Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov delivered remarks on Sept. 17 to a roundtable discussion of ambassadors which, he indicated, came from the Global Majority. “I would like to speak about the situation, its history and current developments from the perspective of the UN Charter, which all countries represented here have ratified and which formalized the universal principles of regulating interstate communication,” he said at the outset. “These principles include the sovereign equality of states, the non-use of force or threat of force, and respect for human rights regardless of race, sex, language or religion. All UN member states have subscribed to them.”
But what he termed “the Western minority” does not respect those principles and never has. “Even when the West cites some principles to justify its actions, it does so selectively, choosing principles that suit it in the given instance, and depending on its actions,” he said. He then went into an extensive discussion of a number of principles as enshrined in the UN Charter and how the Western minority has consistently ignored them. We will not summarize those details here, but his remarks are worth reading in full.
Lavrov cited two particularly outrageous statements: that of former EU chief of External Affairs Josep Borrell, “who described Europe as a garden and the rest of the world as a jungle. This mentality also underlies a statement by former U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, ‘if you’re not at the table, you’ll probably be on the menu.’ This is what they really think about the sovereign equality of states.”
What followed was a documentary history of the hypocrisy and double standards of the West when it comes to Russia and Ukraine, invoking some international principle when it suits its purposes to do so, but otherwise ignoring all of the principles established in international law.
Later, Lavrov argued that Ukraine is not about territories. “The West loves to claim: Here are territorial concessions Russia seeks for itself—this shall not come to pass,” he said. “These are not territories, not land. These are people’s fates—people whom the Kiev regime and its Western puppet-masters refuse to recognize as human beings. They seek to annihilate them by all means, including legislatively.”
Lavrov also addressed many of the accusations against Russia. “We are constantly being accused of refusing to talk,” he said. Russia talked in 2014-2015 but was deceived both times, he declared. He further noted that the only tools the other side is interested in using are sanctions and weapons.
As for the Europeans, Lavrov accused them of trying to “derail” U.S. President Donald Trump’s peacemaking efforts and dismissed their plans for putting troops in Ukraine. “We have already made it clear that they would be considered a legitimate military target. Europe is trying to promote security guarantees for Ukraine, which are being drafted without our participation and openly seek to create military threats to the Russian Federation.” Furthermore, he argued that Western troops deployed in Ukraine would be defending the Nazi regime in Kiev, and laws that in effect ban the Russian language in all spheres of life, and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
