© Russian Foreign Ministry/TASS

January 18 witnessed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hold a major press conference on the performance of Russian diplomacy in 2022. After delivering an opening statement, he answered numerous questions from journalists. Small wonder the event lasted more than two hours.

First, Sergey Lavrov focused on Ukraine. According to him, a global crisis had been brewing long before Russia started it special military operation there. And now the West is waging a proxy war aimed to get done with Russia. In particular, he stated: "The goals of the special military operation are real and not pulled out of the blue, but rather determined by the fundamental and legitimate interests of the security of the Russian Federation. As with any other territory bordering the Russian Federation, there should be no military infrastructure that poses a direct threat to our country, discrimination, or persecution of our compatriots in Ukraine. By the will of fate, they ended up citizens of the Ukrainian state, but they want to preserve their language, culture and traditions, to bring their children up in these traditions in full accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine".

Referring to talks with official Kiev, Sergey Lavrov said any negotiations with Zelensky "are out of the question," as he puts forward absurd peace initiatives. Russia is ready to respond to really serious negotiations proposals from the West, but there have been none of them so far. "The Western claptrap to the effect that they are ready to talk, but we are not, is nothing but prevarications," Lavrov stressed. He also noted that military actions over Western aggression against Russia will end one day, and Moscow will uphold the truth. When asked to name the most tragic word of 2022, the Minister said "war", adding that the word "victory" gives hope in the current situation.

Dwelling upon our country’s relations with the West, Lavrov said Russia had no need to exercise initiative along the tracks closed by the West itself, including cooperation with the Council of Europe (CE). In his opinion, “the West has decided to cancel Russia here as well and to build discriminatory obstacles to the participation of our representatives in the work of the relevant bodies of these conventions, which are open to non-members of the Council of Europe”. The Minister is confident that European countries are okay to submit to the US dictate, as evidenced by a NATO-EU joint declaration of January 10, which "states explicitly that their purpose is to use all the political, economic and military means in the interests of the golden billion. and the population of the North Atlantic Alliance". Restored relations between Russia and the West are a myth, and things will never be the same again.

"Washington’s policy of dictate in international affairs means precisely that the Americans can do anything anywhere they want, even at the other end of the Earth.  All the other countries cannot do anything without the US’s approval, even in response to direct security threats the US creates on their borders." According to Lavrov, the West uses demonization, blackmail, sanctions, the threat of force to destroy traditional ties between historical partners. He stressed that sanctions might be imposed any time against any country refusing to mindlessly follow American orders.

Sergey Lavrov further noted that Russia will never run after the United States with offers to be friends. "We did not break this dialogue. We have not broken off any of the areas of our cooperation. The USA broke them off. We are not going to run after them and say ‘let’s be friends again’. They know that we will respond seriously to serious requests alone," Lavrov stressed.

EU and NATO’s deliberately adversarial agenda is explicitly proclaimed by the abovementioned declaration, subordinating Europe to the North Atlantic Alliance in terms of geopolitical containment of Russia and China, the Russian Foreign Minister believes. This kind of policy is being carried out instead of seeking consensus. In turn, the West creates new military blocs like AUKUS (USA, Great Britain, Australia) that are primarily aimed to contain Russia and China in the Indo-Pacific region (ITR).

The Minister also recalled a recent statement by head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen that anti-Russian sanctions would entail decades of recession for the Russian economy. In his opinion, the West has finally shown its true colors. The minister is confident that sanctions "are designed to incite the people to rise in a revolution to overthrow the current leaders. " "We hoped then that reason would prevail, and Europe would see that they should not lie all the time and keep moving NATO further east contrary to their promises. This is unacceptable not only because of their oral promises but also because of their written OSCE obligations that nobody should enhance their security at the expense of other states and that no organization in the OSCE space should claim domination. That promise was put on paper and signed, in part, by the leaders of Greece, the United States and Russia," Lavrov reminded the audience.

Talking to the West about Ukraine as a single subject is pointless, as it exploits that country to destroy the Atlantic security system which embraced solutions to all the challenges through dialogue and compromise, the Russian Foreign Minister is sure. "The conclusion I make from the positions taken by European countries is that they have been forced or have voluntarily agreed to submit to the US dictate," Lavrov said.

The diplomat also touched upon relations with various international agencies. First of all, he noted Russia's permanent contacts with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), the CIS, and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). According to him, Moscow intends to keep building new forms of interaction to avoid dependence on the West and its neocolonialist methods. "In dealing with our reliable partners and friendly countries, we are developing forms of cooperation that will benefit all of us. Those who want to subdue the entire world have no say in it," the minister said.

And US methods "are used with the express purpose of robbing the rest of the world in these new conditions." Frenzied attempts to ensure the domination of the United States and the West "is proof that, historically, they are acting contrary to the objective course of events by trying to stop the rise of a multipolar world." The Minister also noted that creating a multipolar world will take a long time, an entire historical era, with Russia in the midst of this process, he said. But this requires observing the UN Charter principle of respect for the sovereign equality of all states.