Connexion
Original and Video at Ministry of Foreign Affairs website
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement and answers to media questions during a news conference on Russia’s foreign policy performance in 2023, Moscow, January 18, 2024
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am glad to welcome you at our annual event. Every year, we come together right after the New Year and Christmas break. I would like to offer those of you who celebrate these holidays my greetings and wish you a Happy New Year 2024. We all want to make it a better year in every respect, as President Vladimir Putin explained in quite some detail.
We have a clear vision for our domestic development plans. The Government of the Russian Federation is hard at work. President Vladimir Putin held a series of meetings with Government members over the past few days to discuss various ways to promote sustained economic progress in today’s environment, considering the aggressive and unlawful policies of the United States and its satellites. The goal is clear. It is to eliminate our dependence on any manufacturing, supply and logistics chains, financial and banking systems whenever our Western colleagues exercise too much control over them in one way or another. Previous and future decisions articulate this policy without any ambiguity.
As far as foreign policy is concerned, we have also defined our priorities for the foreseeable future. In March 2023, President Vladimir Putin approved a totally new and updated Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation. It responds to the present-day reality in international affairs. The West has demonstrated its total inability to make deals and has proven to be an unreliable partner in all undertakings. The Global Majority can no longer tolerate this selfish approach and wants to prioritise its own national interests and the interests of every single country in its development efforts while strictly abiding by the principles enshrined in the UN Charter, starting with respecting the sovereign equality of states. Since the Charter was adopted in 1945, there has not been a single foreign policy initiative by the West on the international stage which took into account or respected the principle proclaiming the equal rights of nations large and small, as the Charter reads, without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.
On the foreign policy front, we have a clear objective to develop our relations with those who are ready to work with us on an equal, mutually beneficial and mutually respectful footing by engaging in a frank dialogue and talks for finding a balance of interests instead of taking decisions that serve someone’s selfish agenda only, which is what happens with discussions involving the US-led West in an overwhelming majority of cases.
The past year showed that there is no acceptance of the manners traditional to the Western hegemon, manners based squarely on its vested interests and disregard for the opinion of all others. Yes, 500 years of ruling the world and having no serious rivals almost for this entire period (with the exception, perhaps, of the Soviet period) seems to have made it addicted to being hegemon. But life never stops. New centres of economic growth, financial might and political influence have emerged and gained strength, significantly outpacing the United States and other Western countries in terms of development.
I am sure you know how we assess the development of Russia’s relations with the People’s Republic of China. This is the fastest growing economy along with India’s. Our relations with China are at the highest level in their entire centuries-long history. We particularly appreciate the fact that President Xi Jinping paid his first post-reelection state visit to Moscow in March 2023. In turn, President Vladimir Putin visited China in October 2023 to attend the Third Belt and Road International Forum.
The specially privileged strategic partnership with India has been making headway as well. We have established regular top-level dialogue and contacts between corresponding agencies through the foreign ministries.
Considering our immediate environs, it certainly includes the Middle East countries, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. Accordingly, we are interested in expanding not only bilateral relations, but also ties with regional organisations that include many of our partners. I am referring to the Gulf Cooperation Council, the League of Arab States, ASEAN, the African Union, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, and others.
We are working to take our partnership with Africa to a truly strategic level. This was confirmed at the second Russia-Africa Summit held in St Petersburg in July 2023.
An important milestone in the development of our relations with Latin America was the Russia – Latin America International Parliamentary Conference held in Moscow in autumn 2023. We consider Africa, Latin America and Asian countries as emerging independent centres in a multipolar world.
We were active on the UN platform in 2023. The Group of Friends in Defence of the United Nations Charter has been successfully operating there since it was established several years ago. The group has adopted joint statements on fundamental issues of global development. This group catalyses and stimulates the General Assembly’s work, promoting joint initiatives, including Russian ones. We support the ideas of our partners in this new entity.
I will note another important milestone – the adoption of a resolution on combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. It was adopted at the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly by an overwhelming majority of the vote, despite the chicanery of the West. However, I have to point out that for the second time in a row, Germany, Italy and Japan voted against that resolution – the Axis countries that publicly repented for the crimes committed during the Second World War after their defeat, and assured everyone that it would not happen again. These states have been voting against the resolution demanding that Nazism never be revived for the past two years, which provokes serious contemplation and makes us wonder where these ideological processes are leading, not only in these states but also in the West as a whole.
We constructively worked in other formats as well. I should specifically note our closest allies, the Union State of Russia and Belarus and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation through which we promoted stability in all dimensions, including military, biological and general security against new threats and challenges such as terrorism, drug trafficking and other forms of organised crime. The Eurasian Economic Union adopted important decisions for deepening Eurasian integration and coupling these processes with projects like China’s Belt and Road Initiative, cooperation with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, ASEAN and all the other associations and countries on our common enormous Eurasian continent.
This year, Russia presides in the CIS. We plan to continue the useful projects launched in 2023. As one such project, we will pay special attention to the International Russian Language Organisation founded at the CIS summit in Bishkek last autumn. All the CIS members approved this initiative proposed by Kazakhstan. The organisation is open to any country wishing to join. We know that the Russian language is popular across all continents and we hope there will be many interested participants.
I mentioned the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as an umbrella project. Along with the Eurasian Economic Union, in the context of cooperation with ASEAN and other sub-regional bodies, this organisation objectively and organically helps us form the Greater Eurasian Partnership. President Vladimir Putin spoke about this at the very first Russia-ASEAN summit. The outlines of this partnership are already visible.
In the current conditions, it is important to have an economic partnership that meets the interests of all the countries on the continent we share. It was God’s will that we use the objective competitive advantages of sharing the same space that, as it happens, has been a driver of growth for the global economy for a very long time. And it will maintain this role for many years ahead. In addition to mutually beneficial economic projects, it is important to ensure, regardless of other factors, military and political security in Eurasia. We will support the idea that the countries on the continent should deal with this task without attempts by countries from other regions to intervene in these processes with their own rules. We are convinced that the Eurasian countries are capable of handling these tasks independently.
I have listed several regional entities, but there is also a supra-regional global association called BRICS which epitomises the diversity of the multipolar world. The decision adopted during the summit in South Africa last year to expand the number of BRICS members came as a particularly important step to strengthen the position of BRICS. Russia, which assumed the BRICS chairmanship on January 1, will pay special attention to ensuring that newcomers seamlessly join in the common work and contribute to the strengthening of positive trends not only within the association, but also in the international arena in the interests of the Global Majority. Since over 20 (even closer to 30) countries are interested in establishing close ties with BRICS, we see a bright future for this association with global representation.
We have continued to prioritise the protection of the legitimate interests and rights of Russian citizens abroad. You are well aware of how they are discriminated against in the countries of the collective West. Unlike your Western colleagues who are increasingly trying to hide the truth about journalists’ working conditions in the countries with “established democracies” (pardon the expression), many of you write about this. But in addition to the everyday problems faced by our citizens in the United States, Europe, and other countries, natural and man-made emergencies didn’t go anywhere.
Recently, we have been providing broad-based assistance to evacuate Russians and citizens of CIS countries and some other countries from Gaza and, several months before that, from Sudan riven by internal conflict.
In terms of public diplomacy, I would like to single out the milestone of creating in March 2023 of the International Russophile Movement, which is an informal association of people living on different continents with spiritual and cultural affinity for Russia. The founding meeting of this movement was successfully held and its first full-fledged congress will be held in the first half of this year.
We will continue to promote the ideals of truth and justice in international affairs. We will do our utmost to make international relations more democratic. In this sense, our Ministry strongly supports United Russia’s initiative to hold in Moscow an international inter-party forum of supporters of combating the modern practices of neo-colonialism. It is a popular theme given that the neocolonialist nature of Western policy is present in a big way in the current policies pursued by the United States and its allies. Its thrust remains the same – to use the resources of other countries to their benefit and to live off of others. The upcoming forum promises to be an engaging and important event.
Russia will host a number of major international cultural events, including the World Youth Festival, which is fast approaching, the Games of the Future which is a mix of physical sports and cybersports, and the sports games of the BRICS countries. Both games will be held in Kazan (the Games of the Future in February, and the BRICS Games in the summer of 2024.)
The Intervision international song contest is being prepared. Many countries of the Global Majority showed interest in it. We will do our best to make sure that our guests who will come to these and numerous other events fully experience Russian hospitality as in 2018, when we hosted the finals of the FIFA World Cup.
In closing, I would like to reiterate our openness to communicating with media representatives in a variety of formats. I hope the Ministry representatives present here cannot be accused of ducking the media. Other senior ministerial officials, heads of departments, and our employees (especially when they travel as part of a delegation to international events) are simply under obligation to share information about our work and to make our work clear and transparent. This is what we strive to achieve.
Question: If elections take place in Ukraine this year, can a person willing to talk to Russia come to power there? Kiev signed a security agreement with London and may sign similar agreements with other G7 countries. How important is it for Russia in the context of the future settlement of the conflict? Does it mean that Ukraine won’t have a neutral status?
Sergey Lavrov: Frankly, we are not too concerned over the details in the discussion of Ukraine’s political affairs. The issue of elections surfaced. We heard that the West strongly advised Vladimir Zelensky to hold these elections, apparently in the hope that the election campaign and the voting itself will make it possible to bring him into line with Western interests, because he is getting harder and harder to control.
Zelensky announced in public that he would not hold any elections because of the ongoing war. This reminds one of another staged performance and reflects exclusively the desire of this man and his well-known underlings to hold on to power as much as possible. This is the desire I see.
The West would like to have more flexibility. Apparently, they have already understood that the much-publicised blitzkrieg with the ultimate goal of inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia is a mere illusion. There has been a fundamental shift, primarily in Western minds. They realised their mistake. It is hard to admit it. Now they are looking for some external signals that would allow them to still support Ukraine while pushing Kiev to become more accommodating and listen to its Western bosses. I find it hard to predict how successful they will be in that.
As for the second part of your question, this story is nothing new. Several months ago, there were “clashes” in the West over whether to admit Ukraine to NATO or the European Union. Not everyone was in favour of this and not everyone was happy. Everyone understood that this was yet another completely senseless, irresponsible and risky move for European security. The signing of bilateral agreements with individual Western countries was invented as a product requiring additional assembly. I heard about the contents of the document agreed upon by Zelensky and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. I did not see in its analysis any legally binding provisions unless we consider as such Ukraine’s obligation to come to the defence of Great Britain in case of an attack. This sounds like a joke. But, on the other hand, we can regard it as a continuation of Studio Kvartal-95. Probably, now it will go by a different name.
We do not object to the agreements that other countries sign with Ukraine but this does not change our goal one iota. President Vladimir Putin confirmed this the other day. We will steadfastly pursue the goals of the special military operation and we will achieve them.
The West periodically sends us some signals and then cancels them. We take a philosophical attitude to them. President Vladimir Putin said many times that Russia does not refuse to negotiate. He said this as early as in 2022, when Boris Johnson and other Anglo-Saxons prohibited Kiev from signing an already agreed-upon treaty to reach a settlement with the Russian Federation. This is a well-known episode. It took place in April 2022. Speaking in 2022 about this issue, President Putin said again that we do not reject talks. However, those who do should realise that the more they drag it out, the harder it will be to come to terms later. Now we see how this prediction is coming true. There is no hope at all that Russia will be “defeated.” This was said many times. Those who have not studied history (there are many of them in the West) and geography know little and may engage in flights of fancy. Or they may come up with another plot for the afore-mentioned Studio Kvartal-95. But it will have nothing to do with real life.
Question: I would like to wish you a happy New Year and victory on all fronts to the Russian people.
The United States is creating “international political and military coalitions” which are committing acts of aggression against Yemen and continue to support and encourage Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people, as well as military operations against Syria and Lebanon. What is Moscow’s stance on these issues?
Sergey Lavrov: We have made numerous public statements to present our views on the developments in the Middle East, not only in Gaza but also in the Palestinian territories as a whole and in Lebanon, Iraq and, of course, Yemen.
It is obvious that the United States, Britain and some of their other allies have trampled underfoot all the norms of international law, including the UN Security Council resolution, which only called for protecting commercial shipping. Nobody was given the right to bomb Yemen, just as nobody gave NATO the right to bomb Libya in 2011. A resolution adopted back then only established a no-fly zone over Libya, which meant that the Libyan Air Force aircraft must not fly over the country, and they did not. There was not even the most far-fetched pretext for using armed force there. But the country has been bombed to dust and turned into a black hole. Nobody has been able to reassemble the Libyan state to this day. A huge number of migrants flooded Europe, making it suffer. But the Americans and the British are not suffering. The terrorists whom the West used to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi moved towards central Africa.
We can see the same arbitrariness with regard to Yemen now. It is obvious to everyone. I would say that Washington’s justifications are pathetic.
The other day, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Davos that virtually every country in the Middle East wanted the United States and they wanted it leading. I cannot confidently say if the regional countries want this. We should ask them. But one of these countries, Iraq, adopted a decision several years ago stating that the United States had been in the country, its military bases had been in the country for a long time, and that this should end, and the United States should go home. But the Americans refuse to leave.
Baghdad has recently made another statement on the Americans’ reluctance to go home even though they have been encouraged to leave long ago. It is especially regrettable that Secretary of State Blinken also implied that only the United States can help negotiate peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. He said this. We are aware of such semi-secret contacts involving the United States, Israel and several Arab countries. But these contacts do not involve a direct dialogue between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Instead, they imply that the “big guys” will sit at a table somewhere to decide how the Palestinians should live and will present their decision to them. This cannot succeed. Only a direct dialogue, which must be relaunched, can bring about progress. It went on, with difficulties, but it continued with support from the quartet of international intermediaries. We have always said that the activities of the quartet – the United States, Russia, the UN and the EU – must also involve representatives from the Arab League. It is deeply regrettable that the Americans and the Europeans blocked that idea. And then the United States dissolved all such quartets and monopolised the entire mediation process.
In September 2023, US National Security Adviser Jack Sullivan said that the Middle East region was quieter today than it has been in the past few years. A month later, a conflict broke out in Gaza. This calls for collective efforts, which the United States seems to have lost the habit of. It has become addicted to dictating.
Next Tuesday, the UN Security Council will hold a special meeting on this issue. We plan to attend it, and I will personally travel to New York for this purpose. We will put forth our ideas aimed at resuming collective efforts and ending the attempts to decide everything single-handedly, and not only in the Middle East. The United States wants to promote its agenda throughout the world. We’ll see what comes of it.
Ultimately, life itself will likely teach our Western colleagues a lesson. Regional countries must clearly show that it is their region, and the security of all states in the region is of crucial importance. While external recommendations will not be disregarded, the final decisions must be taken by the regional countries themselves.
The main focus of these efforts should be the establishment of a Palestinian state in strict compliance with the UN Security Council’s decisions. This state should be viable, as the decisions state, and live side by side with Israel and other regional countries in peace and security. Otherwise, we will continue to see outbreaks of violence like the current situation in Gaza. Without a state of their own, the Palestinian people will continue to feel disadvantaged and injured. One generation of young Palestinians after another will be aware of this injustice and will pass on this feeling to their children. This injustice must be put to an end through the establishment of a Palestinian state. I hope that the Israeli leadership will ultimately reach the same conclusion. Currently, very few people consider this solution acceptable to Israel, but this only means that efforts must continue to help them see the truth, which is that Israel’s security cannot be guaranteed without the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Russia wants Israel and its people to live in security. Israel is our long-time partner. Our country was the first to recognise Israel’s independence. About 2 million Israeli citizens also hold Russian passports and have come from Russia. Of course, we are concerned about this. We are ready to play an active role in bringing about a comprehensive settlement that will guarantee Israel’s security while strictly complying with the UN resolution on the Palestinian issue.
To be continued…
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Traditionally, Sergey Lavrov holds a large-scale press conference at the beginning of the year to assess the foreign policy events of the past year.
Sputnik Africa goes live as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is summing up the past year at a major press conference.
The event is held in a hybrid format: some Russian and foreign journalists have joined the conference directly in the press center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while others have connected via the Internet. Moreover, the representatives of the press were able to send their questions in advance.
Russian FM Lavrov’s statements on the Ukraine crisis:
Russia sees no US, NATO readiness for fair settlement of Ukrainian conflict, they continue escalation;
West pushing Ukraine to use long-range missiles on Russian territory shows no interest in peace settlement;
Moscow is not concerned about political life in Ukraine, West wants to have more flexibility in Ukraine’s leadership;
Security issues in Eurasia must be resolved without countries outside the region.
West is talking more about clash of nuclear powers, there are fewer deterrents, Lavrov states. The Russian foreign minister has also noted that the US wants to resume control over Russian nuclear arsenal under the guise of reciprocity.
The main focus of efforts on Palestine should be the creation of a Palestinian state, Lavrov says. He also noted that without the creation of a Palestinian state, the recurrence of violence in Gaza will continue and Israel’s security will not be ensured.
US, UK violated all norms of international law with strikes on Yemen, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov says. The UN did not give the US the right to strike Yemen, as before it did in Libya, the Russia’s top diplomat has also underscored.
Lavrov: “One of the large European countries that does not speak English” invited the Russian ambassador to think about joint projects in Africa to help regain this country’s lost influence amid the strengthening of Russia’s relations with Africa, in particular with Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Chad and Niger.
“The cynicism is off the charts. You remain our enemy […] but in Africa you will somehow help us… There will never be such negotiations,” added the foreign minister.
Argentina’s refusal to join BRICS is the country’s sovereign decision, the Russian foreign minister says.
Highlights from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statements at the press conference on the results of 2023:
Africa and BRICS:
Moscow is taking its partnership with African countries to a truly strategic level;
Argentina’s refusal to join BRICS at this time is a sovereign decision of this country;
BRICS symbolizes the abundance of a multipolar world;
Russia will pay special attention to ensure that new BRICS members fit seamlessly into the bloc.
Ukraine:
The situation with the elections in Ukraine is increasingly reminiscent of a staging and reflects Zelensky’s desire to cling to power as much as possible;
There are no legally binding provisions in the London-Kiev security agreement;
Russia does not see the US interest in a settlement in Ukraine.
Yemen:
The US and UK trampled international law by striking at Yemen;
Washington’s excuses in the situation with Yemen look pathetic.
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict:
Semi-closed contacts involving the US, Israel and some individual states on Palestine will not be successful;
Only direct dialogue is needed to resolve relations between Israel and Palestine;
Russia is ready to play an active role in ensuring a full resolution of the conflict in the Middle East.
The security dialogue with the US:
It is impossible to talk about the prospects for strategic dialogue with the US in isolation from other issues;
The US has created unacceptable conditions for the implementation of disarmament treaties;
In December 2023, Russia conveyed its assessments on strategic stability to the US and warned that they had no alternative.
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