Watch - Powerful Speech by Sergey Lavrov at the UN Security Council

Russia is not the good guy but it speaks a lot of sense

Russia is most definitely not the good guy but its politicians and diplomats speak a lot of sense.

This may be part of Russia’s plan to destabilise the West but in such chaotic times, all voices and opinions should be heard. Banning Russian TV channels and censoring speeches will only ever make the situation worse. I have to report on this speech because the Western media won’t.

In this speech, delivered last week in New York, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Sergey Lavrov addresses the UN Security Council on the topic of “Effective multilateralism through the protection of the principles of the UN Charter”.

A transcription is below.

Dear Colleagues,

It is symbolic that we are holding our meeting on the International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace , which was included in the calendar of significant dates by the resolution of the UN General Assembly on December 12, 2018 .

In two weeks we will celebrate the 78th anniversary of the Victory in World War II. The defeat of Nazi Germany, to which my country made a decisive contribution with the support of the Allies, laid the foundation for the post-war international order. Its legal basis was the UN Charter , and our organization itself, embodying true multilateralism, has acquired a central, coordinating role in world politics.

For almost 80 years of its existence, the UN has been fulfilling the most important mission entrusted to it by the founding fathers. For several decades, the basic understanding of the five permanent members of the Security Council on the supremacy of the purposes and principles of the Charter guaranteed global security. And thus, it created the conditions for truly multilateral cooperation, regulated by the universally recognized norms of international law.

Now the UN-centric system is going through a deep crisis. The root cause was the desire of individual members of our organization to replace international law and the UN Charter with a kind of "order based on rules." Nobody saw these "rules", they were not the subject of transparent international negotiations. They are invented and applied in order to counteract the natural processes of formation of new independent development centers, which are the objective manifestation of multilateralism. They are being deterred by illegitimate unilateral measures, including cutting off access to modern technology and financial services, being forced out of supply chains, confiscating property, destroying competitors' critical infrastructure, and manipulating universally agreed rules and procedures. As a result, the fragmentation of world trade,

In a desperate attempt to assert its dominance through the punishment of recalcitrants, the United States has gone to the destruction of globalization, which for many years has been touted as the highest good of all mankind, serving the multilateral system of the world economy. Washington and the rest of the West that obeys it use their “rules” whenever it is necessary to justify illegitimate steps against those who build their policies in accordance with international law and refuse to follow the selfish interests of the “golden billion”. Those who disagree are put on the "black lists" according to the principle: "who is not with us is against us."

It has long become "uncomfortable" for Western colleagues to negotiate in universal formats, such as the UN. To ideologically substantiate the policy of undermining multilateralism, the theme of the unity of "democracies" as opposed to "autocracies" has been put into circulation. In addition to the "summits for democracy", whose composition is determined by the self-proclaimed hegemon, other "clubs of the elite" are being created that bypass the UN.

Summits for Democracy, the Alliance for Multilateralism, the Global Partnership for Artificial Intelligence, the Global Coalition for Media Freedom, the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace - all these and other non-inclusive projects are conceived in order to to undermine negotiations on relevant topics under the auspices of the UN, to impose non-consensual concepts and solutions that are beneficial to the West. First, they agree on something privately, in a narrow circle, and then they present these agreements as “the position of the international community”. Let's call a spade a spade: no one allowed the Western minority to speak on behalf of all mankind. We must behave decently and respect all members of the international community.

By imposing a "rules-based order", its authors arrogantly reject the key principle of the UN Charter - the sovereign equality of states. The quintessence of the "complex of exclusivity" was the "proud" statement of the head of the EU diplomacy, J. Borrell, that "Europe is a Garden of Eden, and the rest of the world is a jungle." I will also quote the NATO-EU Joint Statement of January 10 this year, which says: "The United West" will use all the economic, financial, political and - I pay special attention - military tools available to NATO and the EU to ensure the interests of "our one billion."

The "collective West" set out to reshape "for itself" the processes of multilateralism at the regional level. Not so long ago, the United States called for the revival of the Monroe Doctrine, demanded that Latin American countries limit ties with the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China. This line, however, ran into the determination of the countries of the region to strengthen their own multilateral structures, primarily the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), while defending their legitimate right to establish themselves as one of the pillars of the multipolar world. Russia fully supports such just aspirations.

Now significant forces of the United States and its allies have been deployed to undermine multilateralism in the Asia-Pacific region, where a successful open system of economic and security cooperation has developed around ASEAN for decades. This system made it possible to develop consensus approaches that would suit both the "ten" ASEAN members and their dialogue partners, including Russia, China, the United States, India, Japan, Australia, and the Republic of Korea, ensuring true inclusive multilateralism. By putting forward the Indo-Pacific Strategies, Washington set a course for the collapse of this established architecture.

At last year's summit in Madrid, NATO, which has always convinced everyone of its "peacefulness" and the exclusively defensive nature of its military programs, declared its "global responsibility", the "indivisibility of security" in the Euro-Atlantic and in the so-called Indo-Pacific region. That is, now the "line of defense" of NATO (as a defensive Alliance) is shifting to the western shores of the Pacific Ocean. Block approaches that undermine ASEAN-centric multilateralism are manifested in the creation of the AUKUS military alliance, into which Tokyo, Seoul and a number of ASEAN countries are being pushed. Under the auspices of the United States, mechanisms are being created to intervene in maritime security issues with an eye to ensuring the unilateral interests of the West in the waters of the South China Sea. J. Borrell, whom I have already quoted today, promised yesterday to send EU naval forces to this region. Doesn't hide that the goal of the Indo-Pacific Strategies is to contain the PRC and isolate Russia. This is how Western colleagues understand "effective multilateralism" in the Asia-Pacific region.

After the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the departure of the Soviet Union from the political scene, hope began to dawn on the realization of the principles of genuine, without dividing lines, multilateralism in the Euro-Atlantic space. But instead of unleashing the potential of the OSCE on an equal collective basis, the Western countries not only retained NATO, but, contrary to their sworn promises, set a course for the brazen absorption of the adjacent space, including territories where Russia's vital interests have always existed and will continue to exist. As the then US Secretary of State John Baker reported to President George W. Bush Sr.: "The main threat to NATO is the OSCE." I would add on my own that today both the UN and the requirements of its Charter also pose a threat to Washington's global ambitions.

Russia patiently tried to reach mutually beneficial multilateral agreements based on the principle of the indivisibility of security, which was solemnly proclaimed at the highest level in the documents of the OSCE summits in 1999 and 2010. It is directly and unambiguously written in black and white that no one should strengthen their security at the expense of the security of others, and no state, group of states or organization can be given primary responsibility for maintaining peace in the Organization's region or consider any part of the OSCE region as its sphere of influence.

NATO did not give a damn about these obligations of the presidents and prime ministers of its member countries and began to act exactly the opposite, proclaiming its “right” to any arbitrary action. A screaming example is the illegal bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, incl. with the use of depleted uranium warheads, which subsequently caused a surge in oncological diseases - both among Serbian citizens and among the NATO military. J. Biden was then a senator and spoke on cameras not without pride that he personally called for the bombing of Belgrade and the destruction of all bridges on the Drina River. Now US Ambassador to Belgrade K. Hill, through the media, is calling on the Serbs to "turn the page" and "stop being offended." The United States has accumulated a wealth of experience about "stop being offended." Japan has long been bashfully silent about who bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki after all. Not a word about it in school textbooks. Recently, at a meeting of the G-7, US Secretary of State E. Blinken pathetically lamented the suffering of the victims of those bombings, but failed to mention who organized them. Those are the "rules". And no one dares to argue.

Since World War II, there have been dozens of criminal Washington military adventures without any attempt to secure multilateral legitimacy. Why, if there are “rules” that no one knows?

The shameful invasion of Iraq by the US-led coalition in 2003 was carried out in violation of the UN Charter, just like the aggression against Libya in 2011. The result is the destruction of statehood, hundreds of thousands of deaths, rampant terrorism.

The U.S. intervention in the affairs of the post-Soviet states was a flagrant violation of the UN Charter. “Color revolutions” were organized in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, a bloody coup d’état in Kyiv in February 2014. In the same row, there are attempts to seize power by force in Belarus in 2020.

The Anglo-Saxons, who confidently led the entire West, not only justify all these criminal adventures, but also flaunt their line of "promoting democracy." But again according to its own “rules”: Kosovo – to recognize independence without any referendum; Crimea - do not recognize (although there was a referendum); Don't touch the Falklands/Malvinas, after all, there was a referendum there (as British Foreign Secretary John Cleverley recently stated). Funny.

In order to reject double standards, we call on everyone to be guided by the consensus agreements agreed within the framework of the 1970 UN Declaration on the Principles of International Law, which remains in force. It clearly proclaims the need to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of those states that "observe the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples and have governments representing all the people living in a given territory." It is obvious to any impartial observer that the Nazi Kiev regime can in no way be considered as representing the inhabitants of the territories who refused to accept the results of the bloody coup d'etat in February 2014 and against whom the putschists unleashed a war for this. Just as Pristina cannot claim to represent the interests of the Kosovo Serbs, to which the EU promised autonomy, just as Berlin and Paris promised special status to Donbass. The result of these promises is well known.

Our Secretary General A. Guterres said very well in his address to the “Second Summit for Democracy” on March 29 this year: “Democracy stems from the UN Charter. His first words - We the peoples - reflect the fundamental source of legitimate power: the consent of those who are ruled. Agreement. Let me emphasize this again.

To stop the war unleashed as a result of a coup in eastern Ukraine, multilateral efforts were made in the interests of a peaceful settlement, embodied in a Security Council resolution that unanimously approved the Minsk agreements. These agreements were trampled underfoot by Kiev and its Western masters, who themselves recently cynically and even proudly admitted that they never intended to fulfill them, but only wanted to buy time to pump Ukraine into weapons against Russia. Thus, a violation of the multilateral obligation of all UN members enshrined in its Charter, requiring all countries to comply with Security Council resolutions, was publicly proclaimed.

Our consistent actions to prevent confrontation, including the December 2021 proposals of Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree on multilateral mutual security guarantees, were arrogantly rejected. No one, we were told, can prevent NATO from taking Ukraine into its "embrace".

All the years after the coup d'état, despite our urgent demands, none of the Western masters of the Kiev regime pulled back either P.A. Poroshenko, or V.A. Zelensky, or the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, when the Russian language, education, in general, Russian cultural and religious traditions are in direct violation of the constitution of Ukraine and universal conventions on the rights of national minorities. In parallel, the Kiev regime introduced the theory and practice of Nazism legislatively and in everyday life. Without embarrassment, he organized magnificent torchlight processions in the center of Kyiv and other cities under the banner of SS divisions. The West was silent and "rubbed its hands."

Today it is clear to everyone, although not everyone is talking about it out loud: this is not about Ukraine at all, but about how international relations will continue to be built: through the formation of a stable consensus based on a balance of interests, or through aggressive and explosive promotion of hegemony. It is impossible to consider the "Ukrainian issue" in isolation from the geopolitical context. Multilateralism presupposes respect for the UN Charter in all the interconnectedness of its principles, as mentioned above. Russia has clearly explained the tasks it is pursuing as part of a special military operation: to eliminate the threats created by NATO for years to our security directly on our borders and to protect people who have been deprived of their rights proclaimed by multilateral conventions, to protect them from direct threats of extermination and expulsion publicly declared by the Kiev regime from the territories where their ancestors lived for centuries. We honestly said what and for whom we are fighting.

Against the backdrop of the hysteria whipped up by the United States and the European Union, I would like to ask in contrast: what did Washington and NATO do in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya? Were there threats to their security, culture, religion, languages? What multilateral norms were they guided by, declaring Kosovo's independence in violation of OSCE principles, destroying the stable economically prosperous states of Iraq and Libya, located ten thousand miles from the American coast?

The multilateral system was threatened by the shameless attempts of Western states to subjugate the secretariats of the UN and other international institutions. There has always been a quantitative imbalance in favor of the West, but until recently the Secretariat tried to remain neutral. Today, this imbalance has taken on a chronic character, and secretarial staff are increasingly allowing themselves politically motivated behavior inappropriate for international officials. We call on the esteemed Secretary General A. Guterres to ensure that all of his employees comply with the requirements of impartiality in accordance with Article 100 of the UN Charter. We also call on the leadership of the Secretariat, when preparing initiative documents on the aforementioned topics of “common agenda” and “new agenda for peace”, to be guided by the need to suggest to member countries ways to find consensus, a balance of interests, and not play along with neoliberal concepts. Otherwise, instead of a multilateral agenda, there will be a deepening of the split between the “golden billion” and the world majority.

When talking about multilateralism, one cannot limit oneself to the international context, just as one cannot ignore this international context when talking about democracy. There should be no double standards. Both multilateralism and democracy must be respected both within states and in their relations with each other. Everyone knows that the West, while imposing its understanding of democracy on others, does not want the democratization of international relations based on respect for the sovereign equality of states. But now, by promoting his “rules” on the international stage, he is also “stifling” multilateralism and democracy at home, using increasingly repressive tools to suppress any dissent – ​​just as the criminal Kiev regime does with the support of its “teachers” - The United States and its allies.

Dear colleagues, once again, as in the years of the Cold War, we have approached a dangerous, and perhaps even more dangerous, line. The situation is aggravated by the loss of faith in multilateralism, when the financial and economic aggression of the West destroys the benefits of globalization, when Washington and its allies abandon diplomacy and demand a showdown "on the battlefield." All this - within the walls of the UN, created to prevent the horrors of war. The voices of responsible, sensible forces, calls to show political wisdom, to revive the culture of dialogue are drowned out by those who have taken a course to undermine the fundamental principles of interstate communication. We must all return to our roots - observance of the purposes and principles of the UN Charter in all their diversity and all their interconnection.

Genuine multilateralism at the present stage requires the adaptation of the UN to the objective trends in the formation of a multipolar architecture of international relations. It is necessary to speed up the reform of the Security Council by expanding the representation in it of the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The current exorbitant over-representation of the West in this main body of the UN undermines the principle of multilateralism.

At the initiative of Venezuela, the Group of Friends in Defense of the UN Charter was created. We call on all states that respect the Charter to join it. It is also important to use the constructive potential of the BRICS and SCO. The EAEU, the CIS, and the CSTO are ready to make their contribution. We are in favor of using the initiative of the positions of regional associations of the countries of the Global South. The G20 can also play a useful role in maintaining multilateralism if Western participants stop distracting their colleagues from topical issues on its agenda in the hope of muting the theme of their responsibility for the accumulation of crisis phenomena in the world economy.

It is our common duty to preserve the United Nations as a hard-won example of multilateralism and coordination of world politics. The key to success is working together, renouncing pretensions to anyone's exclusivity and - I repeat once again - respect for the sovereign equality of states. This is what we all signed up to when we ratified the UN Charter.

In 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed to convene a summit of permanent members of the UN Security Council. The leaders of China and France supported this initiative, however, unfortunately, it has not yet been implemented. This topic is directly related to multilateralism: not because the five powers have certain privileges over the rest, but precisely because of their special responsibility under the UN Charter for the maintenance of international peace and security. This is exactly what the imperatives of the UN-centric system now require, which, as a result of the actions of the West, is crumbling before our eyes.

Concern about this state of affairs is increasingly heard in the numerous initiatives and ideas of the countries of the Global South: from East and Southeast Asia, the Arab and generally Muslim world, to Africa and Latin America. We appreciate their sincere desire to ensure the settlement of any contemporary problems through honest collective work aimed at agreeing on a balance of interests based on the sovereign equality of states and the indivisibility of security.

In conclusion, I would like to address all the journalists who are now covering our meeting. Your colleagues from the Russian media were not allowed to come here. The US Embassy in Moscow mockingly announced its readiness to issue them passports with visas at the moment when our plane took off. Therefore, a huge request to you: to compensate for the absence of Russian journalists. Try to make your reports in such a way as to convey to a worldwide audience the full versatility of judgments and assessments.