aware, a lot has changed since then: the weapons were first withdrawn and then disappeared from the warehouses. The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, which worked in very difficult conditions – and whose work we highly appreciate and hope that the mission will represent more OSCE members, not just NATO and EU member countries – repeatedly noted violations on both sides with regard to the ceasefire, and the presence of heavy weapons in the security zone. However, the Ukrainian armed forces have always been the champion when it came to heavy weapons missing from warehouses. Again, other kinds of violations happen on both sides.

There have been repeated accusations (interviews with several Ukrainian political pundits have been published recently) that President Putin uses women and children in Donbass as human shields and tries to convince the Ukrainians living to the left of the contact line that people in Donbass hate them, while people in Donbass are being told that the Ukrainian government wants to destroy them. These arguments are false and hold no water. They also wrote that Donbass self-defence forces and unnamed Russian troops shell Donetsk in order to blame everything on Ukraine.

Getting back to your question, I have many times mentioned how to make a ceasefire stick. No matter what you think about the Russian media, we can see our reporters doing their jobs along the contact line in Donetsk and Lugansk on a daily basis. They run their stories live showing us destroyed residential areas and social infrastructure buildings, including children’s homes, schools, outpatient clinics, and civilian casualties. I became interested in what’s happening to the west of the contact line and started watching CNN, Fox News, Euronews, and BBC. I haven’t seen anything like that done by Western reporters on the western side of the contact line. They don’t run live reports, which our reporters do, risking their lives and getting wounded and even killed in the process. I asked my Western colleagues whether Western reporters are instructed to stay away from the other side of the contact line for security reasons. There’s no answer. Then we asked the OSCE SMM to focus, in their reports, on the destruction of civilian infrastructure to the left and to the right of the contact line. So far, we haven’t received exhaustive information. This may give an idea of why Western reporters, who are so bent on bringing the truth about the events in Ukraine to the world, do not show what’s happening in the areas to the west of the contact line, which are controlled by the armed forces of Ukraine. Are they discouraged from going there for safety reasons or are they doing some self-censorship? I would like to figure that out.

Our stats show that there are many times more destroyed social infrastructure buildings on the side controlled by Donbass as compared with the situation on the left side of the contact line. In most cases, fire is aimed at the positions controlled by the Ukrainian armed forces. Nonetheless, some members of the media make it into the war zone.

Not long ago, I saw a report by the Washington office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and Washington Post articles by journalists who have been on the line of contact. They wrote that volunteer battalions are the ones provoking violence in Donbass. These forces do not obey anyone, they do not take orders from Ukraine’s Armed Forces and act solely at their own discretion. The journalists wrote that thousands of ultra-nationalists from the Right Sector are fighting there and are not controlled by Kiev in any way whatsoever. The reporters concluded that Kiev may be interested in armed and angry radicals staying on the line of contact in Donbass instead of staging another Maidan uprising in the capital. These articles also mentioned neo-Nazi foreigners who are fighting in Donbass, while others tend to turn a blind eye to their presence there.

We discuss these issues in the Normandy format. Today, a meeting of French, German, Ukrainian and Russian foreign ministers will take place. The question remains: why is there so little information about what is going on to the west of the line of contact? It is key to answering your question about why so little progress has been achieved in terms of security. However, making progress on security issues is not a goal in itself. Our common aim is to ensure full implementation of the Minsk agreements that provide for security on the line of contact (and I mentioned why it has not been achieved so far), constitutional reform to introduce a constitutional provision on the special status, amnesty for all who took part in hostilities in Donbass (just as all those who took part in what happened during Maidan uprisings benefited from amnesty), and the holding of elections. Under the Minsk agreements, the Ukrainian government can restore full control of the border with the Russian Federation only when these provisions are implemented. As I have already said, we are not there yet.

As for what our European partners are saying regarding sanctions, I have already commented on the illogical and artificial nature of the formula whereby the EU lifts sanctions once Russia implements the Minsk agreements. Russia also wants the Minsk agreements to be implemented, and will not lift its sanctions against the European Union until the Minsk agreements are implemented. There has to be clarity on this issue. Paris, Berlin and hopefully Washington and other capitals, including NATO headquarters, know all too well what is really happening in Ukraine and why the Minsk agreements are not working properly. But they are unable to recognise it in public due to a distorted sense of solidarity with those who decided to bring freedom and European values to Ukraine. When our good friend, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Federica Mogherini says that sanctions are a tool for ensuring implementation of the second Minsk agreements, I see this as a way to use sanctions for regulating the crisis in Ukraine, since sanctions unambiguously shift the blame on Russia. As Federica Mogherini said, maybe it was a Freudian slip, ‘We will wait until Russia concedes and departs from Minsk-2 by undertaking something unilaterally and forcing Donbass fighters to take unilateral action.’ The hidden message behind this position is that there is no need to work with Kiev, Kiev is doing everything right. That said, I strongly believe that the key capitals know the truth. I do hope that they send signals to this effect to the Ukrainian government during their contacts, if not publicly. Not only do I hope but I know that this is the case. It is hard to tell whether these signals come across.

Regarding the second question, on Russia’s alleged interference in election campaigns and other events in countries abroad, if you recall, when Donald Trump said that the election was not very honest and that the Democrats got votes from ‘dead souls’, the Democratic Party demanded to see the facts, but for some reason, when it comes to us, no one demands to see the facts. I have not seen any evidence regarding our alleged hacking of Democratic Party sites, or of whatever we are alleged to have done in France, Germany or Italy. We know that there were facts several years ago in Germany, when the eavesdropping on the entire German senior leadership was revealed. Leaks emerged a few days ago, suggesting that the CIA engaged in cyber-espionage throughout the entirety of France’s 2012 presidential race. A CIA representative told a journalist today that he had no comment on this subject. No comment. But my good friend, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, speaking in parliament after the information came out about suspicions that the CIA had meddled in the 2012 election (though, as I understand it, there are not just suspicions but also concrete facts), said that they oppose all cyber-espionage, no matter whether it comes from Russia or any other country. Modesty is always a fine thing, of course, but in this case, once again, I ask to see the evidence.

Let me remind you that Russia was the first country to initiate work in the UN many years ago on coordinating our positions on international information and cyber-security. Our Western partners evaded tackling these issues for a very long time. Finally, a couple of years ago, we adopted a resolution by consensus and a group of government experts was established, which produced a good report, which formed the foundation for a new resolution. Another expert group has been set up and will continue working on this matter now. We proposed long ago that our colleagues work more actively on the professional, technical and technology aspects of cyber-security issues. When the USA, during Barack Obama’s presidency, started hunting down our citizens in violation of the agreement our countries have, and did not inform us that they were catching these people on suspicion that they were involved in cybercrime, we proposed that both sides sit down together and settle all these issues. We have absolutely no desire to see our citizens involved in these illegal cyber activities. In November 2015, we proposed to the Obama administration that we meet and begin bilateral work on cyber-espionage, cyber-security and other cyber-related areas. A year went by without a response, even though I mentioned the matter to John Kerry every time we met. In the end, they proposed meeting in December 2016, but then said that everything would have to be postponed because of the new administration coming in.

Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel, when she spoke about cyber-security today, put forward the interesting idea that the Russia-NATO Council should address this issue. Let me return to my answer to the first question. We always wanted to see the Russia-NATO Council work on real substantive issues. We were not the ones who broke off practical cooperation. If the Federal Chancellor of Germany, one of the main NATO member countries, wants the Russia-NATO Council to work on cyber-security, we see this as a signal that Berlin, at least, wants the Russia-NATO Council to resume real work and not just limit itself to discussions.

http://www.mid.ru/en/vistupleniya_ministra/-/asset_publisher/MCZ7HQuMdqBY/content/id/2648249

Turkey’s downing of Russian jet in Syrian airspace a breach of Syria’s sovereignty

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From Syrian-Arab News Agency SANA

27 November، 2015

Moscow, SANA –Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign and Expatriates Minister Walid al-Moallem affirmed that Turkey’s downing of the Russian warplane is an “act of aggression” that encroaches on the sovereignty of Syria as the plane was shot down in Syrian airspace, adding that Turkey has failed to provide any clear evidence regarding this incident.

In a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, al-Moallem stressed that Turkey is supporting terrorist organizations with weapons and facilitating their movements through the Turkish lands and securing their families.

Al-Moallem hailed the stances of the Russian leadership towards Syria, mainly the efforts exerted by minister Lavrov in promoting the political process in Vienna, noting that these stances reflect the depth of the strategic alliance between Syria and Russia, describing his talks with minister Lavrov as “frank and constructive”.

Addressing those who are demanding President Bashar al-Assad to step down, al-Moallem said “You are delusional and the reason is obvious because President al-Assad believes in the right of Syrian people to self-determination and will not allow anyone to take this right away,” said Al-Moallem.

The minister pointed out that the Russian Air Force in cooperation with Syrian Arab Army had put an end to the dreams of Erdogan which prompted Turkey to mount this aggression.

Al-Moallem said that Turkey continues to provide a cover for ISIS oil smuggling operations from Syria and Iraq into Turkey before heading to ports abroad.

Al-Moallem challenged the US Secretary of State John Kerry to offer a single piece of evidence that the Syrian side is striking oil deals with ISIS. “After all, it is not his first lie,” al-Moallem mocked.

Commenting on the statements of the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, al-Moallem told journalists that Syria has always pointed to Europe’s wrong handling of the crisis in Syria, repeatedly warning that terrorism will backfire on those who support it and regretting that Britain and France are leading the European efforts against Syria’s legitimate government.

Fabius’ overtures and willingness to cooperate with the Syrian army, if proven genuine, is welcome, al-Moallem added, but said a drastic change is need in the approach to the Syrian crisis.

In turn, Lavrov confirmed that Russia will offer all it can to help Syria in combating terrorism, preserving its national unity, rebuilding it and providing Syria with the effective support on the international level.

Lavrov issued a blistering criticism against the statements of some Syria’s neighboring countries in which they fake commitment to UN counter-terrorism resolutions while “playing their own games” by forging alliances with terrorists, describing their conduct as “very impudent.”

He questioned Turkey’s interest in eliminating terrorism and restoring security and stability in Syria, voicing Russia’s full readiness to cooperate with all countries who want to fight terrorism which are part of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition that has so far “yielded no tangible results.”

Lavrov said it is important to prepare a list of terrorist organizations which ought to be kept away from any political process and excluded from any potential ceasefire agreement. If this does not happen, he added, Vienna meeting won’t bear fruit.

He pointed out the need to hold Syrian-Syrian dialogue which brings together the Syrian government and part of the opposition adding that all the parties concerned should contribute to supporting a peaceful political process and exert their efforts to launch dialogue.

“The essence of the Vienna talks stipulates that the Syrians should determine the future of their country without outside interference, adding that Russia opposes Western attempts to come up with candidates for Syria’s leadership,” Lavrov added.

Commenting on the downing of a Russian Su-24 bomber by the Turkish Air Force, Lavrov wondered if Turkey is interested in combating terrorism in Syria and in the efforts to achieve stability and security.

Lavrov criticized Turkey’s contradicting statements concerning the downing of the Russian aircraft, particularly claiming that the Turkish air force did not recognize the jet to be Russian, only to contradict this later by stating that Turkey would have responded in the same way had any other jet violated its airspace.

Pointing to stepped up procedures against Turkey, Lavrov said Russia has decided to freeze the visa waiver system with Turkey in fear of “real, not hypothetical threats”.

Lavrov said eliminating ISIS is a necessity and Syria’s neighboring countries have a special responsibility in this confirming that combating terrorism in the Middle East requires abandoning double standard policies.

The minister said Russia strongly supports French President Francois Hollande’s statement about the necessity of closing the Turkish-Syrian borders, indicating that practical steps need to be taken in coordination with the Syrian government to defeat terrorism in Syria.

Al-Moallem: Syrian army making advances on all fronts backed by Russian air force

Earlier on Friday, the minister al-Moallem said the Syrian army is making progress on all fronts backed by the Russian air force.

During a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on Friday, al-Moallem thanked the Russian leadership under President Vladimir Putin for its sincere efforts in supporting Syria against terrorism.

He affirmed that the Russian airstrikes in Syria have so far outdone by hundred times the Us-led coalition in the fight against ISIS, expressing sincere condolences over the death of the Russian pilot whose aircraft was downed by Turkey, describing it as a “stab in the back.”

“We have been at the receiving end of such stabs for over five years,” al-Moallem said.

Lavrov, for his part, said his country highly appreciates the Syrian government’s commitment to counterterrorism, vowing continued support for Syria to rout terrorists.

“We will continue providing all the necessary assistance to Syria in its war against terrorism in parallel with launching a political process,” added Lavrov, thanking the Syrian army for rescuing the Russian pilot whose aircraft was shot down by Turkey and for providing protection for the Russian embassy in Damascus.

“The Turkish leadership has crossed the line of what is acceptable and risks putting Turkey in a most severe situation,” he warned.

Manar al-Frieh/Manal

http://sana.sy/en/?p=62798

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s speech in Munich

Posted by admin

Posted on Fort Russ, February 7, 2015

February 7, 2015
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russian Federation
Translated from Russian by Kristina Rus

Remarks and replies to media questions by Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, during the discussion at the 51st Munich Conference on Security Policy, Munich, February 7 2015

Ladies and gentlemen,

Mr. Wolfgang Ischinger included in the agenda the topic of “the collapse of world development”. It is impossible not to agree that the events unfolded not by the optimistic scenario. But you cannot accept arguments of some of our colleagues that a sudden, rapid collapse of the world order, which existed for decades, had occurred.

On the contrary, the events of the past year have confirmed the validity of our warnings regarding deep, systemic problems in the organization of European security and international relations in general. I would like to remind about the speech by President Putin spoken here eight years ago.

The design of stability, based on the UN Charter and the Helsinki principles was long ago undermined by the actions of the US and its allies in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, by NATO expansion to the East, the creation of new lines of separation. The project of building a “common European home” failed because our partners in the West were guided not by the interests of building an open architecture of security with mutual respect for interests, but illusions and beliefs of the winners in the “cold war”.

Solemnly adopted in the framework of the OSCE and the Council of the Russia-NATO obligation not to provide own security at the expense of security of others, remained on paper, but in practice was ignored.

The issue of missile defense is a stark evidence of the powerful destructive impact of unilateral steps in the field of military building, contrary to the legitimate interests of other states. Our proposals for joint work on missile defense issue were rejected. Instead we were advised to join the creation of the US global missile defense system, strictly according to the designs of Washington, which, as we’ve outlined and explained factually, carries real risks for the Russian nuclear deterrence.

Any action that undermines strategic stability, inevitably entails response measures. Thereby a long-term damage is inflicted to the entire system of international treaties in the field of arms control, the viability of which directly depends on factors of missile defense.

We don’t even understand, what could be the reason for the American obsession of creating a global missile defense system? The desire for unquestionable military superiority? The faith in the possibility to technologically solve the problems that are essentially political? Anyway, the missile threats have not decreased, but in the Euro-Atlantic area emerged a strong irritant, which will take a long time to get rid of. But we are ready for it. Another destabilizing factor was the refusal of the United States and other NATO members to ratify the Agreement on Adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), which buried this agreement.

Each difficult situation, created by themselves, our American colleagues are trying to blame on Russia. Take the revived in recent conversations The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) Specialists are well aware of the actions of the United States, contrary to the spirit and letter of this document. For example, in the framework of the creation of a global missile defense, Washington began a large-scale program of creating missile-targets with characteristics similar to or close to the forbidden ground-based ballistic missiles. Under a contractual definition of ground-based medium-range cruise missiles fall the widely used by the U.S. shock drones. Expressly prohibited by the treaty are the anti-missile interceptors, which will soon be deployed in Romania and Poland, as they can be used to launch medium-range cruise missiles.

Refusing to acknowledge these facts, the American colleagues claim they have some “reasonable” claims towards Russia in relation to INF, but carefully avoid specifics.

Taking into account these and many other factors, to try to narrow this crisis to the events of the past year, in our opinion, is to fall into a dangerous self-deception.

It is the culmination of the course of our Western colleagues over the last quarter-century to capture by any means their dominance in world affairs, to capture the geopolitical space in Europe. The CIS countries, our closest neighbors, connected with us by centuries of economic, humanitarian, historical, cultural, and even family ties, are demanded to make a choice – either with the West or against the West. Is a logic of zero sum game, which everyone wanted to leave in the past.

The strategic partnership between Russia and the European Union could not stand the test of strength, because the EU chose a confrontational path of development of the mechanisms for mutually beneficial interaction. How can one not remember the missed opportunity to implement nominated by the Chancellor A. Merkel in June 2010 in Meseberg initiative to establish a Committee of the Russia-EU Foreign and Security Policy at the level of Ministers of Foreign Affairs. Russia supported this idea, but the EU rejected it. But such a mechanism of permanent dialogue (if it was created) would allow to more quickly and effectively solve problems and to remove mutual concerns in advance.

As for the Ukraine, unfortunately, at each stage of the development of the crisis our American colleagues, and under their influence – the European Union, took steps leading to escalation. This happened when the EU refused to discuss with Russia the consequences of activating the economic bloc of the association agreement with Ukraine, and then directly supported the coup, and before that – the anti-government riots. This happened when our Western partners have repeatedly issued indulgences to Kiev authorities, who instead of fulfilling the promises of starting a national dialogue, began a large-scale military operation, declaring their own citizens “terrorists” for disagreeing with the unconstitutional change of government and a rampage of ultra-nationalists.

It is very difficult to explain why, in the minds of many of our colleagues, the universal principles of settlement of internal conflicts do not apply to Ukraine, involving, primarily, the inclusive political dialogue between the protagonists. Why in cases such as Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Mali, South Sudan, our partners urge the government to negotiate with the opposition, the insurgents, in some cases even with extremists, and in relation to the Ukrainian crisis act differently, actually supporting the military operation in Kiev, up to attempts to justify the use of cluster munitions.

Unfortunately, our Western colleagues are apt to close their eyes to everything that is said and done by the Kiev authorities, including inciting xenophobic sentiments. Let me quote: “Ukrainian social-nationalism considers the Ukrainian nation a blood-racial community”. And further: “The question of total Ukranization in the future social-nationalist state will be resolved within three to six months with strict and prudent state policy.” The author is a deputy of the Ukrainian Verkhovnaya Rada, Andrey Biletsky, the commander of the regiment “Azov”, which actively participates in the fighting in Donbass. For ethnically pure Ukraine, the annihilation of Russians and Jews was repeatedly publicly called by the other figures, who broke into politics and power in Ukraine, including Yarosh, Tiagnybok, and leaders of the Radical Party of Lyashko, represented in Verkhovna Rada. These statements did not cause any reaction in Western capitals. I do not think that today’s Europe can afford to ignore the danger of the spread of the neo-Nazi virus.

The Ukrainian crisis cannot be resolved by military force. This was confirmed last summer, when the situation on the battlefield forced to sign the Minsk agreements. It is confirmed now, when another attempt to win a military victory is drowning. But despite this, in some Western countries increasingly there are calls to strengthen support for the course of the Kiev authorities for militarization of society and the state, to “pump” Ukraine with deadly weapons and pull it into NATO. The growing opposition in Europe to such plans gives hope, as it may only exacerbate the tragedy of the Ukrainian people.

Russia will continue to seek to establish peace. We consistently advocate for the cessation of hostilities, the withdrawal of heavy weapons, the beginning of direct negotiations of Kiev with Donetsk and Lugansk about specific ways to restore the common economic, social and political space within the territorial integrity of Ukraine. This was the subject of numerous initiatives of Vladimir Putin within the “Normandy” format, which allowed to start the Minsk process, our subsequent efforts for its development, including yesterday’s talks in the Kremlin by leaders of Russia, Germany and France. As you know, these negotiations will continue. We believe that there is every opportunity to achieve results and to agree on recommendations that will allow the parties to really untangle this conflict web.

It is important that everyone realizes the real extent of risks. It’s time to get rid of the habit to consider each issue separately, not seeing “the forest behind the trees”. It is time to assess the situation comprehensively. The world today is on a steep fault associated with changing of historical periods. “Birth pains” of the new world order are manifested through the increase of conflicts in international relations. If instead of strategic global vision, prevail the tactical decisions made by politicians with an eye on the coming elections at home, there is a danger of a loss of control over the levers of global governance.

Let me remind you that at the initial stage of the Syrian conflict, many in the West urged not to exaggerate the threat of extremism and terrorism, claiming that it will somehow dissolve on its own, and that the main thing – is to bring about regime change in Damascus. We see what happened. The vast territory in the Middle East, Africa, the Afghanistan-Pakistan area became uncontrollable by legitimate authorities. Extremism overflows to other regions, including Europe, aggravating risks of proliferation of WMDs. The situation in the Middle East settlement, in other areas of regional conflicts is gaining an explosive nature. An adequate strategy for containment of these challenges is still not developed.

I would hope that today’s and tomorrow’s discussions here in Munich will bring us closer to estimating the level of the efforts to find collective answers to common threats. The conversation, if you count on significant results, can only be equal, without ultimatums and threats.

We remain convinced that the whole complex of problems would be much easier to solve if the major players have agreed on strategic orientations of their relationship. Recently, the permanent Secretary of the French Academy, Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, said that “the real Europe may not exist without Russia”. We would like to understand if our partners share this view, or do they plan to continue the course of deepening the division of the European space and setting its fragments against each another? If they want to create a security architecture with Russia, without Russia or against Russia? Of course, our American partners should answer this question.

We have long proposed to start building a common economic and humanitarian space from Lisbon to Vladivostok, a space based on the principles of equal and indivisible security, which would include the members of integrated unions, and other countries which are not part of those unions. Of particular relevance is the establishment of robust mechanisms for interaction between the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and the EU. We welcome the emerging support of this idea of responsible European leaders.

In the year of the 40th anniversary of the Helsinki act and the 25th anniversary of the Paris Charter, Russia would like to infuse these documents with real life, to prevent replacing of the principles, enshrined there, to ensure the stability and prosperity throughout the entire Euro-Atlantic space on the basis of genuine equality, mutual respect and consideration of each other’s interests. We wish success to the “group of the wise”, formed in the framework of the OSCE, which must reach a consensus in their recommendations.

Marking the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, we should be aware of responsibility that rests on all of us.

Thank you for your attention.

Q&A

Question: I understand all the above-mentioned problems in relation to the United States and missile defense. Besides the fact that according to the INF, Russia equals drones to cruise missiles, I would like to note that the US President B. Obama had significantly reduced European missile defense. If there are problems in relation to the United States, why should Ukraine pay for it? Referring to the annexation of Crimea and attempts to divide Ukraine. What did the poor Ukrainians do that you punish them for the sins of the Americans?

Lavrov: I understand that you have, of course, a twisted perception. Don’t confuse apples and oranges. Now they say “we will resolve the Ukrainian crisis, and the whole system of security and stability will start working on its own.” On the contrary. The crisis needs to be resolved, it is the first priority, but we cannot ignore the fact that all the agreements concluded by the end of the “cold war” are not followed.

We have no desire to seek revenge, especially at someone else’s expense. We want to have normal relations with the United States. It was not us, who destroyed the deployed mechanisms which have been established in recent years and which provided daily contact and mutual clearing of concerns. It was not us who pulled out of the Missile Defense Treaty. It was not us who refused to ratify the adapted CFE Treaty. Now we need to collect bit by bit what we still have left and somehow based on the reconfirmation of the Helsinki principles to negotiate a new security system, which would be comfortable for everyone, including Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova – all whom our American colleagues had put before a choice: to go towards the West and to reduce cooperation with Russia. It is a fact.

I am aware that American ambassadors around the world receive such instructions. I see here A. Vershbow, who recently gave an interview, calling NATO “the most peaceful bloc in the world” and “the hope of the European stability and security.” And who bombed Yugoslavia, Libya, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions? The achievements brought by unilateral actions we are seeing now in the Middle East. We want NATO to not be just an exemplary organization, which it is presented as, but a participant in equal dialogue for stability. What’s wrong with that? Everyone wants us to recognize a subordinate role of all others in relation to the United States and NATO. I don’t think it is in the interests of world peace and stability.

With regard to the events in Ukraine, the U.S. President Barack Obama recently said openly that the United States was the broker in the process of transition (transit) of power in Ukraine. Modest formulation, but we know very well how it happened, who openly discussed on the phone the composition of personalities that should be represented in the new Ukrainian government, and much more. We know what happens now, who routinely monitored events on Maidan. There were no our military specialists and experts.

We want very much for the Ukrainian nation to regain its unity, but it must be done on the basis of real national dialogue. When the central government decided to celebrate as national holidays the birthdays of Stephan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, the date of formation of the “Ukrainian Insurgent Army”, the question arises – how can these holidays be celebrated in the East of Ukraine? There is no way. And the West does not want to celebrate May 9th [Victory over Hitler in the Great Patriotic War -tr.]. Without mentioning other specific features of the Ukrainian society, just this requires some political arrangements.

They are probably embarrassed to say it here, but now Ukraine is undergoing mobilization, which is running into serious difficulties. Representatives of the Hungarian, Romanian minorities feel “positive” discrimination, because they are called up in much larger proportions than ethnic Ukrainians. Why not talk about it? Or that in Ukraine reside not only Ukrainians and Russians, but there are other nationalities which by fate ended up in this country and want to live in it. Why not provide them with equal rights and take into account their interests? During the elections to the Verkhovnaya Rada the Hungarian minority asked to organize constituencies in such a way that at least one ethnic Hungarian would make it to the Rada. The constituencies were “sliced” so that none of the Hungarians made it. All this suggests that there is something to discuss. There are real problems that don’t allow the Ukrainian state to get out of this severe crisis, but they are ignored in the West. I have talked to many, including those sitting here, when they introduced a law on lustration. One-on-one I was told that this is a terrible law, which urgently needs to be cancelled. I asked why this is not talked about publicly, and heard that there is an understanding that it is necessary to support the Ukrainian government, and not to criticize it. What else is there to say?

I hope that yesterday’s efforts made by the presidents of France, Russia and the Chancellor of Germany, will produce a result that will be supported by the parties of the conflict and will actually calm down the situation, starting the much-needed national dialogue on ways to solve all the problems – social, economic and political.

Question: Going Back to the results of yesterday’s talks in Moscow and the day before yesterday in Kiev, the good news is that the Minsk agreement is still on the agenda, but the bad news is that not all the signatories of these agreements agree to comply with them. Meaning the representatives from DPR and LPR are leading an offensive, artillery fire, etc. The Russian Federation also signed the Minsk agreement. Now there are attempts to revise the line of contact. There is no pressure on the militia, although Russia recognized that it can exert such pressure. Do you actually plan to implement the Minsk agreement? What guarantees of the implementation of all 12 points of the Minsk agreements and pressure on DPR and LPR can you give, as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation?

Lavrov: As soon as the main participants of the Minsk process – the Ukrainian authorities and representatives of the proclaimed republics of DPR and LPR – will reach an agreement on all practical aspects of implementation of each of Minsk points, I am convinced that Russia will be among those who will provide such guarantees – whether in the OSCE, or in the UN Security Council. I am convinced that Germany, France and other countries will also be able to provide such guarantees. But you can guarantee only what has been done and achieved. You have to agree directly. We should not pretend that these people will obey [Russia] unequivocally. They live on their own land and are fighting for it. When people say that they would not be able to provide superiority on the battlefield, I will say that theirs is a just cause. And Ukrainian soldiers don’t understand why they are thrown to battle. I repeat, direct negotiations are needed.

Once the US Administration was criticized for the fact that it actively maintained contacts with the Taliban via Doha (Qatar). In response to criticism the administration asked, why criticize: “Yes, they are enemies, but one does not negotiate with friends. Negotiations are held with the enemies”. If the Ukrainian authorities consider their citizens – enemies, they will have to negotiate in any case. Our Ukrainian colleagues should not hope that the blind support, they receive from the outside, will solve all the problems. Such support without any critical analysis of the events is spinning some heads. Just as in 2008, it spun the head of Mikhail Saakashvili. Everyone knows what came of it.

[Editor: Additional questions and answers translated below]

Kristina Rus:

When Lavrov says, Russia supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine, it doesn’t mean that it wants Ukraine to remain in it’s current boundaries. What it means, is that it is not up to Russia, but up to the citizens of Ukraine to decide, whether to remain united or not. He also brings up the differences in the mentality and culture of Eastern and the Western Ukraine, which need to be addressed. “To be addressed,” does not mean “to be resolved”, especially when they are irreconcilable

http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/02/lavrovs-munich-speech-full-transcript.html

Editor: What follows are additional questions and answers not translated on Fort Russ from the text on

http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/0/5E26BDE162FEC0E643257DE5004B5FE0

This is a rough translation via Google — I hope to update with a better translation soon.

Foreign Minister Lavrov: We have an extensive network existed bilateral arrangements between Russia and NATO in the NATO-Russia Council, where the military daily contact with each other, had a special meeting of experts from capitals, there were many joint projects to combat terrorism, collective project to develop explosives a detector «STANDEX».

Additional area points of, and was a project on training for Afghanistan’s security services, equipment this service helicopters. There was also a project «Common airspace initiative» (joint initiative on the safety of air space). Now all this is “frozen”, although under these arrangements was quite possible to agree on how to avoid dangerous military activities.

With specific regard to the theme of activity of the Air Force, we have the relevant statistics, which shows that the activity on the NATO side has increased immeasurably more than on the side of Russia. In my opinion, at the end of Jan. our Permanent Representative to NATO Alexander Grushko met with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on the subject and gave him «fact-sheet» outlining ongoing contact statistics. We are open to reconstruct the mechanisms of interaction, but for the time being, they are all frozen. There was only the Permanent Representatives Council (the Council of Ambassadors) meetings which are held infrequently. Everything else is closed.

Now even the following problems arise. Apparently, our NATO colleagues want to reduce the physical presence of Russian diplomats in Russia’s permanent mission to NATO. To us restricted access to headquarters, where there is our premises. Perhaps this will promote additional the appearance of “dark spots” in our relationship and will not help to clarify each other’s intentions.

Question: You said that you want to define the general principles of European security. I am afraid that the principles of the EU are based on self-determination and does not correspond to the Russian principles. Do you believe in the sphere of influence, as he said Dzh.Kennon about 60 years ago, many of Russia’s neighbors must choose between being enemies and satellites. In view of the incompatibility of our values what the general rules are possible? Five years ago, Medvedev proposed the concept of a new European security architecture. It did not work, because Russia has a strong influence on its neighbors. Do you see a way out of this situation? Is it possible a compromise between Russian and European approaches to building security in Europe?

Lavrov: Perhaps you did not listen very closely. It was not that the necessary to develop new principles. I said that it is necessary retraining the principles contained in the Helsinki Final Act, the Charter of Paris, in the documents of the NRC, but this time to confirm with honesty/integrity. And most importantly – give them a binding form.

Mentioned by you, European Security Treaty also did not offer anything new. He only offered in a legally binding form enshrine the principle of the indivisibility of security, which is proclaimed in the OSCE and the NRC. Our NATO colleagues said that the legal guarantees of security have to remain the prerogative of NATO in order to it everyone strove to keep this visual line grew and deepened. Why give up that security was equal? It was proclaimed, and this obligation is have undertaken presidents and prime ministers of the Euro-Atlantic area, the OSCE. It turns out that NATO wants to make safety unequal. Wrote Dzh.Oruell [George Orwell, 1984] that someone was “more equal than others.”

You quoted Dzh.Kennon [George Kennan? Footnote 1 belw]. I can quote another of his statement that the “cold war” was a colossal mistake which the made the West.

No need to invent anything new. You just have to sit down and honestly and then faithfully fulfill what agreed a couple of decades ago.

Question: I agree with you that in the last 25 years, not everything was perfect. We had a lot of disagreements with Russia. We almost signed a partnership agreement aimed at modernizing Russia’s economy – and this is just one example. I believe that we have created such a scheme in Europe, which ensures the territorial integrity and sovereignty of States. Both of these principles have been violated, and we must recognize that Russia is a party to the conflict in Ukraine. We can overcome this crisis only if we properly analyze the political situation in the country. Your description of the situation in Ukraine is unacceptable.

There was an agreement with Viktor Yanukovych, approved by the parliamentary majority. Elections were held, in which 80% voted for the European course. Nationalists, communists and fascists received 2-3% of the vote. That’s what the real situation from which to draw on. In the twenty-first century there should not be grounds for a violation of the principles of sovereignty and territorial values enshrined in Helsinki. The principle of sovereignty is that every nation, including Ukraine, has the right to decide which country to enter into trade agreements. If the next state is trying to control this choice, it is a return to the old policy, and violation of the principle of sovereignty, which currently takes place in Ukraine.

Foreign Minister Lavrov: I am sure that your performance will be a good story on television.

There are international rules that, in fact, sometimes treated differently, different actions receive the opposite interpretation. In Crimea, something happened that is provided by the UN Charter – self-determination. In this document, there are several principles and the right of nations to self-determination stands on a key point. Read the Charter! Territorial integrity, sovereignty is obliged to respect. The UN General Assembly adopted a declaration in which they clarified the ratio of basic principles of international law. There it was confirmed that the sovereignty and territorial integrity inviolable and the countries that pretend to respect their sovereignty, have to respect the right of living in these countries and nations do not allow the prevention of self-determination by the use of brute force.

According to you, in Kiev, there was just something for the entire implementation of the agreement, which was signed by President Viktor Yanukovych, as there are elections were held. Firstly, the day after the signing of the agreement, regardless of the location of Viktor Yanukovych (he was in the Ukraine), were attacked his residence, the building of the presidential administration, government buildings, in addition to how many buildings and people burned at “Maidan” in the previous period. But in such a way trampled an agreement that witnessed the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland (by the way, in the hall there Sikorski, who probably can tell your story), in its first paragraph implied the creation of a national unity government. These are the key words. The goal of national unity can not depend on the fate of a single Viktor Yanukovych. If he is gone, now what – you can seize power by force of arms, and do not care about national unity? But you do not agree with this and rightly so, because it is not permissible. So, it happened instead of a national unity government, which by September had to prepare a new constitution, on which must have been a general election. Here are the sequence of actions. But the starting point -National unity. That’s where you need to build a constitution with the views of the entire country.

Instead, when the said agreement has already been consigned to oblivion, Yatsenyuk went to the “Maidan” and announced the creation of a “government of winners.” Then the regions of Ukraine, who have rebelled and began to protest, to organize events, to say that do not accept the results of the coup – they simply began to suppress. First began to arrest the leaders who opposed the coup, and then began to use force. Who attacked whom? Did Donetsk and Lugansk go to storm Kiev? Not at all. In the South-East was sent military groupings by means of which began to try to establish the rule force.

Occurs in Ukraine have seen in the Crimea. In the very early stages of the crisis there was an attempt by “Right Sector” to break through and seize administrative buildings. Thank God, there is an isthmus, and people’s guards stood up and did not let them. In Crimea, held a referendum on independence, and later on joining Russia. In Kosovo, there was no referendum, although US President Barack Obama recently stated that Kosovo – is an exemplary case because there people voted in a referendum. The referendum was not there, as well as many other “referendum”. The unification of Germany took place without a referendum, and we were the active supporters of this.

When World War II ended, if you remember, the Soviet Union opposed the division of Germany. Speaking about the methods that are used instead of direct dialogue, the trouble is that the current President of Ukraine has lost its monopoly on the use of force. The Ukraine created private battalions paid better than the regular army. These battalions under different names (including “Azov” that I quoted) from the regular army deserted the people.

Among those who lead them, there are frankly ultranationalists. We are with you, Mr. E. Brok have long communicate. You even came to Moscow. So my answer to you is very simple. If you want to say angry speeches that will reinforce your position in politics in the European Parliament is one thing, but if you want to talk, let’s sit down and in honesty all Helsinki principles, see why in some cases you do not think that they are violated, and in others – think that it was so.

By the way, recently based in Nuremberg Ukrainian credit rating agency «GFK Ukraine» conducted a survey in the Crimea. According to the results of more than 90% said that they supported the annexation of Crimea to Russia, were against 2%, and 3% said they still do not really understand (what is happening). This statistic is people. Here’s a colleague said that the main principle of the EU – is self-respect. Once you have talked about the country, and in this case there was determination of the people, while it was based on centuries history. We can discuss all this, if you really want to understand our position, and we were guided by. About this many times told Russian President Vladimir Putin. You can, of course, to laugh. If just someone from this to have fun. Laughter is also said to prolong life!

Footnote 1

http://www.globalresearch.ca/americas-blueprint-for-global-domination-from-containment-to-pre-emptive-war-the-1948-truman-doctrine/5400067
America’s Blueprint for Global Domination: From “Containment” to “Pre-emptive War”. The 1948 Truman Doctrine; ANNEX: Archive of (Declassified) Top Secret Policy Planning Document drafted by George F. Kennan

Kiev introduces state of emergency in Donbass, high alert across Ukraine

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From RT, January 26, 2015

The Ukrainian government has introduced the state of emergency in the war-torn south-eastern Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, and put all other territories on high alert, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk announced.

“In accordance with the Ukrainian Code of Civil Protection, the Cabinet of Ministers has adopted a decision to recognize an emergency situation at a state level. The Ukrainian government has decided to impose the state of emergency in the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions,” Yatsenyuk is cited as saying by Interfax-Ukraine.

According to the PM, the move is aimed at providing the most efficient coordination of all government agencies in order to ensure civil protection and the safety of the population.

The statement was made after the field meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers, which took place at the headquarters of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Kiev on Monday.

Yatsenyuk also said that the state of emergency in the southeast will be overseen by a special government commission.

It will be headed by the PM himself, with Deputy-PM Gennady Zubko and Emergencies Minister Sergey Bochkovsky being his deputies.

A man walks near a damaged residential building in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine January 19, 2015 (Reuters / Alexander Ermochenko)

Kiev’s troops and Donbass militia forces are locked in renewed hostilities in southeastern Ukraine after a shaky ceasefire reached by the sides in September utterly collapsed.

Ukrainian forces launched a massive offensive in mid-January, but failed to gain any ground despite employing tanks, artillery and aviation.

On Saturday, a residential area in the port city of Mariupol, which has remained relatively insulated from violence throughout the majority of the conflict, was shelled.

The Kiev forces and the militias have been trading blame for the incident, which took the lives of at least 30 people and saw another 100 injured.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, has blamed Kiev for trying to “derail the peace process” in the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions.

“Time and time again, we’re seeing attempts by the Kiev authorities to solve the problem by violent suppression of the southeast. These are blind-alley attempts, leading to even more casualties among the civilian population,” he said.

#Donetsk residents lay flowers at bus stop where 15 civilians were killed after mortar shelling. People keep arriving pic.twitter.com/DMvvT8FYYn

— Roman Kosarev (@Kosarev_RT) January 24, 2015

Lavrov gave a reminder of an agreement to start withdrawing heavy weaponry reached at a meeting of the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine on January 21. Several days later President Poroshenko announced the renewal of warfare.

“It would’ve been naive to expect that the militia forces will remain idle when on the Ukrainian president’s orders populated areas are being shelled … and come to term with the fact that they’ll be bombed out,” Lavrov noted.

The foreign minister said that according to his understanding the rebels began acting “in order to eliminate those positions of the Ukrainian military from where their towns and villages were being shelled with heavy weaponry.”

The Ukrainian conflict began last April when Kiev launched a military operation in the southeastern Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, after they refused to recognize the country’s new, coup-imposed authorities.

The death toll in the Ukraine conflict has exceeded 5,000 people. Over 10,000 have been injured, according to UN estimates.

Source:
http://rt.com/news/226315-ukraine-state-emergency-alert/

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