#Announcement

🗓 The 31st OSCE Ministerial Council meeting (Ministerial Council) will be held in Valletta, Republic of Malta, on December 5-6, with the participation of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. <...>

During the forthcoming Ministerial Council meeting, the Russian delegation will focus on assessing the possibility of overcoming the organisation’s crisis on the eve of its 50th anniversary.

The Russian delegation looks forward to having a candid discussion of the backlog of issues and ways to resolve them under fundamentally new conditions, while respecting the interests of all participating states free from the teacher-disciple approach, and so on.

☝️ Special attention will be brought to the failure to issue visas to members of the Russian delegation who planned to attend various OSCE events, including the upcoming Ministerial Council meeting. Cancelling, right before the event, a visa that had been earlier issued by the Maltese Chairpersonship to Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, allegedly "due to circumstances beyond their control," was unprecedented.

❗️The current institutional crisis within the OSCE was triggered by the destructive actions of a number of Western countries that are using this platform to promote their own agenda in disregard of the fundamental principles underlying the Organisation’s functioning, which must be abided by all participating states regardless of their membership in other international entities. Since 2022, the Ukrainianisation of the OSCE’s agenda has paralysed its activities across the three security dimensions, namely, political and military, economic and environmental, and humanitarian. <...>

🇷🇺 At the meetings of the OSCE’s decision-making bodies - the Permanent Council and the Forum for Security Cooperation - Russian representatives have been regularly raising the most pressing OSCE-related issues, such as combatting terrorism and drug trafficking, protecting traditional values, countering manifestations of neo-fascism and neo-Nazism, preventing the falsification of history, protecting the rights of ethnic minorities and believers, and ensuring access to information. The participating states must unite their efforts in these areas.

The Russian Federation regularly provides objective updates to the participating states’ delegations about the war crimes committed by the Kiev regime, the ongoing all-out campaign in Ukraine to cancel the Russian language and Russian culture, the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and reprisals against the national media. <...>

The OSCE’s specific executive bodies, such as the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM), and the Representative on Freedom of the Media, continue to see major complaints coming their way. These institutions have repeatedly manifested their political bias. The ODIHR stands out distinctly in this context, as it is known for conducting openly biased monitoring of election processes in the countries that lie “east of Vienna” and making advance preparations for “anticipated” conclusions on their outcomes. The Representative on Freedom of the Media is also known for practicing double standards and conspicuous silence when it comes to unfair treatment of non-Western media within the Organisation’s space. Russia does not see the HCNM paying proper attention to matters of oppressing ethnic minorities.

👉 Given the current state of the OSCE, we can hardly talk about it playing any meaningful role amid the ongoing profound reformatting of the world. The organisation would undoubtedly benefit from close cooperation with formats such as the #SCO, #BRICS and the #CIS, which are operating based on fundamentally new approaches.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will hold bilateral meetings with foreign ministers from a number of countries on the sidelines of the Ministerial Council in Valletta.

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🎙 Excerpts from President of Russia Vladimir Putin's remarks at the Plenary Session of the AI Journey international conference

💬 Vladimir Putin: Russia’s experience in the practical implementation of artificial intelligence is needed in various countries. Today, nations in Asia, Africa, Latin America, as well as our partners from the #CIS, the Eurasian Economic Union, the #SCO, #BRICS, and other associations are forming promising economic sectors and introducing innovations.

Russia unquestionably shares and supports their commitment to developing, and also supports domestic companies in creating AI-based products and services both for themselves and for the whole world.

We will provide the countries of the Global South and East with consultative and technical assistance in the domain of artificial intelligence. Of course, we hope that we will also borrow our partners’ achievements and implement joint projects based on equal access to knowledge, technology, and scientific achievements. This priority is enshrined in the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence.

We are ready to help create and apply generative models not only in Russian, but also in other languages. As I have said, these systems’ algorithms must be trusted, that is, clear, open, and unbiased. They must also be developed considering cultural and national peculiarities of each civilisation with its history, identity and traditions, which we, in Russia, deeply respect.

❗️I am confident that an international alliance of AI National associations and development institutions of the BRICS countries and other interested states will give a boost to this cooperation. This Alliance will be launched at the AI Journey conference today.

I hope that new foreign participants, including my colleagues, leaders of state, will attend this event.

🎙 Briefing by Russia's Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (January 31, 2025)

🔹 Tragedy in the airspace over Washington
🔹 Ukrainian crisis
🔹 Kiev regime crimes
🔹 Anniversary of breaking the Siege of Leningrad
🔹 80th Anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp by the Red Army
🔹 80th Anniversary of the Yalta Conference
🔹 International Holocaust Remembrance Day
🔹 Falsification of history
🔹 Further facts about the crimes of Japanese militarism
🔹 Situation in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

📰 Read
📺 Watch

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#USA #PotomacRiverTragedy

In the evening of January 29, a passenger plane and a military helicopter collided in mid-air over Washington, killing 67 people. We express our deep condolences to the victims’ families and the American people.

#FalsificationOfHistory

The collective West is bent on erasing all positive developments from historical memory and smearing the Red Army rather than preserving memory and thanking their liberators [of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp], our soldiers, who defeated the Third Reich.

Zelensky’s appearance in Oswiecim sparked an outrage among Poland’s religious Jewish community. Poland’s Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich said its representatives refused to go to an event attended by a dictator who has domesticated Nazis.

#KievRegimeCrimes #NeoNazism

The modern-day Bandera followers are trying to keep up with their ideological cult figures and continue to terrorise civilians and to attack civilian infrastructure in the Russian regions.

The representatives of the Kiev regime are neo-Nazis, not only in relation to the Russian-speaking population, but also to all citizens of Ukraine. Genocide of its own population is underway in Ukraine, and it is committed by those whom the people of Ukraine voted for as their leaders.

The Kiev regime is doing its utmost to erase the memory of the liberator soldiers, who were Russians and people of other Soviet nationalities, including many Ukrainians. Nationalists are maniacally demolishing the monuments and graves of Red Army soldiers throughout Ukraine, or rather in what’s left of Ukraine due to actions of the Kiev regime and its Western sponsors.

The Kiev regime continues to deride the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The Westerners have always been behind the lawlessness and legal chaos in Ukraine. They use the dirtiest methods to destroy Orthodoxy in Ukraine, distort it beyond recognition, and replace concepts.

#Sanctions #USA

Western sanctions and weaponising reserve currencies by Washington and its satellites have undermined the international players’ confidence in the global financial architecture based on the dominance of the US dollar and the euro, which has led to an increase in the share of alternative monetary units in international payments and savings.

Acting as part of associations such as #BRICS, the #SCO, #ASEAN, and on a bilateral footing, member countries are stepping up the dialogue on using national currencies in mutual trade and taking steps to build the necessary payment and settlement infrastructure that would be independent of Western countries.

#GreatPatrioticWar #YaltaConference

On February 4, 1945, a conference with the participation of the three Allied leaders opened in Livadia Palace outside Yalta.

Thanks largely to the efforts of Soviet diplomacy, the decisions adopted at the Yalta Conference had a great influence on bringing an early end to the Second World War and the post-war organisation of the world, and became an integral part of the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations.

#DRC

The security situation in [in the Democratic Republic of the Congo] once again deteriorated this January as the March 23 Movement (M23) intensified its offensive. On January 27, M23 captured Goma, the administrative centre of the North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is home to more than one million civilians.