March 26, 2025 (EIRNS)—Never one for mincing his words, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gave an interview to Channel One, Moscow on March 25. The full transcript is available on the Foreign Ministry site.
He began by summarizing the March 23-25 talks with the United States in Riyadh, which centered on reopening maritime traffic in the Black Sea, very directly: “We will need clear-cut guarantees” from the Americans. “I think our U.S. partners are receptive of this signal. They realize that Washington is the only party that can achieve positive results.” Lavrov said the Ukrainians lie constantly and are not trustworthy. And the Europeans are in total disagreement with the U.S. policy on Ukraine.
Lavrov said that the U.S. under Trump seeks dialogue. “Europe went down a completely different path. Like in the times of Napoleon and Hitler, the times of the Crimean War, it is eager to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on our country. As back in those years, almost all European countries with few exceptions are involved in the war effort. They are not yet physically fighting against us in Ukraine, but, without them, Ukraine would have been defeated, and the Nazi regime would have ceased to exist a long time ago.
“As they continue to flood Kiev with weapons, London and Paris—especially its two leaders, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron—backed up by a not too strong coalition of the Baltic states and a number of other countries, keep talking about shipping weapons to Ukraine as they did before, and are even talking about forming a ‘coalition of the willing’ and deploying a ‘peacekeeping mission’ or a ‘mission to ensure Ukraine’s security’ after the war is over…. However, these ‘dreamers’ make their abysmal political failure clear with every passing day. They are willing to not just ‘contain’ Russia, but to inflict a ‘defeat’ on it. Someone even said Vladimir Putin must be put to shame. Historians may correct me, but I have a sense that we have already seen this before with Napoleon and Hitler who entertained similar goals. To realize these goals, the whole Europe was conquered by Napoleon and Hitler. In this particular instance, the whole of Europe has been mobilized.”
Lavrov continued: “Europe, led by Germany—starting with Ursula von der Leyen and everyone else on that list—is beginning to seriously ponder remilitarization that will set them back outlandish amounts running into hundreds of billions of euros in a situation where its economy and social sphere are circling the drain after the Biden administration let them off the leash and sent them to wage war against the Russian Federation. They face decentralization and an inordinate number of ensuing problems. …
“Europe is trying to undermine Washington’s role in the Ukrainian settlement. It does not want to settle it by removing the root causes of the crisis. I have already mentioned these root causes: NATO, and the legal and physical destruction of the Russian speakers’ rights and everything associated with Russia.”
Lavrov then reported that the U.S. and Russia were even talking about Nord Stream: “However, will restoring normal energy supplies to Europe serve only the interests of the United States and Russia? I am referring to the Nord Stream pipelines. It would probably be interesting to see whether the United States uses the leverage it has on Europe to force it to stop buying Russian gas. This is when it all takes on a tint of surrealism. Today, Europe and its businesses are paying several times more for their energy compared to U.S. companies. At the same time, people like Robert Habeck, Ursula von der Leyen and Boris Pistorius have been saying that they would never allow the Nord Stream pipelines to be restored. These people are either sick or suicidal.
“There is nothing abnormal in having a conversation. As you know, and I would like to make this point once again, we discussed prospects for removing obstacles so that we can engage in mutually beneficial joint economic projects in energy, space, and the Arctic. Russia and the United States are Arctic nations, after all. That said, we do not have any illusions.”
