Ratcliffe’s Moscow visit may be framed as routine, but it came from an agency still deeply involved in killing Russians and guiding Ukraine
CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow last week.
What we know: Ratcliffe met with Sergey Naryshkin, the director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service. This has been confirmed by Naryshkin himself, who described the meeting as “routine.” We also know that the US spy chief did not meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The meeting took place, there is nothing unusual in this,” Naryshkin stated afterwards. “In the practice of special services, meetings of managers, personal meetings or online are part of our work. So, the meeting with John Ratcliffe is a working format.”
Naryshkin refused to state what issues were discussed, explaining that they were within the competence of the intelligence services. “And the competence of the intelligence services is such a rather delicate and special thing,” the Russian spy chief said.
What we don’t know: literally anything else.
Rumors abound about additional attendees, as well as the agenda – or lack thereof – that was pursued by Ratcliffe during a meeting which appeared to be anything but routine. But the fact is, any meeting between Ratcliffe and Naryshkin, given the nature of the times we live in, could never be described as “routine.”
A quick reminder: John Ratcliffe’s CIA is currently at war with Russia. Literally.
Ratcliffe assumed his current position on January 23, 2025. Prior to this, he did a short stint as national intelligence director during the last year of Trump’s first term in office. He was a Texas congressman for a few years, as well as a small-town mayor and acting US attorney for the Eastern District of Texas.
He is a politician, not a spy.
But he is fully cognizant of the CIA’s secret war against Russia, having been fully briefed while serving as DNI. As a member of Congress, Ratcliffe was a leading policy maker on national security issues serving as a member of the House Intelligence and Homeland Security committees.
Any effort to portray him as some sort of “innocent abroad” fails on the face of the facts.
The CIA has always been at war with Russia. During the Cold War, Moscow Station (the name of the CIA’s operation center based out of the US Embassy) was literally the front line of the spy-versus-spy antics taking place between the US and the Soviet Union.
The CIA headed up Operation Cyclone, a massive paramilitary-driven effort to create a Vietnam-like quagmire for the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The goal of Operation Cyclone was to kill Russians.
I worked with people who were directly or indirectly affiliated with Operation Cyclone. ‘Kill more Russians’ was literally their mantra.
There was a time when the CIA hired genuine Russia-area experts. The analysts who populated the Office of Soviet Analysis (SOVA) in the Directorate of Intelligence at the height of the Cold War were some of the best experts on the Soviet Union imaginable.
I know because I worked with them. From 1988-1990, I received two classified commendations from the director of the CIA for my analytical work involving the Soviet Union. I was considered by the CIA leadership to be a top-notch Soviet analyst.
In 1992 the CIA actively recruited me for an analytical position within the predecessor to SOVA, the Slavic and Eurasian Office. I was brought in for a high-level interview, after which I was informed that the CIA would be passing on my application. When I asked why, I was told that I was too married to old school thinking about Russia – in short, I was a ‘Sovietologist’.
The CIA was looking for people who could imagine Russia ‘differently’. What this meant was divorcing oneself from the mindset that Russia (i.e., the Soviet Union) was a peer-level opponent worthy of respect (my view), and instead adopting a stance that Russia was a defeated foe that needed to be kept down by any means necessary.
In the 1990s, the CIA’s task was to use Boris Yeltsin as an agent of influence to weaken Russia and facilitate foreign control over its resources. The CIA actively infiltrated every aspect of the Russian economy and used ‘soft power’ resources funded by the likes of the National Endowment for Democracy and overseen by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to hijack Russian democratic institutions and Russian social life, especially through media-related activities.
The CIA also was very active in working to break Russia up into more manageable fiefdoms, each ruled over by a CIA-controlled lackey. The Russian-Chechen conflict was a primary example of this activity.
When Boris Yeltsin stepped aside in favor of Vladimir Putin as Russia’s president on New Year’s Eve 1999, the CIA immediately made it its task to undermine Putin and replace him with someone from the Yeltsin camp willing and able to do the CIA’s bidding.
Putin’s resistance and resilience as a Russian leader operating independent of CIA control helped shape a new generation of Russophobes in the United States. The first generation were the ‘new Russian’ thinkers that replaced the old school ‘Sovietologists’ at the end of the Cold War. To them, Russia was a playground for which to launch experiments on economic and political domination with absolutely zero regard to the price being paid by the people of Russia.
This generation of Russophobes simply detested Russia and the Russian people, failing to attribute any normative human value to their lives. Millions of Russians lost their lives as a result, and tens of millions of others suffered greatly.
Michael McFaul, the former US ambassador to Russia, falls into this category. So, too, does Fiona Hill. And Beth Sanner. People whose educational background and Russian experience pre-dates Putin, people who know the truth about Russia but opted instead to embrace the hegemonic policies of superpower singularity and work to weaken and destroy Russia.
But Putin’s stubborn hold on power, despite concerted efforts by the CIA to oust him (think Navalny), led to the birth of a new generation of Russophobes, so-called ‘experts’ whose only claim to relevance is their undying hatred of Putin and everything Russian.
It is this generation that has gravitated to the upper levels of the CIA’s analytical community, and who openly hate all things Russia. People like Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Julia Gurganus.
It is this openly Russophobic CIA that John Ratcliffe oversees.
His relationship with Julia Gurganus is both instructive and illustrative of the sickness that pervades the CIA when it comes to Russia. Gurganus was the National Intelligence Officer for Russia back in 2016-17, at the height of the Obama-era Russiagate scandal that tried to make the case of collusion between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russia to steal the 2016 presidential election from Hillary Clinton.
Gurganus helped manufacture the intelligence that underpinned this false allegation. She was a vociferous critic of Trump, so much so that the CIA quietly exiled her to a think tank position during Trump’s first term in office.
When Trump was reelected, Ratcliffe oversaw the whitewashing of Gurganus’ role in falsely accusing Trump of collusion, leading to the elevation of Gurganus as the senior CIA briefer onboard Air Force One as Trump flew to Alaska to meet with Putin in August 2025. That’s right – Ratcliffe purposefully cleansed Gurganus of her anti-Trump credentials so she could personally brief the president before his meeting with Putin.
Tulsi Gabbard, in her role as DNI, exposed Gurganus as an anti-Trump operative and had her security clearances revoked, but not before the damage was done.
There was a time when the CIA’s Directorate of Operations Russia House was home to living legends. People like Milton Beardon, who helped run Operation Cyclone and was chief of the Soviet/East European Division at the time the Soviet Union fell. Gardner Hathaway and Berton Gerber, who ran some of the most successful CIA spying operations from Moscow Station in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
And Murat Natirboff, another legendary Russian hand who led the Moscow Station during the Nicholas Daniloff affairs in the 1980s. Natirboff is instructional in this regard. His father was an officer in the Russian White Army which fought the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War. Natirboff hated the communists. But he loved Russia. He was held in very high regard by the Soviet officers of the KGB which faced off against him during his tour in Moscow.
I can personally attest to Murat’s feelings toward Russia – I met him after he left Moscow in 1988, where we spoke about my experiences in Votkinsk as an INF Treaty weapons inspector.
The CIA no longer employs people of this caliber in its operational work regarding Russia. Gone are the days of the Russian romantics – people who took the time to learn about their enemies to bring to life Sun Tzu’s classic observation: “If you know your enemy as yourself, you need not fear the outcome of a hundred battles.”
The present-day Directorate of Operations is overrun with paramilitary operatives, men (and women) who cut their teeth during the heyday of the post-9/11 ‘Global War on Terror’, where they oversaw secret wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iran.
They take their cue from veterans like Tom Sylvester, a former Navy SEAL who worked in the CIA’s Special Activities Branch as a Ground Branch operative. Tom headed the CIA’s efforts in Ukraine post-2022, when the Special Military Operation began. His job was literally to kill Russians.
People like ‘Santa Claus’, the nickname of the CIA’s Kiev Station Chief who sent Ground Branch to Ukraine post-2014 to train the Ukrainian intelligence special operations forces on how best to kill Russians.
Veterans of the CIA’s drone assassination programs now advise the Ukrainian drone operators on how to kill Russians and destroy Russian infrastructure.
In December 2025, the CIA helped direct Ukrainian drones toward a residence in Valdai where Putin was staying.
Yes – John Ratcliffe’s CIA tried to kill the Russian president. The CIA denies Putin was the target, but the data from the guidance chips extracted from Ukrainian drone debris appears to suggest otherwise.
Today, the CIA is knee-deep in the business of killing Russians. They continue to guide Ukraine’s expanded drone warfare campaign targeting Russia. And Russians.
This is John Ratcliffe. This is the organization he leads. So, when people reflect on the recent visit by Ratcliffe to Russia, never lose sight of his primary mission.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, served in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991 to 1998 served as a chief weapons inspector with the UN in Iraq. Mr Ritter currently writes on issues pertaining to international security, military affairs, Russia, and the Middle East, as well as arms control and nonproliferation. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter and on Telegram @ScottRitter
From the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
Question: Mr Lavrov, thank you very much for agreeing to speak with us. The first question is, one might say, conceptual – concerning the world order. Previously, we discussed the existence of a bipolar world. Subsequently, following the collapse of the USSR, we spoke of a unipolar world. How would you characterise the present state of the world? What is its nature?
Sergey Lavrov: The world currently stands at a stage of transformation and profound change. These changes will, in all likelihood, span an entire era, such that the generation currently residing on Earth may not witness the final configuration – if, of course, it does ultimately materialise, and if it proves possible to bring it about.
It is true that, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, unipolarity was proclaimed almost openly. Francis Fukuyama captured the aspirations, dreams, and prevailing sentiment of Western society and its elites when he declared that the “end of history” had arrived and that henceforth only the Western liberal model, in economics, politics, and human rights, would constitute the sole, dominant paradigm on the planet. At the time, this was received in various ways, but I do not recall our Chinese counterparts commenting on it with any great frequency.
Domestically, it was remarked upon with a certain enthusiasm, with many claiming that finally, we had cast off the “shackles” of the communist system. “God bless America!” – as the then President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, exclaimed in the US Congress. Western experts flooded into all our governmental institutions, took part in reforms, contributed to the preparation of privatisation – and a great deal else was occurring at that time.
Many raised the alarm regarding the dangers inherent in this course. In my view, the events of the 2000 election reflected the desire of the nation and its people to reclaim its historical essence, its destiny, and its national pride. At the end of December 1999, when Boris Yeltsin publicly transferred power to Vladimir Putin, followed by elections being called, a new epoch dawned. I do not believe that the proponents of the unipolar theory anticipated that Russia would be as compliant as it had been under Boris Yeltsin’s administration. One must give the West its due – it began not only by “patting us on the shoulder,” but also by creating a certain atmosphere.
In 2001, President Vladimir Putin paid his first visit to the United States. A year later, US President George W. Bush visited our country. A declaration was signed – you may not believe this (and indeed, few now recall it) – concerning new strategic relations between the Russian Federation and the United States.
The Russian President responded in kind. Even before George W. Bush assumed office, he had interacted with Bill Clinton. Not long ago, Vladimir Putin recalled how, at their first meeting, he proposed to Bill Clinton that if they were no longer adversaries, if the Soviet Union had ceased to exist, if the Warsaw Pact was no more, if ideological differences were a thing of the past, and if they did not wish to dissolve NATO – then they might admit Russia to the alliance and collaborate. Bill Clinton hemmed and hawed, to put it in colloquial terms. This occurred at a G20 summit. In the evening, at a reception, Bill Clinton responded that his advisers had told him it “would not work.”
The intention was always to keep us close, but not as an equal partner. Even when we triumphantly joined the G8, which later became the G7, it was not full-fledged membership.
Question: Seven plus one, was it not?
Sergey Lavrov: No, it was the Group of Eight whenever political issues were on the agenda, whenever the West sought to impose certain political assessments – for example, with regard to Iran or the DPRK. Moreover, they imposed assessments that exceeded the parameters of existing UN Security Council resolutions.
We participated in meetings of finance ministers, but the most sensitive matters concerning the governance of the international monetary, financial, and trade system were discussed by the G7. Only afterwards was the head of our Ministry of Finance invited and, by and large, simply informed of what had already been agreed upon in those areas.
The watershed moment in the evolution of our position, in our final understanding and the crystallisation of the conviction that the West would not engage with us on equal terms, was President Vladimir Putin’s Munich speech in 2007. Everyone is familiar with it. Everything said on that occasion was grounded in facts. And beyond the facts – dry, compelling, irrefutable – there was also an emotional dimension. If one watches the recording of that address, one can see how, in citing examples of the West deceiving us at every turn, whether regarding NATO or numerous other specific crises, Vladimir Putin quite literally asked, as they say, with palpable emotion: “Why are you doing this? Why not conduct our affairs as was promised, as is set out in so many documents?”
At present, the emergence of a multipolar world is an established reality. China is the world’s largest economy by purchasing power parity, a fact recognised by virtually all, and the pace of its economic development is highly impressive. At the same time, there is now talk of a possible crisis of overproduction: owing to what the West has done to its own economies, there may be nowhere to sell everything China produces. But that is a practical matter, and it will be resolved.
In geopolitical and geoeconomic terms, giants such as China, India, and Brazil are asserting themselves and rapidly strengthening their economic positions, claiming their rightful place in world economic affairs.
Fundamental transformations are underway in Africa, as the continent begins to distance itself from the neo-colonial model whereby raw materials were extracted there and value was added in Europe.
Question: Did Africans also realise they had been deceived?
Sergey Lavrov: Of course. They were happy, enjoying political freedom and political decolonisation. But economic deprivation remains.
Question: A follow-up question that concerns many segments of our population. You mentioned how, in 2007, President Vladimir Putin said the West always deceives. But we still hear reactions from our country like, “Look, they’ve deceived us again.” And everyone asks: why do we still expect fair play? How much longer are we going to fall for this?
Sergey Lavrov: After all, we are a God-fearing nation. Our multi-ethnic people have many proverbs about their great patience: “God endured, and so must we,” “Measure twice, cut once,” “Don’t hold your breath for promises.” This reveals something about our psychology – not naivety ingrained by centuries of historical experience, but rather the enduring hope that a scoundrel cannot be a complete scoundrel, to put it simply. [Our epic hero] Ilya Muromets lay idle on the stove for 33 years, waiting for the moment his services would be called upon for his homeland.
Deception lies in the foundation of Western diplomacy. And it still does. We can recall 1999, when the OSCE summit in Istanbul stated that NATO would not expand. Its declaration said so, in different words: no one shall strengthen their security at the expense of others, and no country or organisation in the Euro-Atlantic space shall claim dominance. The North Atlantic Alliance did exactly the opposite.
There are memoirs by Yevgeny Primakov, who headed the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the mid-1990s. Incidentally, Jack Matlock, the former US ambassador to our country, has published a memoir in which he clearly and unconditionally confirmed what was firmly promised: NATO would not expand if Germany reunified. But the alliance did expand, not just to eastern Germany but to other countries as well.
When we asked how this was possible if we had been promised and given a firm assurance, we were told: “But it was verbal.” Then, in Istanbul in 1999, it was formalised in writing. But the expansion continued. We asked again: “This time it wasn’t verbal, but written, at the highest level.” They answered us without batting an eyelid: “But that’s a political declaration; it’s not legally binding.” Our penultimate attempt was in 2008, when we said: “Okay, since you’re citing the declaration’s non-binding political nature, here’s a legally binding agreement that translates into legal language the same principles enshrined in the OSCE and signed by your leaders.” They “went under the rug,” not even discussing it. The same was true of our last effort to prevent the Ukrainian crisis. In December 2021, we proposed to NATO and the United States that we conclude treaties on European security in this part of our Eurasian continent. Sadly, such examples abound.
Let’s turn to Ukrainian affairs, since we’ve mentioned them. On February 21, 2014, Germany, France and Poland guaranteed, with their ministerial signatures, an agreement between Viktor Yanukovych and the opposition on early elections and the formation of a government of national unity before the elections. The next morning, February 22, the opposition seized government buildings, took to the Maidan and declared: “Congratulations – we’ve created a ‘government of victors!’” And on those same dates, February 22–24, 2014 (read it up, it’s all online) François Hollande, then President of France, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, then German Foreign Minister, Angela Merkel, then Chancellor of Germany, and, of course, William Hague, then British Foreign Secretary, all declared that the people had finally taken power into their own hands. They claimed Viktor Yanukovych had left, and no one knew where he was. But Viktor Yanukovych was at his party congress in Kharkov. That he wasn’t exactly welcomed there is another matter. But he hadn’t fled; he was still in the country.
Question: And after everything that has happened, do we still believe them?
Sergey Lavrov: I would point to our national character and to the proverbs that reflect our faith in people right to the very end. But the end has already come.
After the special military operation began, the West, having overcome its initial confusion, firmly set out on a course of supplying the Nazi Kiev regime with ever more advanced and increasingly deadly offensive weapons. In one of his speeches in the year the special military operation began, President Vladimir Putin, answering questions about the West’s position, its treachery and duplicity, said that we would always be ready to talk, but that we had learned our lessons and that our relations with the West would never again be what they had been before February 2022.
Question: Since we’re on the subject, the head of Vatican diplomacy, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe are both in Moscow this week, on the same day. What is going on?
Sergey Lavrov: The head of Vatican diplomacy and the CIA Director are visiting.
Question: What is behind these visits? What did you discuss?
Sergey Lavrov: In both cases, the visitors came because they wanted to talk.
I spoke with the head of Vatican diplomacy, the Secretary for Relations with States and International Organisations of the Holy See, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher. There were no secrets between us. We covered virtually everything later at the news conference.
Of course, they expressed an interest in bringing the Ukrainian conflict to an end as quickly as possible. In particular, they once again confirmed their readiness to assist in resolving humanitarian matters.
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, whom Pope Leo XIV tasked with facilitating contacts on humanitarian issues, prisoner exchanges and the exchange of bodies between Russia and Ukraine, has visited us several times.
As you know, our Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova is in contact with her Ukrainian counterpart. They use practical, depoliticised language. This approach helps resolve issues, and we support it.
The Vatican has expressed its readiness to assist with these efforts, just as Melania Trump has helped resolve a number of issues brought to her through public organisations.
Naturally, given Mr Gallagher’s interest in achieving a swift settlement – something he has emphasised repeatedly – I provided him with all the examples that we are discussing with you now.
Question: What was his response?
Sergey Lavrov: I pointed out that we had never been short of goodwill, and that back in 2014 we had supported the agreement that had been reached, only to see it trampled upon the very next morning, to the applause of those who had guaranteed its inviolability. A year later, there were the Minsk agreements, in which Russia acted as a guarantor alongside Europeans – Angela Merkel and François Hollande. They were sabotaged in their entirety, despite the fact that in 2019 Emmanuel Macron, who had by then become President of France, gathered the so-called Normandy Four, together with Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel and Vladimir Zelensky, and we adopted yet another document. It reaffirmed the need to honour the Minsk agreements, especially since they had been endorsed by the UN Security Council.
More recently, Angela Merkel, François Hollande and Pyotr Poroshenko all said that they had never intended to implement any of this. They needed to buy time to arm themselves. And then, of course, there were the manoeuvres of the then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in April 2022, when he did not let the Ukrainians sign the document which they themselves had drafted and initialled during the Istanbul talks. This was especially pertinent as my interlocutor, Paul Richard Gallagher, is also from the British Isles.
Question: And what did the Vatican’s envoy say?
Sergey Lavrov: I think he understood everything. I can say that he did not bring forward any counterarguments, apart from the general refrain that “we need to bring this to an end as soon as possible.”
Here is what I told him. What the West is currently pushing for is stopping along the line of contact, with a ceasefire but no lasting peace. At the same time, it has been declared for everyone to hear that, once hostilities have been suspended or stopped in this way, neither Ukraine nor the West, at least as far as Europe is concerned, will recognise the territories under Russia’s control as part of the Russian Federation, including under the Russian Constitution. They even proudly say that there must first be a ceasefire, followed by efforts to restore the 1991 borders by peaceful means. Then “stabilisation forces” would be deployed in the territory remaining under Vladimir Zelensky’s control, with the UK and France at the forefront of this, should we say, unhinged initiative.
And these “stabilisation forces” would, in effect, preserve, entrench and protect the neo-Nazi regime – the only regime in the world to have banned an entire language and an entire canonical denomination at the legislative level. Moreover, these bans were introduced long before the special military operation began.
Question: What was the Vatican’s reaction to this?
Sergey Lavrov: I asked the Vatican’s representative to what extent they take these human rights, including religious rights, seriously. He said that this was not right. Let me be frank – and I hope I am not giving away any secrets – in response to my request, he promised to send an appropriate signal in his subsequent contacts with the Ukrainians.
He had visited Kiev one month before coming to Moscow, so I asked him whether they had raised these issues, because the Vatican follows all the developments in the global religious sphere, across all the world’s religions. They could not have been unaware of what was going on. He admitted that he had not had enough time.
However, I have been saying that this state of affairs is unacceptable for several years now. I have been referring to the UN Charter, which states that everyone must respect and ensure human rights irrespective of race, sex, language or religion. In other words, this applies directly to the Kiev regime. And no one, anywhere, in any of the proposals put forward by those seeking to bring the conflict to an end through such a “just settlement” – whether those voices are coming from Europe or from other regions of the world – mentions language, religion or human rights.
At one event, after I had spoken and raised this issue once again, one of my Western colleagues – I will not name him or his country – came up to me over a cup of coffee and said that, if negotiations began, this would be part of them. I replied that this cannot be part of a negotiating package. It is an obligation that Ukraine must fulfil unconditionally. And those who lead and run Ukraine bear direct responsibility for this.
Question: Today, The Wall Street Journal published an article about CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow. According to the article, he came to warn against a potential Russian attack on a NATO country, most likely one of the Baltic states. US President Donald Trump said it was a “routine” visit. There is another version, namely that on August 14 we asked the Americans to explain how they were helping the Ukrainians carry out strikes against our economic infrastructure. In your view, which of these versions is closer to the truth? What actually happened?
Sergey Lavrov: I wasn’t there. Like the rest of the world, we have procedures governing contacts between intelligence agencies. There is nothing unusual about that. Nor is there anything unusual about them conducting their work quietly.
We also conduct much of our diplomatic work quietly, but diplomats are traditionally expected, by the very nature of their profession, to say something publicly. Of course, we do not disclose details that are particularly sensitive or are still being worked on, when it is important not to jeopardise potential compromises or a possible consensus.
As for August 14, yes, we published something…
Question: It was reported that on August 14 we asked the Americans how they were helping the Ukrainians carry out strikes against our territory, and that we practically issued an ultimatum.
Sergey Lavrov: No, there was no ultimatum on our part.
We did raise the question because reports periodically appear in the Western media about how, specifically, the administration of Donald Trump, which has described the Ukrainian crisis as “Joe Biden’s war,” is helping Ukraine with new financial allocations, weapons, intelligence information and so on. There have been three or four such instances over the past couple of months. When such information appears, we calmly send it to the US State Department through diplomatic channels and ask them to confirm whether it is true.
Question: What was the response?
Sergey Lavrov: We have not received a response even once.
In principle, when it comes to the Americans, Russia appreciates the fact that US President Donald Trump has pursued a policy from the outset that differs from that of the Europeans and former US President Joe Biden. Whatever reservations we may have in making this assessment, he has nevertheless focused on the root causes. Long before his current initiatives, when he was on the campaign trail, he repeatedly said, in effect, forget about NATO [membership for Ukraine]: the Russians had made their position on the alliance clear to us long before President Vladimir Putin. It was unrealistic, he said, and should not even be discussed. Donald Trump said this repeatedly, both before and after Anchorage.
In Anchorage, we discussed a proposal that, as President Vladimir Putin has explained, US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff had brought to us a week before the meeting. It contained certain elements of compromise, but was based on the realities that had emerged on the ground. And when I say “on the ground,” I also include the referendums that had been held there. The proposal was based on these realities, with some limited compromises.
After the NATO summit in June this year, my colleague, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio – I subsequently spoke with him and asked him about this – said that the United States could not be a mediator because it was unequivocally on Ukraine’s side. Apparently, according to him, nothing had happened in Anchorage. What was discussed there was their proposal, which the Ukrainians subsequently rejected.
But this brings us to the question of how Russians negotiate and how negotiations are conducted in the West.
Question: I just wanted to ask: does it often happen that presidents meet simply to talk, without any prior agreements?
Sergey Lavrov: You can certainly meet just to talk, and it is still useful to exchange views even when there is no document. But there is a tradition that goes back centuries: merchants would “shake hands” on a deal – they reached an understanding. That was it. No one signed any papers. It was a matter of honour. It was the same with NATO: they gave us their word, and then later started saying, “Well, those were just words.”
In Anchorage, the United States put forward a proposal. President Vladimir Putin began by reading it out point by point and asking Steve Witkoff, who was present, whether he had set it out correctly. Witkoff nodded and confirmed everything. Once Steve Witkoff had confirmed that everything President Putin had read out accurately reflected the position of US President Donald Trump, President Putin said that there were some nuances, but that he accepted the proposal in full. We were ready to proceed. If that is not agreement, if that is not an understanding, then I don’t know what is.
Immediately following the Anchorage summit, the Europeans, together with Vladimir Zelensky, rushed to court Donald Trump. As a result of their lobbying, which continued for almost the entire year, President of France Emmanuel Macron proudly announced at the G7 summit in Evian in June this year that they had “buried” Anchorage and that Donald Trump was now on their side. I don’t know how that was viewed in the White House, but there was no response to those remarks.
Question: Does that mean that we failed to follow through, that we didn’t court Donald Trump and failed to explain our position to him?
Sergey Lavrov: That’s not our style. We are used to doing things, you might say, “like gentlemen,” or you could put it more colloquially, “like real men.” Essentially, it’s the same thing. We shook hands on the deal.
Question: We stand by our word.
Sergey Lavrov: Exactly. Here is the proposal. We say that we accept it without changes. Just as we essentially accepted the Ukrainian proposal without changes in April 2022 in Istanbul.
Admittedly, after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the United States could not act as a mediator, we met with him in Manila on the sidelines of the ASEAN events. Then, about a month ago, he said that they were interested in resolving the Ukrainian crisis, but that new approaches needed to be explored. Russia is ready to hear out any new approaches. In the meantime, we continue our efforts on the ground.
President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly recalled what happened in early April 2022, when we had practically reached an agreement in Istanbul and had initialled the documents, only for the then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to tell them they could not go ahead. At that time, President of France Emmanuel Macron called Vladimir Putin and asked him, in order to create the best possible atmosphere for signing the document, to make a “gesture of goodwill” and withdraw from Kiev. We withdrew from Kiev. Then, just two days later, when we were no longer there, the BBC arrived and began filming bodies neatly laid out along the roadside in the residential community of Bucha. Even then, President Vladimir Putin said that from that point on we would always remain ready for negotiations, but that we would not declare any ceasefires for the duration of the talks. The fighting will stop only when a comprehensive, long-term settlement has been reached.
And finally, regarding the Americans. At Anchorage itself, during the press conference with President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump spoke in highly positive terms about the results. He said that, essentially, only one difficult issue remained. I am referring to what everyone knows by now – the part of the Donetsk People’s Republic that is still under the control of the Ukrainian armed forces. In his statements in August 2025, Donald Trump stressed in particular that we were not pursuing some kind of ceasefire that would inevitably collapse a year or two later, but were instead working towards establishing lasting and sustainable foundations for a stable settlement. All our main points were fully confirmed.
Question: But if Donald Trump was fully in favour of signing these agreements, and yet nothing came of it, the question arises: is Donald Trump really in charge, and is he as powerful as he wishes to appear?
Sergey Lavrov: I have spoken with US President Donald Trump several times, both during his first term and now. But I have never played golf with him, so I cannot judge the power of his swing. Those who know the sport have told me, however, that he is a very good player.
I will not speculate on how well-coordinated relations within the Western camp are today, or whether they are structured in such a way that it is possible to understand who is doing what and who depends on whom. But the United States is clearly concerned that its once seemingly unlimited power is becoming a thing of the past. You can see this even from the statistics on its share of the global economy. They lead only in terms of military spending. Even there, however, they have now forced Europe to catch up, bringing its combined military spending to almost 1.5 trillion euros. That is the kind of military budget the United States would like to have for itself.
We were absolutely sincere when disaster struck the Americans. On September 11, 2001, President Vladimir Putin was the first to call then US President George W. Bush, the first to offer assistance and the first to express solidarity. Just a few days later, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution that became the basis for the operation launched by the Americans in Afghanistan, with the stated aim, proclaimed to the whole world and enshrined in the Security Council resolution, of eliminating terrorism and helping the Afghan people return to normal life.
As a result, an international coalition was formed under that resolution. We were sincerely prepared to cooperate in various forms. But in the end, instead of eliminating terrorism, the Americans simply decided to stay in Afghanistan. And they remained there until the latest events.
Russia expressed its solidarity primarily because, at that time, we knew and understood better than most what international terrorism was, having seen it actively sponsored in the Caucasus by the British and some other Western countries.
Question: It is good that you mentioned the British. My next question was about them.
In 2022, then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson flew to Kiev, and the signing of the Istanbul agreements was derailed. This week, the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, visited Ukraine – the British travel to Ukraine quite frequently. What is Britain’s role in this entire conflict? In your view, are the British currently managing to outmanoeuvre the Americans?
Sergey Lavrov: Britain’s role is highly negative, as it has been for centuries. As far as Russia is concerned, certainly. But the same applies to most others as well – I would not call them partners, but Britain’s “fellow travellers,” because Britain has never had permanent allies. The United States is no exception. They have always looked somewhat down their noses at those Anglo-Saxons who established their own state across the Atlantic.
Since the time of Ivan the Terrible – and there is ample contemporary evidence of this – the British have constantly sought to cause trouble for our country. One need only recall the Crimean War in the late 19th century. During the Revolution, British diplomats actively incited the State Duma and betrayed their own monarchs’ relatives, as Nicholas II and his family were. King George V refused to grant Nicholas II’s direct request for asylum. That was in the spring of 1917. We all know what happened next.
Yes, there was the period of the Second World War. Indeed, they were our allies – both the United States and Britain. Lend-Lease and the Arctic convoys were of great assistance. Many historians write that they played an almost decisive role in enabling us to hold out during the first year, up to the Battle of Moscow.
Then a kind of diplomatic manoeuvring began: the second front, and so on. It gave the impression that they were watching the situation at the front and waiting to see which way it would go. They were thinking about which side to choose.
Question: Then there was the Fulton speech by the then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. That much is clear.
Sergey Lavrov: Before the Fulton speech, there was also something that our intelligence services did not disclose until recently, because they wanted, after all, to preserve the memory of our alliance. There was Operation Unthinkable, which the British began planning together with the Americans before the end of the Second World War. It envisaged a massive attack on the Soviet Union.
Even so, we do not forget the period of our alliance. But if this was a situational alliance on the part of our partners, our brothers-in-arms during the Second World War, it disappeared very quickly.
Question: I was asking about something else. Their attitude towards us is clear. Do you not think that the British are now outmanoeuvring the Americans on the Ukrainian front?
Sergey Lavrov: Vladimir Zelensky is outmanoeuvring everyone there as well. You do not even need politicians as sophisticated as the British for that. Look at it: Vladimir Zelensky is calling the shots for everyone. That is simply his style.
Apart from the fact that huge amounts of money are disappearing in Ukraine, much of it being stolen, and corruption is flourishing, he is not carrying out the “instructions” of those same Americans regarding cooperation with the National Agency on Corruption Prevention. They also have some kind of special administrative chamber there. They simply ignore these instructions and try to keep these agencies under their control.
But beyond all that, beyond this growing irritation, there is also “irritation with Ukrainians” who have gone to Europe and behave as though they own the place, creating problems for the employment of local citizens in Poland, for example.
There are also problems with grain exports. They have now started transporting grain overland to Poland. The conditions created there for Ukrainian grain are such that Polish farmers are already on the verge of going on strike.
Apart from all these objective facts, Vladimir Zelensky’s behaviour when he travels around the world is such that everyone is expected to listen to him and carry out his orders.
Question: But everyone does listen.
Sergey Lavrov: The irritation is building. But I would not rely on the idea that this irritation will keep growing and that, at some point, they will simply tell him, as it were, “Enough. Surrender.”
No, we must not give in to such sentiments and, of course, we must not give in to the attempts by Vladimir Zelensky, actively provoked with the support of the Europeans, to destabilise our society through terrorist attacks on oil refineries, online marketplaces and civilian infrastructure, designed to sow fear.
Schools, children’s centres, beaches, passenger buses – a huge number of targets that have nothing whatsoever to do with military potential. And the West shamefully remains silent. Sadly, UN Secretary-General António Guterres and High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk are also shamefully silent. They have unequivocally and firmly taken the side of the Ukrainian regime.
Since we have touched upon these terrorist methods, which have been intensifying, and what they have started doing in the Black Sea, for which they have received a much stronger response from us: I know that there are people among us who say, “How could everything have been fine, and then suddenly this…” People comment on it in different ways. Few say that we started it. Almost everyone who grumbles about what is happening in everyday life understands that it was the West that started it. But they keep asking, increasingly often, when we are going to end this and why we cannot do it sooner. After all, they say, we are more powerful.
We have never experienced anything like this in our history. During the Second World War, we did have the United States and Britain on our side. Then, as we advanced victoriously, particularly across Europe, other countries joined our ranks – countries that were already pulling their troops out from under Hitler’s command and sending them over to our side.
This time, many people call it a world war. But the only people in the trenches alongside us were North Korean servicemen. Everyone else is on the other side. As US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said – perhaps it simply slipped out – the United States is not a mediator; it is on Ukraine’s side. That makes the collective West’s front against us a universal one.
Question: You mentioned North Korea. Essentially, we now have two allies – North Korea and Iran. Everyone is asking how we got to this point, how we ended up in such company.
Sergey Lavrov: What’s wrong with such company?
Question: Countries that were once regarded around the world as pariah states have become Russia’s main allies. Many people are asking how this came about.
Sergey Lavrov: They were regarded as pariahs by those who imagined themselves the victors of the Cold War and proclaimed the “end of history” for all time – which is where we began our conversation.
I worked in New York from 1994. At the time, Boris Yeltsin was President of the Russian Federation and Andrey Kozyrev was Foreign Minister. I attended a G8 meeting after the Russian Federation had become part of the group.
I remember feeling uncomfortable because I categorically refused to sign off on unacceptable wording, but they looked at me as though I were a pariah. I said, “Listen, why are you bringing G8 issues here that are on the agenda of the UN Security Council? That’s simply unethical.” I even told them point-blank that I understood what they were trying to do: to extract some kind of agreement from the Russian representative on some wording that they could then promote in the UN Security Council and point the finger at us.
The West has boorish manners. That’s just the way they are. Although, at the time, they were still polishing them a little, given that, as I said, documents proclaiming a strategic partnership with the United States had been adopted.
North Korea. What did it do? It was declared an enemy from the very beginning, the main problem. They drew the conclusion – and it proved to be the right one – that in today’s world, the only guarantee is nuclear weapons. Especially when you have South Korea, US military bases and Japan right next door. No one is threatening them now.
US President Donald Trump recently spoke of North Korea not as a pariah, but of its leader, Kim Jong-un, as a good friend of his, saying that the two of them get along well.
In Iran, completely out of the blue, in June 2025, the United States and Israel bombed the country in the midst of negotiations. The talks were under way; they finished in the evening and agreed to meet again in the morning – and in between, they bombed them. The war lasted 12 days. Then there were the strikes on February 28 this year. Now the Americans say they are demanding that Iran open the Strait of Hormuz. The Islamic Republic of Iran says that, in return, the sanctions must be eased or lifted. And they will keep pressing for that.
But the most interesting thing is that the Strait of Hormuz was completely open until February 28. Following this aggression, Iran demonstrated that it, too, has its own national interests, national pride and traditions. The history of Persia goes back more than a thousand years.
Now, if the Strait of Hormuz is to be reopened, they are discussing a fee for passage. There was no such fee until the United States and Israel launched this reckless attack. Incidentally, we do not want a fee to be introduced either, but that is a matter for further discussions.
One of the consequences of the aggression against Iran is that the position of those in the Iranian leadership who had warned that, without nuclear weapons, Iran would be constantly pressured has been greatly strengthened. These views were marginal under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, both of whom were killed.
Now US President Donald Trump says they want to talk to the Iranians, but there is no one there to talk to; he doesn’t know anyone. They killed everyone there. What is that supposed to mean?
Question: Let me ask you an unusual question. Perhaps no one has ever asked you this before. As a diplomat, do you see artificial intelligence as a threat to diplomacy? Two blocs have already emerged. One American bloc is called Pax Silica, and the second, Chinese one is called WAICO.
Sergey Lavrov: “Silica” comes from silicone, as I understand it.
Question: Indeed, countries have started forming separate groups depending on what type of artificial intelligence they use.
Sergey Lavrov: I would say that the idea of creating this kind of division did not come from the countries themselves. They were subjected to these divisive practices. The United States views China as its main competitor. There are trustworthy professional assessments claiming that China is advancing more rapidly and effectively in this domain, given certain national characteristics, including discipline, the readiness to sacrifice free time and to fully invest in one’s work.
It is true that the Americans were the ones who created Pax Silica. They do not want China to be part of it. This coalition was established and presented as an initiative to promote cooperation and control the circulation of semiconductors and other components which are involved in developing and using artificial intelligence in one way or another. Specifically, its purpose is to gather as many countries as possible under this umbrella and set forth rules governing the use of AI, including in terms of its commercial use and possible dual-use, including for military purposes, but in a way that suits the United States, while preventing those who are part of Pax Silica from switching over to China. This is just to give you a rough idea without going into too much detail.
In July 2026, China held the first World Artificial Intelligence Conference, during which it announced the establishment of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation. Russia took part in this conference as a full-fledged founding member – or should I say mother? We are now at a crucial stage of fine-tuning this concept and addressing organisational matters, including the governing bodies, subsidiary institutions, the research council, who would head the organisation and how many vice presidents it will have, etc. There were 29 countries, including Russia, which signed the agreement to establish the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation, while the United States has a comparable number of participants. This is a serious matter. In principle, we would like to have a global conversation on this issue without splitting everyone apart in terms of national, ideological, or class-driven affiliations.
China offers an inclusive project which is open to everyone, while Pax Silica is more of a closed cooperation framework.
Question: Is this about selling technology?
Sergey Lavrov: Yes, imposing technology in the long run, as they say. This will not be an easy matter.
By the way, Paul Richard Gallagher, who heads the Vatican’s diplomacy, has recently visited Russia. They share our concern about the fact that there has been a growing number of researchers voicing their misgivings regarding the possibility of controlling AI’s military applications.
Question: We learned that former President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan and his son were both arrested for two months. We saw Armenian law enforcement officers at all the family’s businesses. What is the Foreign Ministry’s position?
Sergey Lavrov: There is another former President of Armenia, Armen Sarkissian, who served as Defence Minister when Robert Kocharyan was President, and went on to become President himself. He is also facing an investigation.
As far as the Foreign Ministry is concerned, we focus on the interests of the people of Armenia. We can see that for many centuries their interests were intertwined with the interests of our nation. We have always been together and demonstrated solidarity towards one another during long stretches of history. Russia was there to help out the Armenian nation and its leaders many times when they found themselves in dire straits. Of course, these interests must dominate the agenda. This is not what today’s leaders in Yerevan are after. They declared the goal to focus on the European Union and adopted a law launching the EU accession process. But when countries of the Eurasian Economic Union issued a statement following their meeting in May 2026 at a summit calling on the Armenian leadership to hold a referendum in order to decide whether they want to be in the EU or stay within the EAEU – I think that this request was completely justified. The norms of one organisation are incompatible with the norms of the other organisation, as has been said many times already. But Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said that he would make up his mind when the time comes. What does this mean if you have already adopted a law launching Armenia’s accession to the European Union?
Just the other day, I read a news article about Nikol Pashinyan’s statement that they could talk about a referendum once they apply for EU membership, receive a response and once there is a roadmap for this accession. This is when the referendum can happen, he said.
I think that this demonstrates that he does not trust the Armenian voters and the people of Armenia all that much. He should have offered them an honest choice by explaining what they are choosing and what fuels the Armenian economy today. Annual trade exceeded $6 billion over the past three years, and reached $12 billion in one of these years. This is to say that the EAEU fuelled much of Armenia’s development.
Question: Do the processes which are currently unfolding in Armenia remind you in any way of what happened in Ukraine in 2013 when affiliation with two incompatible unions was also on the agenda?
Sergey Lavrov: Viktor Yanukovych’s request to postpone the association agreement rather than cancel it served as a formal pretext for launching the bloody Maidan. It was quite obvious at that time that by becoming an associated member of the European Union, Ukraine would benefit from close to zero tariffs across the board. But they also had zero tariffs within the CIS free trade area. There were no customs borders between us. All we did was tell them that if they opened their border with Europe, we would have to close our border. After all, Russia spent 18 years insisting on having protective tariffs regarding Europe as part of the process to join the WTO. And we got these protections. If you open up your markets, everything will flow there.
Question: Russia has navigated this path in its relations with Ukraine. How can we now avoid repeating the same mistakes with Armenia and refrain from severing relations or breaking ties?
Sergey Lavrov: From our side, everything has been done. All our positions, as well as the advantages that Armenia derives from its participation in the Eurasian Economic Union – including the receipt of energy resources from us at prices three to four times lower than those prevailing in the European Union – remain in place.
I proceed from the assumption that there are good economists in Armenia. Regular contacts are maintained between our respective deputy prime ministers. Any issue of interest to our Armenian counterparts may be raised for discussion, including the situation regarding the South Caucasus Railway, which is operated by Russian Railways under a concession agreement. We are surprised to hear such questions… If they have indeed arisen, one should explain to one’s partner how one sees the matter. Instead, public pronouncements are issued, asserting that the railway is entirely “theirs” and that we, purportedly, owe them two billion dollars. I understand that such statements provoke, in addition to assessments based on economic analysis, an emotional response among our citizens. I am no exception.
One might also recall the situation in Moldova, where the elections were conducted with such intense involvement on the part of the European Union. Even this was insufficient to secure a majority of votes from Moldovans residing in Moldova itself. Only 48 percent supported moving towards the European Union and the election of Maia Sandu as president. The result was determined by the polling stations established across Europe – more than two hundred in total – whereas in Russia, where the largest Moldovan diaspora resides, a mere two polling stations were opened. In effect, 100,000 votes were simply crossed out; people were denied the opportunity to vote.
Incidentally, the European Union presently has a mission there. A similar mission was engaged in “combating hybrid threats” during the parliamentary elections held in Armenia on June 7 this year. That is regrettable.
This is all the more deplorable given that – once again, both in the case of Moldova and in the case of Armenia – the European Union is directly interfering in electoral processes and seeking to exert influence. Admittedly, not as brazenly as was the case in Romania in 2024, when no amount of campaigning proved effective, and the frontrunner was removed from the race after the first round without any explanation.
There are, perhaps, analysts in Armenia and other countries that are courting the European Union. I have not the slightest doubt on that score. Intelligent, perceptive individuals – they must, at long last, understand what the European Union truly represents and what benefit they hope to derive.
Question: After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the concept of the “post-Soviet space” appeared. In 2026, in your opinion, has this concept not yet passed into history? Is it still relevant?
Sergey Lavrov: I believe that it entered the annals of history long ago, as did many other groupings that were formerly empires.
The Soviet Union was, in all probability, an empire, as was the Russian Empire. In some respects, our territorial boundaries were even more extensive. Yet “post” always denotes something that is past. History must be remembered. However, when it comes to contemporary political science, to use the notion that “there was a time, and we must somehow not forget about it”… That is properly the domain of historians and the task of educating young people in schools and universities, in order to preserve our traditions and spiritual values, which have been nurtured across the centuries from one generation to the next. As far as modern politics is concerned, the appropriate term is the one we used in the latest version of the Foreign Policy Concept dated March 31, 2023 – the “Near Abroad.”
The Near Abroad is a neutral designation: neither Soviet, nor imperial, nor democratic. And then there is the “far abroad.” Here live people who – each nation – have the right to choose how to organise their lives and their state, and to determine their own destiny. We have never imposed anything upon anyone.
If one examines the root causes of every crisis, it becomes evident that all the problems arising around us were imported from outside. This includes Britain and the Europeans. Constantly – Europe.
As early as 2004, we witnessed the first Maidan in Ukraine. At that time, Ukraine’s Constitutional Court was compelled to hand down an unconstitutional ruling and conduct a third round of elections, because Viktor Yanukovych, not Viktor Yushchenko, had prevailed in the second round. By decision of Ukraine’s Constitutional Court, a third round was held, even though there was no provision for it in the Constitution. At that time, we worked with both Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Timoshenko. We respected the will of the Ukrainian people – even that choice, which was arrived at through the fraudulent methods employed by the Europeans. We have nothing for which to reproach ourselves. Perhaps we are criticised for the fact that our “soft power” is too soft, and that it ought to be more assertive.
Question: Yes, I heard in Armenia in May this year that Russia does not know how to wield soft power and that it does not succeed in this regard.
Sergey Lavrov: Yes, perhaps. After all, soft power has now unequivocally degenerated into direct methods of interference in internal affairs. Of course, during both the pre-war period and the war itself, we had – and continue to have – experience in sabotage operations. Our intelligence officers have operated in various countries and have heroically defended our interests. But that, first and foremost, concerns the collection of information. As for orchestrating coups, we never learned how to do that.
Steve Sweeney and cameraman Ali Rida narrowly survived a missile strike last month while filming in southern Lebanon 4-10-26
American journalist Tucker Carlson has said an Israeli strike targeting RT correspondent Steve Sweeney in Lebanon was an “attempted assassination,” as he spoke with the reporter about the attack and his work in conflict zones.
Sweeney and cameraman Ali Rida Sbeity were injured last month when an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at their filming position near the Al-Qasmiya Bridge in southern Lebanon, close to a local army base. The crew, who were wearing clearly marked press gear, said the jet “deliberately attacked” them, with Rida’s camera capturing the moment the blast struck less than 10 meters behind Sweeney as he ducked for cover.
In the interview, released by Carlson on Friday, he told viewers that the strike was “an attempted assassination.” Sweeney said they “were incredibly lucky to come out of that situation alive.”
Sweeney said the munition, which he identified as a GBU-38 bomb fired from an F-16 fighter jet, passed through a hole in the bridge which was already destroyed, arguing that there was “no military objective” in striking it again. He described the attack as “an assassination attempt by Israel to silence the voices on the ground, to silence the truth.”
Carlson asked why a British citizen and former reporter for the Morning Star chose to work for RT. Sweeney quipped that MI5 “would never clear” him to work for the BBC, while arguing that the space for challenging official narratives in the Western media, particularly over the Ukraine conflict, has “completely disappeared.”
“I have complete freedom to report exactly what I want, and nobody tells me what to say,” Sweeney said regarding his work at RT. He noted that RT is banned in the US and EU, while Western broadcasters are still allowed to operate and question officials inside Russia.
UK counterterrorism police detained and interrogated Sweeney at Heathrow Airport last July over his work for RT and his reporting from Donbass and Lebanon, and he told Carlson that he is currently being investigated for potential terrorist activity “based on my journalism” alone.
Sweeney told Carlson that despite the near-fatal strike in Lebanon, he has “no intention of leaving” the country or stopping his work.
Transcript from Russia Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview to Tucker Carlson, Moscow, December 6, 2024
Question: Minister Lavrov, thank you for doing this. Do you believe the United States and Russia are at war with each other right now?
Sergey Lavrov: I wouldn’t say so. And in any case, this is not what we want. We would like to have normal relations with all our neighbors, of course, but generally with all countries especially with the great country like the United States. And President Vladimir Putin repeatedly expressed his respect for the American people, for the American history, for the American achievements in the world, and we don’t see any reason why Russia and the United States cannot cooperate for the sake of the universe.
Question: But the United States is funding a conflict that you’re involved in, of course, and now is allowing attacks on Russia itself. So that doesn’t constitute war?
Sergey Lavrov: Well, we officially are not at war. But what is going on in Ukraine is that some people call it hybrid war. I would call it hybrid war as well, but it is obvious that the Ukrainians would not be able to do what they’re doing with long-range modern weapons without direct participation of the American servicemen. And this is dangerous, no doubt about this.
We don’t want to aggravate the situation, but since ATACMS and other long-range weapons are being used against mainland Russia as it were, we are sending signals. We hope that the last one, a couple of weeks ago, the signal with the new weapon system called Oreshnik was taken seriously.
However, we also know that some officials in the Pentagon and in other places, including NATO, started saying in the last few days something like that NATO is a defensive alliance, but sometimes you can strike first because the attack is the best defense. Some others in STRATCOM, Thomas Buchanan is his name, representative of STRATCOM, said something which allows for an eventuality of exchange of limited nuclear strikes.
And this kind of threats are really worrying. Because if they are following the logic which some Westerners have been pronouncing lately, that don’t believe that Russia has red lines, they announced their red lines, these red lines are being moved again and again. This is a very serious mistake. That’s what I would like to say in response to this question.
It is not us who started the war. Putin repeatedly said that we started the special military operation in order to end the war which Kiev regime was conducting against its own people in the parts of Donbass. And just in his latest statement, the President Putin clearly indicated that we are ready for any eventuality. But we strongly prefer peaceful solution through negotiations on the basis of respecting legitimate security interest of Russia, and on the basis of respecting the people who live in Ukraine, who still live in Ukraine being Russians, and their basic human rights, language rights, religious rights, have been exterminated by a series of legislation passed by the Ukrainian parliament. They started long before the special military operation. Since 2017, legislation was passed prohibiting Russian education in Russian, prohibiting Russian media operating in Ukraine, then prohibiting Ukrainian media working in Russian language, and the latest, of course there were also steps to cancel any cultural events in Russian, Russian books were thrown out of libraries and exterminated. The latest was the law prohibiting canonic Orthodox Church, Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
You know it’s very interesting when people in the West say we want this conflict to be resolved on the basis of the UN Charter and respect for territorial integrity of Ukraine, and Russia must withdraw. The Secretary General of the United Nations says similar things. Recently his representative repeated that the conflict must be resolved on the basis of international law, UN Charter, General Assembly resolutions, while respecting territorial integrity of Ukraine. It’s a misnomer, because if you want to respect the United Nations Charter, you have to respect it in its entirety. The United Nations Charter, among other things, says that all countries must respect equality of states and right of people for self-determination. And they also mentioned the United Nations General Assembly resolutions, and this is clear that what they mean is the series of resolutions which they passed after the beginning of this special military operation and which demand condemnation of Russia, Russia to get out of Ukraine territory in 1991 borders. But there are other United Nations General Assembly resolutions which were not voted, but which were consensual, and among them is a Declaration on principles of relations between states on the basis of the Charter. And it clearly says, by consensus, everybody must respect territorial integrity of states whose governments respect the right of people for self-determination, and because of that represent the entire population living on a given territory.
To argue that the people who came to power through military coup d’état in February 2014 represented Crimeans or the citizens of eastern and southern Ukraine is absolutely useless. It is obvious that Crimeans rejected the coup. They said, leave us alone, we don’t want to have anything with you. So we did: Donbass, Crimeans held referendum, and they rejoined Russia. Donbass was declared by the putschists who came to power terrorist group. They were shelled, attacked by artillery. The war started, which was stopped in February 2015.
The Minsk agreements were signed. We were very sincerely interested in closing this drama by seeing Minsk agreements implemented fully. It was sabotaged by the government, which was established after the coup d’état in Ukraine. There was a demand that they enter into a direct dialogue with the people who did not accept the coup. There was a demand that they promote economic relations with that part of Ukraine. And so on and so forth. None of this was done.
The people in Kiev were saying we would never talk to them directly. And this is in spite of the fact that the demand to talk to them directly was endorsed by the Security Council. And putschists said they are terrorists, we would be fighting them, and they would be dying in cellars because we are stronger.
Had the coup in February 2014 had it not happened and the deal which was reached the day before between the then president and the opposition implemented, Ukraine would have stayed one piece by now with Crimea in it. It’s absolutely clear. They did not deliver on the deal. Instead they staged the coup. The deal, by the way, provided for creation of a government of national unity in February 2014, and holding early elections, which the then president would have lost. Everybody knew that. But they were impatient and took the government buildings next morning. They went to this Maidan Square and announced that they created the government of the winners. Compare the government of national unity to prepare for elections and the government of the winners.
How can the people whom they, in their view, defeated, how can they pretend that they respect the authorities in Kiev? You know, the right for self-determination is the international legal basis for decolonization process, which took place in Africa on the basis of this charter principle, the right for self-determination. The people in the colonies, they never treated the colonial powers, colonial masters, as somebody who represent them, as somebody whom they want to see in the structures which govern those lands. By the same token, the people in east and south of Ukraine, people in Donbass and Novorossiya, they don’t consider the Zelensky regime as something which represents their interests. How can they do that when their culture, their language, their traditions, their religion, all this was prohibited?
And the last point is that if we speak about the UN Charter, resolutions, international law, the very first article of the UN Charter, which the West never, never recalls in the Ukrainian context, says, “Respect human rights of everybody, irrespective of race, gender, language, or religion.”
Take any conflict. The United States, UK, Brussels, they would interfere, saying, “Oh, human rights have been grossly violated. We must restore the human rights in such and such territory.” On Ukraine, never, ever they mumbled the words “human rights,” seeing these human rights for the Russian and Russian-speaking population being totally exterminated by law. So when people say, “Let’s resolve the conflict on the basis of the Charter,” – yes. But don’t forget that the Charter is not only about territorial integrity. And territorial integrity must be respected only if the governments are legitimate and if they respect the rights of their own people.
Question: I want to go back to what you said a moment ago about the introduction or the unveiling of the hypersonic weapons system that you said was a signal to the West. What signal exactly? I think many Americans are not even aware that this happened. What message were you sending by showing it to the world?
Sergey Lavrov: Well, the message is that you, I mean the United States, and the allies of the United States who also provide this long-range weapons to the Kiev regime, they must understand that we would be ready to use any means not to allow them to succeed in what they call strategic defeat of Russia.
They fight for keeping the hegemony over the world on any country, any region, any continent. We fight for our legitimate security interests. They say, for example, 1991 borders. Lindsey Graham, who visited some time ago Vladimir Zelensky for another talk, he bluntly, in his presence said that Ukraine is very rich with rare earth metals and they cannot leave this richness to the Russians. We must take it. We fight.
So they fight for the regime which is ready to sell or to give to the West all the natural and human resources. We fight for the people who have been living on these lands, whose ancestors were actually developing those lands, building cities, building factories for centuries and centuries. We care about people, not about natural resources which somebody in the United States would like to keep and to have Ukrainians just as servants sitting on these natural resources.
So the message which we wanted to send by testing in real action this hypersonic system is that we will be ready to do anything to defend our legitimate interests.
We hate even to think about war with the United States, which will take nuclear character. Our military doctrine says that the most important thing is to avoid a nuclear war. And it was us, by the way, who initiated in January 2022 the message, the joint statement by the leaders of the five permanent members of the Security Council saying that we will do anything to avoid confrontation between us, acknowledging and respecting each other’s security interests and concerns. This was our initiative.
And the security interests of Russia were totally ignored when they rejected about the same time the proposal to conclude a treaty on security guarantees for Russia, for Ukraine in the context of coexistence and in the context where Ukraine would not be ever member of NATO or any other military bloc. These security interests of Russia were presented to the West, to NATO and to the United States in December 2021. We discussed them several times, including during my meeting with Antony Blinken in Geneva in January 2022. And this was rejected.
So we would certainly like to avoid any misunderstanding. And since the people, some people in Washington and some people in London, in Brussels, seemed to be not very capable to understand, we will send additional messages if they don’t draw necessary conclusions.
Question: The fact that we’re having a conversation about a potential nuclear exchange and it’s real thought I’d ever see.
And it raises the question, how much back-channel dialogue is there between Russia and the United States? Has there been for the last two and a half years? Is there any conversation ongoing?
Sergey Lavrov: There are several channels, but mostly on exchange of people who serve terms in Russia and in the United States. There were several swaps.
There are also channels which are not advertised or publicized, but basically the Americans send through these channels the same message which they send publicly. You have to stop, you have to accept the way which will be based on the Ukrainian needs and position. They support this absolutely pointless ‘peace formula’ by Vladimir Zelensky, which was additioned recently by ‘victory plan’. They held several series of meetings, Copenhagen format, Burgenstock. And they brag that first half of next year they will convene another conference and they will graciously invite Russia that time. And then Russia would be presented an ultimatum.
All this is seriously repeated through various confidential channels. Now we hear something different, including Vladimir Zelensky’s statements that we can stop now at the line of engagement, line of contact. The Ukrainian government will be admitted to NATO, but NATO guarantees at this stage would cover only the territory controlled by the government, and the rest would be subject to negotiations. But the end result of these negotiations must be total withdrawal of Russia from Russian soil, basically. Leaving Russian people to the Nazi regime, which exterminated all the rights of the Russian and Russian-speaking citizens of their own country.
Question: If I could just go back to the question of nuclear exchange. So there is no mechanism by which the leaders of Russia and the United States can speak to each other to avoid the kind of misunderstanding that could kill hundreds of millions of people.
Sergey Lavrov: No. We have this channel which is automatically engaged when ballistic missile launch is taking place.
As regards this Oreshnik hypersonic mid-range ballistic missile. 30 minutes in advance the system sent the message to the United States. They knew that this was the case and that they don’t mistake it for anything bigger and real dangerous.
Question: I think the system sounds very dangerous.
Sergey Lavrov: Well, it was a test launch, you know.
Question: Yes. Oh, you’re speaking of the test, okay. But I just wonder how worried you are that, considering there doesn’t seem to be a lot of conversation between the two countries. Both sides are speaking about exterminating the other’s populations. That this could somehow get out of control in a very short period and no one could stop it. It seems incredibly reckless.
Sergey Lavrov: No, we are not talking about exterminating anybody’s population. We did not start this war. We have been, for years and years and years, sending warnings that pushing NATO closer and closer to our borders is going to create a problem.
In 2007, Putin started to explain to the people who seemed to be overtaken by the ‘end of history’ and being dominant, no challenge, and so on and so forth.
And of course, when the coup took place, the Americans did not hide that they were behind it. There is a conversation between Victoria Nuland and the then American ambassador in Kiev when they discuss personalities to be included in the new government after the coup. The figure of $5 billion spent on Ukraine after independence was mentioned as the guarantee that everything would be like the Americans want.
So we don’t have any intention to exterminate Ukrainian people. They are brothers and sisters to the Russian people.
Question: How many have died so far, do you think, on both sides?
Sergey Lavrov: It is not disclosed by Ukrainians. Vladimir Zelensky was saying that it is much less than 80,000 persons on Ukrainian side.
But there is one very reliable figure. In Palestine during one year after the Israelis started their operation in response to this terrorist attack, which we condemned. And this operation, of course, acquired the proportion of collective punishment, which is against international humanitarian law as well. So during one year after the operation started in Palestine, the number of Palestinian civilians killed is estimated at 45,000. This is almost twice as many as the number of civilians on both sides of Ukrainian conflict who died during ten years after the coup. One year and ten years. So it is a tragedy in Ukraine. It’s a disaster in Palestine, but we never, ever had as our goal killing people.
And the Ukrainian regime did. The head of the office of Vladimir Zelensky once said that we will make sure that cities like Kharkov, Nikolaev will forget what Russian means at all. Another guy in his office stated that Ukrainians must exterminate Russians through law or, if necessary, physically. Ukrainian former ambassador to Kazakhstan Pyotr Vrublevsky became famous when giving an interview and looking into the camera (being recorded and broadcast) he said: ”Our main task is to kill as many Russians as we can so that our children have less things to do”. And statements like this are all over the vocabulary of the regime.
Question: How many Russians in Russia have been killed since February of 2022?
Sergey Lavrov: It’s not for me to disclose this information. In the time of military operations special rules exist. Our ministry of defense follows these rules.
But there is a very interesting fact that when Vladimir Zelensky was playing not in international arena, but at his comedy club or whatever it is called, he was (there are videos from that period) bluntly defending the Russian language. He was saying: “What is wrong with Russian language? I speak Russian. Russians are our neighbors. Russian is one of our languages”. And get lost, he said, to those who wanted to attack the Russian language and Russian culture. When Vladimir Zelensky became president, he changed very fast.
Before the military operation, in September 2021, he was interviewed, and at that time he was conducting war against Donbass in violation of the Minsk agreements. And the interviewer asked him what he thought about the people on the other side of the line of contact. He answered very thoughtfully there are people and there are species. And if you, living in Ukraine, feel associated with the Russian culture, my advice to you, for the sake of your kids, for the sake of your grandkids, get out to Russia.
And if this guy wants to bring Russians and people of Russian culture back under his territorial integrity, I mean, it shows that he’s not adequate.
Question: So, what are the terms under which Russia would cease hostilities? What are you asking for?
Sergey Lavrov: Ten years ago, in February 2014, we were asking only for the deal between the president and the opposition to have government of national unity, to hold early elections, to be implemented. The deal was signed. And we were asking for the implementation of this deal. They were absolutely impatient and aggressive. And they were, of course, pushed, I have no slightest doubt, by the Americans, because if Victoria Nuland and the U.S. ambassador agreed the composition of the government, why wait for five months to hold early elections?
The next time we were in favor of something was when the Minsk Agreements were signed. I was there. The negotiations lasted for 17 hours (well, Crimea was lost by that time because of referendum). And nobody, including my colleague John Kerry, meeting with us, nobody in the West was worry about the issue of Crimea. Everybody was concentrated on Donbass. And the Minsk Agreements provided for territorial integrity of Ukraine, minus Crimea (this was not even raised) and a special status for a very tiny part of Donbass, not for the entire Donbass, not for Novorossiya at all. Part of Donbass, under these Minsk Agreements, endorsed by the Security Council, should have the right to speak Russian language, to teach Russian language, to study in Russian, to have local law enforcement (like in the states of U.S.), to be consulted when judges and prosecutors are appointed by the central authority, and to have some facilitated economic connections with neighboring regions of Russia. That’s it. Something which President Macron promised to give to Corsica and still is considering how to do this.
And when these agreements were sabotaged all along by Piotr Poroshenko and then by Vladimir Zelensky. Both of them, by the way, came to presidency, running on the promise of peace. And both of them lied. So when these Minsk Agreements were sabotaged to the extent that we saw the attempts to take this tiny part of Donbass by force, and we, as President Putin explained, at that time, we suggested these security arrangements to NATO and the United States, which was rejected. And when the Plan B was launched by Ukraine and its sponsors, trying to take this part of Donbass by force, it was then that we launched the special military operation.
Had they implemented the Minsk Agreements Ukraine would be one piece, minus Crimea. But even then, when Ukrainians, after we started the operation, suggested to negotiate, we agreed, there were several rounds in Belarus, and one later they moved to Istanbul. And in Istanbul, Ukrainian delegation put a paper on the table saying: “Those are the principles on which we are ready to agree.” And we accepted those principles.
Question: The Minsk Principles?
Sergey Lavrov: No. The Istanbul Principles. It was April 2022.
Question: Right.
Sergey Lavrov: Which was: no NATO, but security guarantees to Ukraine, collectively provided with the participation of Russia. And these security guarantees would not cover Crimea or the east of Ukraine. It was their proposal. And it was initialed. And the head of the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul, who is now the chair of the Vladimir Zelensky faction in the parliament, he recently (a few months ago) in an interview, confirmed that this was the case. And on the basis of these principles, we were ready to draft a treaty.
But then this gentleman who headed the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul said that Boris Johnson visited and told them to continue to fight. Then there was…
Question: But Boris Johnson, on behalf of…
Sergey Lavrov: He said no. But the guy who initialed the paper, he said it was Boris Johnson. Other people say it was President Putin who ruined the deal because of the massacre in Bucha. But they never mentioned any more massacre in Bucha. I do. And we do.
In a sense, they are on the defensive. Several times in the United Nations Security Council, sitting at the table with Antonio Guterres, I (last year and this year) at the General Assembly, I raised the issue of Bucha and said, guys, it is strange that you are silent about Bucha because you were very vocal when BBC team found itself on the street where the bodies were located. I inquired, can we get the names of the persons whose bodies were broadcast by BBC? Total silence. I addressed Antonio Guterres personally in the presence of the Security Council members. He did not respond. Then at my press conference in New York after the end of the General Assembly last September, I asked all the correspondents: guys, you are journalists. Maybe you’re not an investigative journalists but journalists normally are interested to get the truth. And Bucha thing, which was played all over the media outlets condemning Russia, is not of any interest to anyone – politicians, UN officials. And now even journalists. I asked when I talked to them in September, please, as professional people, try to get the names of those whose bodies were shown in Bucha. No answer.
Just like we don’t have any answer to the question, where is the results of medical analysis of Alexey Navalny, who died recently, but who was treated in Germany in the fall of 2020. When he fell bad on a plane over Russia, the plane landed. He was treated by the Russian doctors in Siberia. Then the Germans wanted to take him. We immediately allowed the plane to come. They took him. In less than 24 hours, he was in Germany. And then the Germans continued to say that we poisoned him. And now the analysis confirmed that he was poisoned. We asked for the test results to be given to us. They said, no, we give it to the organization on chemical weapons. We went to this organization, we are members, and we said, can you show to us, because this is our citizen, we are accused of having poisoned him. They said that the Germans told us not to give it to you. They found nothing in the civilian hospital, and the announcement that he was poisoned was made after he was treated in the military Bundeswehr hospital. So it seems that this secret is not going…
Question: So how did Navalny die?
Sergey Lavrov: Well, he died serving the term in Russia. As far as it was reported, every now and then he felt not well. Which was another reason why we continued to ask the Germans: can you show us the results which you found? Because we did not find what they found. And what they did to him, I don’t know.
Question: What the Germans did to him?
Sergey Lavrov: Yeah, because they don’t explain to anybody, including us. Or maybe they explain to the Americans. Maybe this is credible.
But they never told us how they treated him, what they found, and what methods they were using.
Question: How do you think he died?
Sergey Lavrov: I am not a doctor. But for anybody to guess, even for the doctors to try to guess, they need to have information. And if the person was taken to Germany to be treated after he had been poisoned, the results of the tests cannot be secret.
We still cannot get anything credible on the fate of Skripals – Sergei Skripal and his daughter. The information is not provided to us. He is our citizen, she is our citizen. We have all the rights and the conventions which the UK is party to, to get information.
Question: Why do you think that Boris Johnson, former Prime Minister of the UK, would have stopped the peace process in Istanbul? On whose behalf was he doing that?
Sergey Lavrov: Well, I met with him a couple of times, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was motivated by some immediate desire or by some long-term strategy. He is not very predictable.
Question: But do you think he was acting on behalf of the U.S. government, on behalf of the Biden administration, or he was doing this independently.
Sergey Lavrov: I don’t know. And I wouldn’t guess. The fact that the Americans and the Brits are leading in this “situation” is obvious.
Now it is becoming also clear that there is a fatigue in some capitals, and there are talks every now and then that the Americans would like to leave it with the Europeans and to concentrate on something more important. I wouldn’t guess.
We would be judging by specific steps. It’s obvious, though, that the Biden administration would like to leave a legacy to the Trump administration as bad as they can.
And similar to what Barack Obama did to Donald Trump during his first term. Then late December 2016, President Obama expelled Russian diplomats. Just very late December. 120 persons with family members. Did it on purpose. Demanded them leave on the day when there was no direct flight from Washington to Moscow. So they had to move to New York by buses with all their luggage, with children, and so on and so forth.
And at the same time, President Obama announced the arrest of pieces of diplomatic property of Russia. And we still never were able to come and see what is the state of this Russian property.
Question: What was the property?
Sergey Lavrov: Diplomatic. They never allowed us to come and see it though under all conventions. They just say that these pieces we don’t consider as being covered by diplomatic immunity, which is a unilateral decision, never substantiated by any international court.
Question: So you believe the Biden administration is doing something similar again to the incoming Trump administration.
Sergey Lavrov: Because that episode with the expulsion and the seizure of property certainly did not create the promising ground for beginning of our relations with the Trump administration. So I think they’re doing the same.
Question: But this time President Trump was elected on the explicit promise to bring an end to the war in Ukraine. So I mean, he said that in appearance after appearance. So given that, there is hope for a resolution, it sounds like. What are the terms to which you’d agree?
Sergey Lavrov: Well, the terms, I basically alluded to them. When President Putin spoke in this Ministry of Foreign Affaires on the 14th of June he once again reiterated that we were ready to negotiate on the basis of the principles which were agreed in Istanbul and rejected by Boris Johnson, according to the statement of the head of the Ukrainian delegation.
The key principle is non-block status of Ukraine. And we would be ready to be part of the group of countries who would provide collective security guarantees to Ukraine.
Question: But no NATO?
Sergey Lavrov: No NATO. Absolutely. No military bases, no military exercises on the Ukrainian soil with participation of foreign troops. And this is something which he reiterated. But of course, he said, it was April 2022, now some time has passed, and the realities on the ground would have to be taken into account and accepted.
The realities on the ground are not only the line of contact, but also the changes in the Russian Constitution after referendum was held in Donetsk, Lugansk republics and Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. And they are now part of the Russian Federation, according to the Constitution. And this is a reality.
And of course, we cannot tolerate a deal which would keep the legislation which are prohibiting Russian language, Russian media, Russian culture, Ukrainian Orthodox Church, because it is a violation of the obligations of Ukraine under the UN Charter, and something must be done about it. And the fact that the West (since this russophobic legislative offensive started in 2017) was totally silent and it is silent until now, of course we would have to pay attention to this in a very special way.
Question: Would sanctions against Russia be a condition?
Sergey Lavrov: You know, I would say probably many people in Russia would like to make it a condition. But the more we live under sanctions, the more we understand that it is better to rely on yourself, and to develop mechanisms, platforms for cooperation with ‘normal’ countries who are not unfriendly to you, and don’t mix economic interests and policies and especially politics. And we learned a lot after the sanctions started.
The sanctions started under President Obama. They continued in a very big way under the first term of Donald Trump. And these sanctions under the Biden administration are absolutely unprecedented.
But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, you know. They would never kill us, so they are making us stronger.
Question: And driving Russia east. And so the vision that I think same policymakers in Washington had 20 years ago is why not to bring Russia into a Western bloc, sort of as a balance against the rising east. But it doesn’t seem like that. Do you think that’s still possible?
Sergey Lavrov: I don’t think so. When recently President Putin was speaking at Valdai Club to politologists and experts, he said we would never be back at the situation of early 2022. That’s when he realized (for himself, apparently, not only he, but he spoke publicly about this) that all attempts to be on equal terms with the West have failed.
It started after the demise of the Soviet Union. There was euphoria, we are now part of the ‘liberal world’, democratic world, ‘end of history’. But very soon it became clear to most of the Russians that in the 1990s we were treated as – at best as junior partner, maybe not even as a partner, – but as a place where the West can organize things like it wants, striking deals with oligarchs, buying resources and assets. And then probably the Americans decided that Russia is in their pocket. Boris Yeltsin, Bill Clinton, buddies, laughing, joking.
But even at the end of Boris Yeltsin’s term, he started to contemplate that this was not something he wanted for Russia. And I think this was very obvious when he appointed Vladimir Putin prime minister, and then left earlier, and blessed Vladimir Putin as his successor for the elections which were coming and which Putin won.
But when Vladimir Putin became president, he was very much open to cooperation with the West. And he mentions about this quite regularly when he speaks with interviewers or at some international events.
I was present when he met with George Bush Jr., with Barack Obama. Well, after the meeting of NATO in Bucharest, which was followed by NATO-Russia summit meeting in 2008, when they announced that Georgia and Ukraine will be in NATO. And then they tried to sell it to us. We asked: why? There was lunch and President Putin asked what was the reason for this? Good question. And they said this is something which is not obligatory. How come?
Well to start the process of joining NATO, you need a formal invitation. And this is a slogan – Ukraine and Georgia will be in NATO. But this slogan became obsession for some people in Tbilisi first, when Mikhail Saakashvili lost his senses and started the war against his own people under the protection of OSCE mission with the Russian peacekeepers on the ground. And the fact that he launched this was confirmed by the European Union investigation, which they launched and which concluded that he gave the order to start.
And for Ukrainians, it took a bit longer. They were cultivating this pro-Western mood. Well, pro-Western is not bad, basically. Pro-Eastern is also not bad. What is bad is that you tell people, either/or, either you go with me or you’re my enemy.
What happened before the coup in Ukraine? In 2013, the president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych negotiated with the European Union some association agreement which would nullify tariffs on most of the Ukrainian goods to the European Union and the other way around. And at some point, when he was meeting with Russian counterparts, we told him, Ukraine was part of the free trade area of the Commonwealth of Independent States. No tariffs for everybody. And we, Russia, negotiated agreement with World Trade Organization for some 17 years, mostly because we bargained with European Union. And we achieved some protection for many of our sectors, agriculture and some others. We explained to the Ukrainians that if you go zero in your trade with European Union, we would have to protect our customs border with Ukraine. Otherwise the zero tariff European goods would flood and would be hurting our industries, which we tried to protect and agreed for some protection. And we suggested to the European Union: guys, Ukraine is our common neighbor. You want to have better trade with Ukraine. We want the same. Ukraine want to have markets both in Europe and in Russia. Why don’t we sit three of us and discuss it like grownups? The head of the European Commission was the Portuguese José Manuel Barroso. He responded it’s none of your business what we do with Ukraine. We, for example, the European Union, we don’t ask you to discuss with us your trade with Canada. Absolutely arrogant answer.
And then the president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych convened his experts. And they said, yes, it would be not very good if we have opened the border with European Union, but the customs border with Russia would be closed. And they would be checking, you know, what is coming. So that the Russian market is not affected.
So he announced in November 2013 that he cannot sign the deal immediately, and he asked the European Union to postpone it for until next year. That was the trigger for Maidan, which was immediately thrown up and ended by the coup.
So my point is that this either/or. Actually, the first coup took place in 2004, when after second round of elections, the same Viktor Yanukovych won presidency. The West raised hell and put pressure on the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to rule that there must be a third round. The Constitution of Ukraine says there may be only two rounds. But the Constitutional Court, under the pressure of the West, violated the Constitution for the first time then. And pro-Western candidate was chosen. At that time, when all this was taking place and boiling, the European leaders were publicly saying Ukrainian people must decide: are they with us or with Russia?
Question: But it is the way that big countries behave. I mean, there are certain orbits, and now it’s BRICS versus NATO, U.S. versus China. And it sounds like you’re saying the Russian-Chinese alliance is permanent.
Sergey Lavrov: Well, we are neighbors. And of course geography is very important.
Question: But you’re also neighbors with Western Europe. And you’re part of it, in effect.
Sergey Lavrov: Through Ukraine the Western Europe wants to come to our borders.
And there were plans that were discussed almost openly to put British naval bases on the Sea of Azov. Crimea was eyed. Dreaming about creating NATO base in Crimea and so on and so forth.
Look, we have been very friendly with Finland, for example. Overnight, the Finns came back to the early years of preparation for World War II when they were best allies of Hitler. And all this neutrality, all this friendship, going to sauna together, playing hockey together, all this disappeared overnight. So maybe this was deep in their hearts, and the neutrality was burdening them, and niceties were burdening for them. I don’t know.
Question: They’re mad about the ‘winter war’. That’s totally possible.
Can you negotiate with Zelensky? You’ve pointed out that he has exceeded his term. He’s not democratically elected president of Ukraine anymore. So do you consider him a suitable partner for negotiations?
Sergey Lavrov: President Putin addressed many times this issue as well. In September 2022, during the first year of the special military operation, Vladimir Zelensky, in his conviction that he would be dictating the terms of the situation also to the West, he signed a decree prohibiting any negotiations with Putin’s government.
During public events after that episode, President Vladimir Putin is asked why Russia is not ready for negotiations. He said, don’t turn it upside down. We are ready for negotiations, provided it will be based on the balance of interest, -tomorrow. But Vladimir Zelensky signed this decree prohibiting negotiations. For starters, why don’t you tell him to cancel it publicly? This will be a signal that he wants negotiations. Instead, Vladimir Zelensky invented his ‘peace formula’. Lately, it was complemented by a ‘victory plan’. They keep saying, we know what they say when they meet with European Union ambassadors and in other formats, they say no deal unless the deal is on our terms.
I mentioned to you that they are planning now the second summit on the basis of this peace formula, and they don’t shy away from saying, we will invite Russia to put in front of it the deal which we agreed already with the West.
When our Western colleagues sometimes say nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine in effect, this implies that anything about Russia without Russia. Because they discuss what kind of conditions we must accept.
By the way, recently they already violated, tacitly, the concept nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. There are passes, there are messages. They know our position. We are not playing double game. What President Putin announced is the goal of our operation. It’s fair. It’s fully in line with the United Nations Charter. First of all, the rights: language rights, minority rights, national minority rights, religious rights, and it’s fully in line with OSCE principles.
There is an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe which is still alive. And well, several summits of this organization clearly stated that security must be indivisible, that nobody should expand his security at the expense of security of others, and that, most important, no organization in Euro-Atlantic space shall claim dominance. This was last time it was confirmed by OSCE in 2010.
NATO was doing exactly the opposite. So we have legitimacy in our position. No NATO on our doorsteps because OSCE agreed that this should not be the case if it hurts us. And please restore the rights of Russians.
Question: Who do you think has been making foreign policy decisions in the United States? This is a question in the United States. Who is making these decisions?
Sergey Lavrov: I wouldn’t guess. I haven’t seen Antony Blinken for years. When it was the last time? Two years ago, I think, at the G20 summit. Was it in Rome or somewhere? In the margins. I was representing President Putin there. His assistant came up to me during a meeting and said that Antony wants to talk just for 10 minutes. I left the room. We shook hands, and he said something about the need to de-escalate and so on and so forth. I hope he’s not going to be angry with me since I am disclosing this. But we were meeting in front of many people present in the room, and I said, “We don’t want to escalate. You want to inflict strategic defeat upon Russia.” He said, “No. It is not strategic defeat globally. It is only in Ukraine.”
Question: You’ve not spoken to him since?
Sergey Lavrov: No.
Question: Have you spoken to any officials in the Biden administration since then?
Sergey Lavrov: I don’t want to ruin their career.
Question: But have you had meaningful conversations?
Sergey Lavrov: No. Not at all.
When I met in international events one or another person whom I know, an American, some of them say hello, some of them exchange a few words, but I never impose myself.
It’s becoming contagious when somebody sees an American talking to me or a European talking to me. Europeans are running away when they see me. During the last G20 meeting, it was ridiculous. Grown-up people, mature people. They behave like kids. So childish. Unbelievable.
Question: So you said that when in 2016, in December, the final moments of the Biden administration, Biden made the relationship between the United States and Russia more difficult.
Sergey Lavrov: Obama. Biden was vice-president.
Question: Exactly. I’m so sorry.
The Obama administration left a bunch of bombs, basically, for the incoming Trump administration.
In the last month since the election, you have all sorts of things going on politically in bordering states in this region. In Georgia, in Belarus, in Romania, and then, of course, most dramatically in Syria, you have turmoil.
Does this seem like part of an effort by the United States to make the resolution more difficult?
Sergey Lavrov: There is nothing new, frankly. Because the U.S., historically, in foreign policy, was motivated by making some trouble and then to see if they can fish in the muddy water.
Iraqi aggression, Libyan adventure – ruining the state, basically. Fleeing from Afghanistan. Now trying to get back through the back door, using the United Nations to organize some ‘event’ where the U.S. can be present, in spite of the fact that they left Afghanistan in very bad shape and arrested money and don’t want to give it back.
I think this is, if you analyze the American foreign policy steps, adventures, most of them are the right word – the pattern. They create some trouble, and then they see how to use it.
When the OSCE monitors elections, when it used to monitor elections in Russia, they would always be very negative, and in other countries as well, Belarus, Kazakhstan. This time, in Georgia, the monitoring mission of OSCE presented a positive report. And it is being ignored.
So when you need endorsement of the procedures, you do it when you like the results of the election. If you don’t like the results of elections, you ignore it.
It’s like when the United States and other Western countries recognized unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo, they said this is the self-determination being implemented. There was no referendum in Kosovo – unilateral declaration of independence. By the way, after that the Serbs approached International Court of Justice, which ruled that (well, normally they are not very specific in their judgment, but they ruled) that when part of a territory declares independence, it is not necessarily to be agreed with the central authorities.
And when a few years later, Crimeans were holding referendum with invitation of many international observers, not from international organizations, but from parliamentarians in Europe, in Asia, in post-Soviet space, they said, no, we cannot accept this because this is violation of territorial integrity.
You know, you pick and choose. The UN Charter is not a menu. You have to respect it in all its entirety.
Question: So who’s paying the rebels who’ve taken parts of Aleppo? Is the Assad government in danger of falling? What is happening exactly, in your view, in Syria?
Sergey Lavrov: Well, we had a deal when this crisis started. We organized the Astana process (Russia, Turkey and Iran). We meet regularly. Another meeting is being planned before the end of the year or early next year, to discuss the situation on the ground.
The rules of the game are to help Syrians to come to terms with each other and to prevent separatist threats from getting strong. That’s what the Americans are doing in the east of Syria when they groom some Kurdish separatists using the profits from oil and grain sold, the resources which they occupy.
This Astana format is a useful combination of players, if you wish. We are very much concerned. And when this happened, with Aleppo and surroundings, I had a conversation with the Turkish minister of foreign affairs and with Iranian colleague. We agreed to try to meet this week. Hopefully in Doha at the margins of this international conference. We would like to discuss the need to come back to strict implementation of the deals on Idlib area, because Idlib de-escalation zone was the place from where the terrorists moved to take Aleppo. The arrangements reached in 2019 and 2020 provided for our Turkish friends to control the situation in the Idlib de-escalation zone and to separate the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (former Nusra) from the opposition, which is non-terrorist and which cooperates with Turkey.
And another deal was the opening of M5 route from Damascus to Aleppo, which is also now taken completely by the terrorists. So we, as ministers of foreign affairs, would discuss the situation, hopefully, this coming Friday. And the military of all three countries and the security people are in contact with each other.
Question: But the Islamist groups, the terrorists you just described, who is backing them?
Sergey Lavrov: Well, we have some information. We would like to discuss with all our partners in this process the way to cut the channels of financing and arming them.
The information which is being floated and it’s in the public domain mentions among others the Americans, the Brits. Some people say that Israel is interested in making this situation aggravate. So that Gaza is not under very close scrutiny. It’s a complicated game. Many actors are involved. I hope that the context which we are planning for this week will help stabilize the situation.
Question: What do you think of Donald Trump?
Sergey Lavrov: I met him several times when he was having meetings with President Putin and when he received me twice in the Oval Office when I was visiting for bilateral talks.
Well, I think he’s a very strong person. A person who wants results. Who doesn’t like procrastination on anything. This is my impression. He’s very friendly in discussions. But this does not mean that he’s pro-Russian as some people try to present him. The amount of sanctions we received under the Trump administration was very big.
We respect any choice which is made by the people when they vote. We respect the choice of American people. As President Putin said, we are and we have been open all along to the contacts with the current administration. We hope that when Donald Trump is inaugurated, we will understand. The ball, as President Putin said, is on their side. We never severed our contacts, our ties in the economy, trade, security, anything.
Question: My final question is: how sincerely worried are you about an escalation in conflict between Russia and the United States, knowing what you do?
Sergey Lavrov: Well, we started with this question, more or less.
Question: It seems the central question.
Sergey Lavrov: Yes. The Europeans whisper to each other that it is not for Vladimir Zelensky to dictate the terms of the deal – it’s for the U.S. and Russia.
I don’t think we should be presenting our relations as two guys decide for everybody. Not at all. It is not our style.
We prefer the manners which dominate in BRICS, in Shanghai Cooperation Organization, where the UN Charter principle of sovereign equality of states is really embodied.
The U.S. is not used to respect sovereign equality of states. When the U.S. says we cannot allow Russia to win on Ukraine because this would undermine our rules-based world order. And rules-based world order is American domination.
Now, by the way, NATO, at least under Biden administration, is eyeing the entire Eurasian continent, Indo-Pacific strategies, South China Sea, East China Sea, is already on NATO agenda. NATO is moving infrastructure there. AUKUS, building ‘quartet’ Indo-Pacific Four as they call it (Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea). U.S., South Korea, and Japan are building military alliance with some nuclear components. And Jens Stoltenberg, the former Secretary General of NATO, last year after the summit he said that the Euro-Atlantic security is indivisible from Indo-Pacific security. When he was asked does it mean that you go beyond territorial defense, he answered – no, it doesn’t go beyond territorial defense, but to defend our territory, we need to be present there. This element of preemption is more and more present.
We don’t want war with anybody. And as I said, five nuclear states declared at the top level in January 2022 that we don’t want confrontation with each other and that we shall respect each other’s security interests and concerns. And it also stated nuclear war can never be won, and therefore nuclear war is not possible.
And the same was reiterated bilaterally between Russia and the United States, Putin-Biden, when they met in 2021 in Geneva in June. Basically, they reproduced the statement by Reagan-Gorbachev of 1987 ‘no nuclear war’. And this is absolutely in our vital interest, and we hope that this is also in vital interest of the United States.
I say so because some time ago John Kirby, who is the White House communications coordinator, was answering questions about escalation and about possibility of nuclear weapons being employed. And he said, “Oh, no, we don’t want escalation because then if there is some nuclear element, then our European allies would suffer.” So even mentally, he excludes that the United States can suffer. And this is something which makes the situation a bit risky. It might – if this mentality prevails, then some reckless steps would be taken, and this is bad.
Question: What you’re saying is American policy makers imagine there could be a nuclear exchange that doesn’t directly affect the United States, and you’re saying that’s not true.
Sergey Lavrov: That’s what I said, yes. But professionals in deterrence, nuclear deterrence policy, they know very well that it’s a very dangerous game. And to speak about limited exchange of nuclear strikes is an invitation to disaster, which we don’t want to have.
Briefing of the Chief of Nuclear, Biological, Chemical and Radiological Defence troops of the Russian Federation Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov (Moscow, September 3, 2022):
On the initiative of the Russian Federation, consultative meeting of the member States of the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological and Toxin Weapons (BTWC) will be hosted in the upcoming week regarding non-compliance with the obligations of the USA and Ukraine within the abovementioned international treaty. The event will include presentation of documentary evidence of the violation of the articles I and IV within the convention on their part.
We want the organisations responsible for compliance with the Convention and the international community to pay their attention to various biological hazards.
First, there are currently over 50 Pentagon-controlled biological laboratories modernised with its funds and located in close proximity to the borders of the Russian Federation. In total, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, the U.S. Defence Department controls 336 biolaboratories in 30 countries.
Their activities are supplemented by deterioration of the epidemiological situation regarding to the most dangerous and economically significant infections, as well as by appearance of contagious diseases untypical for a certain region.
Since 2010, the territories of the Russian Federation bordering Ukraine have recorded an increase in the incidence of brucellosis, Congo-Crimean fever, West Nile fever and African swine fever, as well as an uncharacteristic expansion of vector ranges.
The Russian Federation, as a responsible party to the BTWC, is fully aware of the full range of threats associated with the possible consequences of its violation during the works performed in Ukrainian biolaboratories.
We have received information about U.S.-sponsored biological research in Ukraine. The decree of the Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine (February 24, 2022) for emergency destruction of pathogen collections has reinforced our concerns about possible violation of the articles I and IV within the BTWC requirements in the Pentagon-commissioned work. The obtained materials have served as a basis for the Russian Federation’s investigation of U.S. biological activities at the territory of Ukraine.
The research in Ukrainian biolaboratories was carried out in accordance with the Agreement ‘On cooperation in the field of prevention of the spread of pathogens, technologies and knowledge that can be used in the development of biological weapons’ of 2005 between the U.S. military department and the Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine.
The U.S. has spent over $250 million on biological programs in Ukraine.
The work was coordinated by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense (DTRA), the research was conducted under conditions of secrecy with limited access of Ukrainian professionals to information and premises.
We are currently witnessing a change in the tactics of the U.S. administration in an attempt to withdraw this office, the activities of which have become the subject of an international investigation. According to available information, the functions of the customer of military-biological programs in the Central Asian region have been transferred to civilian specialised organisations, the work of which will be under control of the U.S. Navy, which is the most closed structure.
In addition, the Pentagon intends to transfer unfinished programs in Ukraine as soon as possible to other post-Soviet countries, as well as to Eastern European states (such as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic) and Baltic countries.
The expansion of the network of biolaboratories, which can be used to create and store components of biological weapons, poses a threat to the military security of the Russian Federation. Unlike the nuclear weapons the U.S. deploys on the territory of NATO partner countries, the Alliance’s similar policy in the biological sphere allows it to approach our borders uncontrolled. This is the first issue we would like to emphasise.
Second, the focus of the Pentagon’s work does not correspond to the current problems of public health in Ukraine, the main of which are socially significant diseases: measles, rubella, tuberculosis, AIDS.
At the same time, the customers from the U.S. are interested in a completely different nomenclature: cholera, tularemia, plague, Congo-Crimean fever and hantaviruses. These pathogens were studied as part of the so-called Ukrainian UP and Tap projects. U.S. military biologists are interested because these pathogens have natural foci both in Ukraine and Russia, while their use can be disguised as natural disease outbreaks.
by Alan Freeman, published on The Valdai Discussion Club, July 4, 2022
If anyone tries to justify a monstrous and unnecessary human sacrifice on the grounds that it’s for the best, then they are measuring ‘good’ in dollars instead of bodies, and they’re not part of the left, because the left stands for humans, not property, Valdai Club expert Alan Freeman writes.
Let’s think about the left’s place in the current events, and hope to shed light on what being ‘on the left’ actually means today, and why it is relevant to peace.
I’ll start with the trillion-dollar question: if NATO won, if the DPR and LPR forces surrendered, and if the Russian Army was driven back to the border, would the world be a better or a worse place?
This is a practical question. It can’t be resolved with abstract ideals or theories such as whether Ukraine has a sacred right to rule over the Russian speakers of the Donbass, or whether Russia is imperialist, any more than Palestinian rights can be settled by referring to the historical origins of the People of the Book.
The lives of millions, perhaps billions, are at stake. If the Russian army leaves Ukraine, they will all suffer and many will die. If your ideals tell you this is a good thing – if like Madeleine Albright, you can look upon the deaths of half a million children and say ‘it was worth it’, then your ideals are wrong.
And if your theory tells you to arm Ukraine to the teeth and give its fascists free reign to cleanse it of Russian influence, you’re free to say that (which is a lot more freedom than I get for opposing you), but you’re not part of the left.
Because if anyone tries to justify a monstrous and unnecessary human sacrifice on the grounds that it’s for the best, then they are measuring ‘good’ in dollars instead of bodies, and they’re not part of the left, because the left stands for humans, not property.
What will happen if the Russian army leaves?
First, there will be a bloody racial cleansing of a third of Ukraine’s territory where fourteen million Russian speakers live. You don’t need any elaborate analysis to see this; just look at what’s been happening for the past eight years when the Donbass has been under continuous military attack for no greater crime that demanding autonomy and standing up to murderers.
This is not the work of a handful of rightists; it is baked into the concept of nation which Ukraine’s rulers adhere to and NATO supports. Stripped of elegant excuses, this holds that being ethnically Russian is incompatible with Ukrainian nationality. This is a thoroughly racist notion; Azov merely enforces it by killing and torturing those who oppose it, for which they once got nods and winks but now get acclaim as national heroes.
That’s also why this war is not just an invasion but a Civil War. And this was inevitable given the national concept. Imagine if the USA were to ban Spanish. Or suppose Canada banned French, not even outside Quebec but in Quebec itself. The country would fall apart before you could blink.
Where is the War in Ukraine Going and What Should be the Response of the Peace Movement
May 23, 2022
Speakers: Scott Ritter – Former UN Weapons Inspector, Ajamu Baraka – Black Alliance for Peace, Sara Flounders – International Action Center, Alan Freeman – International Manifesto Group Moderator – Joe Lombardo, UNAC Coordinator
The webinar discussed the present situation in Ukraine as well as what position the peace movement should take. Our movement has been affected by the massive propaganda and censorship that we are experiencing in the US. This war brings the US in direct confrontation with Russia, a major nuclear power. Join us for this important discussion.
Presented by United National AntiWar Coalition – UNAC
A conversation with Scott Ritter
Hosted by Margaret Flowers and Joe Lombardo Wednesday, April 6
Scott Ritter was the UN weapons inspector who, during the Iraq War told the truth that we found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He became outspoken about this, which undercut the main reason the US used to invade and occupy Iraq. As with the Iraq War, Scott Ritter is outspoken about the present war in Ukraine, in which we are again hearing US lies about the reasons for, and the events happening in the Ukraine War. His vast experience and knowledge working in the military and with various international agencies helps expose the truth about what is happening in Ukraine.
In an off-the-cuff interview at a vigil in Portland, ME, against war in Ukraine, lifelong peace and justice activist Bruce Gagnon lays out the undoctored truth about the “crisis” at the Russian/Ukraine border. Video by Brian Leonard
Major Russian officials today have warned of military threats posed by the U.S.-led thirty-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization to its western border: its entire western border. And its northern one as well.
In one of the sternest warnings issued by a Russian official in the post-Cold War era, Shoigu added,
“We’ve taken proper measures in response to the alliance’s military activities which threaten Russia.” Regarding the ground and airborne forces, the defense minister said: “The troops have manifested complete preparedness and the ability to perform their duties to guarantee the country’s military security. At the present time, these units are involved in exercises.”
In addition he highlighted the fact that: “The alliance annually holds up to 40 large operational training measures of a clearly anti-Russian bias in Europe. In the spring of this year, the NATO allied forces launched Defender Europe 2021 drills, the largest exercise over the past 30 years.” (Estimates range as high as 37,000 U.S. and NATO troops involved in the several-weeks-long war games from the Baltic to the Black Seas and the Balkans.) NATO’s “Spring Storm” Exercise: Threatens Russia
“The competition between the world’s leading powers for access to the Arctic Ocean’s resource and transport routes is increasing. The US and its NATO allies increase their naval and ground groups in the Arctic, increase the combat training intensity, extend and upgrade the military infrastructure.”
In general Shoigu stated that over the past three years NATO has increased its activity along Russia’s borders.
Ryabkov said that American warships sailing thousands of miles from U.S. naval bases “always involves a geopolitics element.”
His comments are worth citing extensively:
“I wouldn’t like to go too much into particulars of various interpretations of what freedom of navigation and freedom of the seas is, especially in this context. I know one thing: American ships have absolutely nothing to do near our coasts, and this is a purely provocative undertaking. It’s provocative in the literal sense of this word: they’re testing our patience and getting on our nerves. This won’t work.”
And he issued this stark admonition in the context of the Western threats to Russia over Ukraine:
“Apparently seeing itself as the queen of the seas […] the U.S. should understand after all that the risks of various incidents are very high. We warn the U.S. that it should steer clear of Crimea and our Black Sea coast. This would be to their own benefit.”
Free Ukraine Now 