🎙 Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at the International Symposium 'Inventing the Future' (Moscow, November 4, 2024)

Key talking points:

• The global balance of power is undergoing transformative changes, driven by the objective trends in the world economy where the influence of the states of the Global South and the Global East, and indeed the World Majority, is growing.

• The economic resurgence enables an increasing number of non-Western nations to consistently bolster their sovereignty and to pursue a nationally oriented agenda in both foreign and domestic policy.

• Following the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, Washington and its allies, as part of the hybrid war they are waging, have launched an aggressive sanctions campaign against Russia. In the past decade, more than 21,000 sanctions have been imposed on our country across various domains, including economy, finance, trade, investment, media, culture, sport, and broadly, people-to-people contacts. These neo-colonial practices of the West primarily impact the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

• The adverse effect of this campaign against the undesired is that the West is undermining itself. <...> Western capitals have conveniently forgotten principles such as fair competition, the inviolability of property, the presumption of innocence, among others.

• When economic pressure fails to sway truly sovereign nations, the West, led by the United States, resorts to threats, blackmail, and even the use of force.

• It is sad to state that the ruling elites in many European countries evidently see no future for themselves in a multipolar world and are looking instead to the overseas hegemon to save them.

• The West is never satisfied with what they have. The war they started against Russia in Europe wasn’t enough.

• NATO now plans to conduct “defensive” operations in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait which lie thousands of miles away from its shores. Any right-minded observer knows that this path will lead nowhere.

• The obsession [of the West] with controlling absolutely everything has led to a rash of tragedies in the Middle East.

• This year, yet another independent UN member — Yemen — came under an aggression of the West [Anglo-Saxons]. The Syrian Arab Republic is still reeling from the shock of American interference. The United States has effectively blocked all multilateral mechanisms aimed at promoting the Palestinian-Israeli settlement.

• The serious challenges facing the world call for a united effort based on equality, rather than submission to those who seek global dominance.

• Establishing direct contacts and horizontal ties among all regional integration entities and with #BRICS which already includes the key countries that are regional leaders, is a significant step towards multipolarity.

• Another area of focus is the de-dollarisation of the international financial and economic system. I wish to remind you that the share of national currencies in Russia's transactions with the #SCO and #EAEU countries has surpassed 90%, and with the BRICS nations, we are approaching 65%. This figure continues to grow.

🇺🇳 People often ask: what will multipolarity rely on in terms of international legal foundation? There’s no need to look for new principles; they are all there in the UN Charter 👉 #UNCharterIsOurRules.

The problem is that our Western partners have never fully respected these principles.

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🎙 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's interview to Rossiya Segodnya news agency (November 5, 2024)

#BRICS

• The XVI BRICS Summit in Kazan came as a landmark international event not only of the year, but in recent history as well. Its success highlighted the futility of attempts to isolate Russia internationally.

• As we sensed during the Summit, [the creation of a payment network that is resistant to external risks] is what non-Western countries are increasingly interested in.

#MiddleEast

Since the onset of unprecedented crisis [in the Middle East] in October 2023, the BRICS countries have come together to support the rights of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.

• Shortly after the beginning of the Israeli operation in Gaza, we coordinated with our BRICS partners and other like-minded nations to submit a draft resolution to the UN Security Council, calling for an end to military actions and for unhindered humanitarian access to Gaza. However, this resolution was blocked by the United States and its allies.

#NATO

• If [long-range] weapons are employed [by the Kiev regime to attack the territory of Russia], it would mean that not only Ukraine but also NATO countries are openly fighting Russia.

• Our opponents should not disillusion themselves. In the event of aggression by NATO or its individual member states against our country, an appropriate response will ensue, in full compliance with Russia's sovereign right to self-defence and with the use of any means necessary to ensure its security, as stipulated in the UN Charter. And none of the instigators will be able to lie low, not across the Atlantic Ocean nor across the English Channel.

#Ukraine #UN

• Kiev continues to exert pressure on Antonio Guterres, demonstrating a blatant disregard for the UN Charter in an attempt to compel him and the entire UN Secretariat to align completely with Ukraine and its Western sponsors. This approach directly contravenes the constituent instrument of the Organisation, specifically paragraph 2 of Article 100 of the UN Charter, which prohibits any member state from attempting to influence the Secretary-General or other UN representatives.

#Transnistria #Moldova

• The situation surrounding Transnistria is complex. <...> I trust that the Moldovan authorities will exercise sufficient common sense to avoid ill-considered actions that could exacerbate tensions.

• There are suggestions that the regional context necessitates new dialogue platforms on the Transnistrian issue, questioning the value of the 5+2 format. We disagree with this view and believe that external assistance to facilitate direct dialogue between Chisinau and Tiraspol is essential.

#USA

• Washington continues to actively perpetuate its own myth of Russian interference in any election, whether "at home" or in any third country. If an election results in a victory for forces undesirable to the United States, Russia is immediately blamed for the "wrong" electoral choice of the voters.

• The Americans are attempting to attribute to us actions they themselves are engaged in. As the saying goes, God marks the crook.

#Georgia

• The United States and the EU are artificially trying to frame the current electoral process in Georgia as a strategic choice between Russia and the West, thereby attempting to present Georgia and other post-Soviet states with a false dilemma.

• In reality, it is a choice between sovereign development based on national interests and external governance, between traditional values and neo-liberal principles imposed from outside.

#SouthCaucasus

• We commend the significant progress made within the Azerbaijani-Armenian peace process.

• Unlike Western pseudo-mediators, we refrain from pressuring our partners into hastily concluding a peace treaty. We are convinced that a rushed peace, lacking comprehensive consideration of Baku and Yerevan's positions and the realities on the ground, would be counterproductive, creating additional risks of tension and potential conflict escalation.

Read in full

🎙 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

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📺 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.