© Russian foreign Ministry press service/TASS
Despite US resistance, delayed visas to Russian Foreign Ministry diplomats and leaving Russian journalists without those at all, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has used the UN Security Council rostrum and the press conference hall for all it’s worth.
His UNSC Chairman speech and communication with Western reporters featured unambiguous formulations and political definitions that perfectly reflected Moscow's present-day stance. In some ways, it even resembled things that happened a century ago, when the West also tried to blockade our country, but the voice of Soviet diplomacy sounded loudly at the Genoa conference in April-May 1922.
And what about the Western countries? At the press conference, their journalists seemed indifferent to the fundamental issues of preserving the UN and preventing a nuclear war, but raised narrow-minded questions like the arrest in Russia of US spy journalist Gershkovich, prospects for Moscow’s withdrawal from the "grain deal" blocked by West itself, activities of the Wagner group, departure of the Israeli delegation from the UN Security Council meeting, and other minor things that will definitely wear away if it comes to the destruction of the UN-sustained system of international relations.
These tin-pot requests indicate the level of Western media awareness of change taking place worldwide — they believe everything is the same for them, with Russia to be blamed for all the challenges underway, although back in 2020, host and "prophet" of the Davos Economic Forum Klaus Schwab wrote a book about the future to clearly formulate the following postulation: "It will never be the same as it was before." Lack-of-scale correspondents must have never heard about the fundamental events among their "golden billion".
They must have been also surprised by Lavrov's words: "... that reminds me of the European Union (for now it still exists)". He says "for now", and this should be a real bombshell to the press! But they seem defiant instead…
Or the following statement by our minister: "Some time ago, the then UK Prime Minister, Liz Truss, said that she would not hesitate to push the red button. On hearing this, Jean-Yves Le Drian, the then French Minister of Foreign Affairs, said France also had nuclear weapons. Next the German Air Force commander said they were prepared for a nuclear war and were not afraid of Vladimir Putin’s threats. This was all at a time when we did not say a single word about WWIII." Did this make the Western media tense up? No way! They are not interested in this either and willingly switch to the hardship of Ukrainian refugees in Ireland.
Lavrov answered this "reproach question" from a Dublin journalist in quite an intelligible way: "Are you from Ireland? Good. From time to time, I use this argument: if the English language were to be banned in Ireland, how would the British react to this? It’s inconceivable, impossible to wrap one’s head around. But in Ukraine, the Russian language can be banned. They can publicly say, go back to Russia if you consider yourself part of Russian culture. This is what Vladimir Zelensky said long before our special military operation. He was asked what he thought of the people living on the other side of the line of contact. He replied that there were people, and there were “species”."
Do you think he managed to get into their ear? Hardly that, because in English the words "slav" and the word "slave" are almost no different. This image is inherent with these people. The master race, you know…
Lavrov also reasonably quoted Borrel's revelations: "All these claims that, as EU High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said, a heavenly garden (meaning the West) is surrounded by jungles (which sounds like a racist and Nazi statement) is a manifestation of a philosophy that is detrimental to all of humankind, including those that adhere to this philosophy." The allegedly tolerant but arrogant West has exposed a grin of Europe’s habitual, centuries-old Nazism. And our minister speaks about that at the UN on the record to later become an internationally recognized document. He dragged their faced against the table officially and deservedly!
You know, much of what Sergey Lavrov said during these two meetings is probably so precise and definite that no special comments are needed. Just listen attentively to the words of our minister and realize that domestic diplomacy has switched to an operating mode suitable for a hostile environment; and on many topics, one does no longer have to keep to smoothed-out phrases or rich allusions, as has been widely embraced by the diplomatic circles for years. Frank speech has become relevant, using sometimes quite different formulas for expressing one's stance as compared to those recommended by textbooks on diplomatic protocol and decorum.
By the way, the latest attack against the Russian Cultural Center in Cyprus with Molotov cocktails is proof that we are back to 1920s. Do you remember Mayakovsky's poem " То Comrade Nette, the Man and The Ship" about the deceased diplomatic courier? There were also Vatslav Vorovsky, Pyotr Voikov and a whole galaxy of diplomats who died by an enemy's hand. In 2016, Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov was also shot dead… The time is ripe to strike back the whole nine yards. And that's what Lavrov actually did – so far verbally. Listen carefully to what he said:
- Once again, as in the Cold War years, we have approached a dangerous, and perhaps even a more dangerous, line.
- For a little less than 80 years of its existence, the UN has been carrying out the important mission entrusted to it by its founders. For several decades, a basic understanding by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council as regards the supremacy of the charter’s goals and principles guaranteed global security… Today, our UN-centric system is going through a deep crisis. The main reason is a striving by some UN members to replace international law and the UN Charter with a certain “rules-based” order. Nobody has seen these rules. They have not been discussed in transparent international talks.
- In a desperate attempt to assert its dominance by way of punishing the disobedient, the United States has gone as far as destroying globalization which it has for many years touted as a great benefit for humankind serving the needs of the global economy’s multilateral system. Washington and the rest of the obeisant West is using these rules as needed to justify illegitimate steps against the countries that build their policies in accordance with international law and refuse to follow the “golden billion’s” self-serving interests.
- Let's call it what it is: no one authorized the Western minority to speak on behalf of all humankind.
- I would also like to quote the Joint Declaration on EU-NATO Cooperation of January 10 which runs as follows: The United West “will further mobilize the combined set of instruments at our disposal, be they political, economic or military, to pursue our common objectives to the benefit of our one billion citizens.”
- Russia patiently tried to achieve mutually beneficial multilateral agreements relying on the principle of indivisible security which was solemnly declared at the highest level in OSCE summit documents in 1999 and 2010… NATO didn’t care one bit about the obligations of the presidents and prime ministers of its member countries and began to do exactly the opposite, having declared its “right” to arbitrary actions of any kind.
- The illegal bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, which included the use of depleted uranium warheads that later led to a surge in cancer cases among Serbian citizens and NATO military members is another glaring case in point. Joseph Biden was a senator then and said on camera, not without pride, that he personally called for bombing Belgrade and destroying bridges on the Drina River.
- Since World War II, Washington has pulled off dozens of reckless criminal military operations without even trying to secure multilateral legitimacy.
- The US intervention in the domestic affairs of the post-Soviet countries also came as a flagrant violation of the UN Charter. “Color revolutions” were concocted in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, and a bloody coup was staged in Kiev in February 2014. Attempts to seize power by force in Belarus in 2020 are part of the same approach.
- The Anglo-Saxons who are at the helm of the West not only justify these lawless adventures, but flaunt them in their policy for “promoting democracy,” while doing so according to their own set of rules as well, where they recognized Kosovo’s independence without a referendum, but refused to recognize Crimea’s independence even though a referendum was held there; according to British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, the Falklands/Malvinas are not an issue, because there was a referendum there. That’s amusing.
- Now, all countries understand this, but not all talk about it openly – this is not really about Ukraine but about the future structure of international relations. Will they rest on a sustainable consensus based on the balance of interests or will they be reduced to the aggressive and explosive promotion of hegemony? It is inaccurate to take the Ukraine issue out of its geopolitical context.
- against the backdrop of the US- and EU-fueled hysteria – what did Washington and NATO do in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya? Were there threats to their security, culture, religion or languages? What multilateral standards were they guided by when they declared Kosovo’s independence in violation of OCSE principles and when they were destroying stable and economically wealthy Iraq and Libya that were ten thousand miles away from America’s coasts?
- The shameless attempts by the Western countries to bring the secretariats of the UN and other international institutions under control came to threaten the multilateral system.
- The situation is further aggravated by loss of faith in multilateralism where the financial and economic aggression of the West is destroying the benefits of globalization and where Washington and its allies are abandoning diplomacy and demanding that things be sorted out “on the battlefield.”
- In 2021, President Vladimir Putin suggested convening a summit of the UN Security Council permanent members. The leaders of China and France supported this initiative, but, unfortunately, it has not been brought to fruition. This issue is directly related to multilateralism. It’s not because the five powers have certain privileges over the rest, but precisely because of their special responsibility under the UN Charter for maintaining international peace and security. This is exactly what the imperatives of the UN-centric system, which is crumbling before our eyes as a result of the actions of the West, call for.
- Saying that Russia wanted to prevent NATO from expanding is such a beautiful figure of speech. It is not so much that we wanted or considered it necessary to prevent expansion, as that we were repeatedly promised it would not happen. We were lied to. Now everybody knows that. We were lied to in the same way as later, about the Minsk agreements and many other things.
- There are about 60 Russians in prison in the United States. In most cases, the charges are dubious. But not even once, when abducting our people from European or other countries, as the Americans are wont to do, have they deigned to comply with the bilateral consular convention, under which, if they have suspicions regarding Russian citizens, they should contact the Russian Federation and voice their concerns instead of abducting them (like in Hollywood films).
- I would like to let the reporters who are covering our meeting know that their colleagues from the Russian media were not allowed to come here. The US Embassy in Moscow cynically said it was ready to give them their passports with visas in them but only when our plane was taking off… Now that the West feels embarrassed by the existence of alternative views and the ability of all people on the planet and in their own countries to access facts that do not fit in into the Western narrative, it has launched a radical offensive on the media outlets that do not obey its orders.
- We have long come to the conclusion that we can only rely on ourselves and those who honor their agreements. We will never again rely on those who lie, who constantly deceive others and who try to gain illegitimate unilateral advantage.
- The sanctions against Russia are indeed something that nobody has ever seen or been able to imagine. But for us it is a resolved issue… We will develop our economy by using the material benefits which history and God have given to us in this world, rather than through any virtual services or the artificial domination of the dollar and dependence on it… We have all the capacities to be independent from this sort of behavior by our Western colleagues who have proven their complete inability to negotiate.
It was just a small part of Sergey Lavrov's really intense and tough speeches during the Russia-chaired UN Security Council meeting and in front of the press. For those interested in details, here are links to the full texts released by the Russian Foreign Ministry:
