At his Sept. 28 afternoon press conference, Sergey Lavrov was questioned about the previous day’s meeting of former U.S. President Donald Trump with Ukraine’s martial law chief Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and whether the Russian government put hope in Trump’s plan to end the war over Ukraine. “We will welcome any initiatives that will lead to the desired result. And there can be only one—a settlement of this problem based on the elimination of the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis.” NATO’s expansion and NATO’s seeking security for its members at the expense of security of the Russian Federation. “NATO’s plans included creating military bases in Crimea, on the Sea of Azov and placing their weapons there, which would threaten our state. We could not allow this.” And second, human rights: “I reminded the General Assembly today that the Russian language (from early childhood education right up to universities) has been legislatively exterminated in Ukraine. All Russian-language media have either been expelled from Ukraine or closed. In the cultural sphere, Russian-language books are being thrown out of libraries, as was the case in Hitler’s Germany. The canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been banned. Moreover, the Constitution of Ukraine still states that the state ensures the rights of Russians and other national minorities, including education and so on,” he said.
“We are not talking about the territories, but about the people who lived on these lands for centuries, developed them, built factories, roads, ships and much more. These are the true reasons.
“If D. Trump manages to cancel these laws we are talking about, then this will already be a step forward. It is very easy to do. Just take it and vote.”
Later in the same event, the “Friends of Peace” initiative of 13 nations led by China and Brazil was brought up: “Will Russia consider a peace plan from the Global South?” Lavrov’s response was, again, “Tackle the root causes” of the war.” These were, he said, NATO’s attempt to bring in Ukraine; and human rights, the “obliteration of Russian culture and language,” and the shut-down of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.
As to the “Friends of Peace” initiative itself, Lavrov said “We have discussed their plans. I am interested in the specific implementation. No one has told me what that is.”
