Lavrov Further Defines Russia in Ukraine

Yesterday, 12 September, Russia held another ambassadorial roundtable on the settlement of the situation around Ukraine, the fifth on this specific topic. Lavrov detailed Russia’s position over almost 50-minutes of monologue. In his intro, Lavrov notes there are similar events happening elsewhere but of a much different quality, which IMO ought to be noted for its importance. Lavrov’s comments were made prior to the speech by Putin and the answer he supplied that’re both covered in y previous report. Also of note, Lavrov was the first speaker at today’s Security Council meeting where he likely provided a report about this event. I again remind readers that Russia’s government is a Team operation, not a one-man decides it all realm, although Putin certainly is more than a figurehead. Now for Lavrov:

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!

This is not the first time we have met (1, 2, 3, 4). The response of the diplomatic missions represented here to such briefings has been very positive.

We are interested in our position reaching your capitals. We regularly present it at the highest level. President of Russia Vladimir Putin gives our assessment and explains in detail what is happening and how Russia is reacting to it. You have the opportunity to analyse both the Foreign Ministry's assessments and the opinions of our political scientists. Sometimes our friends have specific questions. We are ready to clarify them in such friendly discussions.

We know that similar events are being held in other capitals, including Kiev and NATO capitals. But they are of a closed nature, since they promote ideas that, apparently, are not quite decent to defend in the public space. We have no such fear. We have nothing to be ashamed of.

Today we would like to provide additional information on how the war unleashed by the West against the Russian Federation by the hands and bodies of the Ukrainian regime is unfolding. It would not have been possible without the supply of Ukraine with a huge amount of Western weapons, ammunition, and military equipment.

There are many unfortunate aspects to this situation. One of them is the direct participation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with the direct support of the West in large-scale terrorist actions. The number of targeted attacks on civilian objects and shelling of civilians is sharply increasing every day. We are seeing all this as part of the invasion of the Ukrainian armed forces with terrorist goals in the Kursk region, from where they are now being confidently squeezed out and will be squeezed out. There can be no doubt. For more than a year, terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure and civilians in the Belgorod and Bryansk regions have been going on. Periodic launches of attack drones are also carried out in other border regions of the Russian Federation.

I repeat that it is the West that supplies Ukraine with offensive weapons that are used in terrorist attacks. At the same time, by transferring weapons, the Westerners immediately give the Ukrainian regime "carte blanche" to use them, while stating that from the moment the border of Ukraine is crossed and accepted by representatives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, it ceases to be Western and becomes Ukrainian, and they can do whatever they want with it. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell and other EU and NATO representatives have repeatedly stated that Ukraine can do whatever it wants with these weapons. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy arrived in Ukraine yesterday. Understandable staging. We have no doubt that the decision to lift restrictions on the use of long-range guns to attack the territory of the Russian Federation was made a long time ago. Now they are trying to make it more beautiful, more decent, more elegant in the public space.

We understand that the "collective West" called this war against Russia existential. The goal is to inflict a "strategic defeat" on us. Let me remind you that other "great" figures in the history of international relations, including Napoleon and Hitler, set themselves the same goals. It is not for nothing that many in foreign politics, who keep their senses, periodically remind their more zealous colleagues that forgetting these lessons of history would be disastrous for themselves.

Now the following scheme is in effect. This is open information. NATO, in addition to increasingly long-range weapons, is transferring its military space intelligence data to Kyiv. They are used to locate and hit targets deep inside Russian territory. These targets are residential buildings, life support facilities, energy, industrial infrastructure, social facilities (schools, kindergartens, clinics). Moreover, Western military specialists literally manually coordinate strikes with high-precision weapons against purely civilian targets. The compilation and loading of flight tasks into the system is carried out by instructors and representatives of those NATO countries that supply these weapons to Kyiv. Our experts are sure that otherwise nothing can be done with these complex weapons. This can only be done by specialists who have been working with them for a long time and know how to do it. It is impossible to teach this in a few weeks.

The Ukrainian special services, using such services of their Western patrons, are simultaneously actively involving radical Islamists in terrorist activities. We thank all those present here for their condolences in connection with the terrorist attack on March 22 in the Crocus City Hall concert hall, which claimed the lives of 145 people. The ongoing investigation has already revealed evidence of the involvement of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine in its preparation. In particular, the escape routes of the killers through Russian-Ukrainian territory were carefully planned. This is not an isolated case when the Ukrainian special services involved radical Islamists in the preparation and organization of a terrorist attack.

There is now information that Ukrainian intelligence emissaries are in the Idlib de-escalation zone in the Syrian Arab Republic and are recruiting Jabhat al-Nusra militants (now called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) in order to involve them in their planned new heinous operations. They are already casting their eyes further south, to the Sahara-Sahel zone of the African continent, where, together with recruited extremists, they carry out terrorist attacks on the armed forces of the governments of a number of countries.

After the Bürgenstock conference (I know that some of you were represented at this forum), a decision was made that was not widely advertised. But it is that it is necessary to move at least on some points of the "Vladimir Zelensky formula."

Vladimir Zelensky's formula is the Bible, the catechism, the Koran, and any holy holy book from which one cannot deviate a single step. This is how it is presented by the head of the Kiev regime, Vladimir Zelensky, and his Western patrons.

As a follow-up to the Bürgenstock Process, a meeting of the working group on energy security was held at the end of August this year. It discussed a document that I was familiarizing myself with. It stated that everything must be done to ensure that civilian energy infrastructure is not attacked. It referred to the resolutions of the UN General Assembly, condemned Russia for what it is doing in Ukraine. These resolutions, which were not voted on by consensus, had the right words about the need to protect civilian energy infrastructure. The event held in August of this year reproduces all this and contains a call not to attack the energy infrastructure, as well as to restore it in Ukraine, which was destroyed.

In this regard, I would like to say that our armed forces are hitting only those infrastructure facilities that are directly related to the organisation of combat operations and on which the action of Ukrainian troops on the line of contact, and even more so inside the territory of the Russian Federation, I am referring to the Kursk Region. But all those who want to help Ukraine maintain energy supply do not pay attention to the fact that Kiev was the first to act on the line of contact against civilian energy facilities.

Long before we chose our current strategy and tactics on the battlefield, the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant was blown up. The hydroelectric power plant itself was destroyed. 200 people became victims. We consider this to be a direct terrorist act.

Nuclear terrorism has become the main hallmark of Ukraine. You are probably following reports of attacks and attempted strikes on the Leningrad, Kalinin, Kursk, Zaporozhye nuclear power plants.

The Zaporizhzhia plant was literally on the verge of disaster when the armed forces of Ukraine shelled it on August 11 of this year. The fire severely damaged one of the two cooling towers of the power plant. This is a serious situation. The West looked at her lightly. Although the actions of their puppets can eventually lead to a catastrophe similar to Chernobyl. And Europe will be the first to suffer.

The situation in the area of the Kursk nuclear power plant is also very tense. During his visit to this plant on August 27, IAEA Director General Grossi personally saw the presence of traces of criminal attacks by Ukrainian drones. At the same time, Kiev does not hide the fact that they purposefully attacked the Kursk nuclear power plant. The materials that we have prepared for you contain information about what is happening in the Kursk region and other Russian regions, where terrorist attacks by the Ukrainian regime are regularly carried out. There is evidence of the shooting of civilians, obstruction of the evacuation of citizens, the murder of doctors and ambulance workers, volunteers, rescuers, and mass looting.

If you don't mind, I would like to ask you to view a 5-minute video. This is the shooting of prisoners of war, prohibited by all conceivable conventions.

I mentioned that the Ukrainian regime is actively using terrorist instincts abroad, in particular on the African continent. Ukrainian officials, the press secretary of the Ukrainian intelligence service, the Ukrainian ambassador to Senegal openly said that at the end of July this year, when there was an attack on a convoy of government troops in northern Mali, Kiev assisted the militants who carried out this attack.

Mali and Niger immediately broke off diplomatic relations with Kyiv. And these actions were condemned by many African countries. Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have all submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council demanding that it call on Ukraine to stop supporting terrorism in Africa, especially in the Sahel regions.

Speaking about the need to ensure the security of critical energy infrastructure, we cannot ignore the "spectacle" that is being played out in connection with the terrorist explosions of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines organized two years ago. I cannot fail to mention this.

We have sent numerous requests to Germany for legal assistance under international law. They must be answered. But none of them was fulfilled. We also received no answers from Denmark and Sweden, where we also applied with official documents. They also said that national investigations were curtailed.

The investigations that are currently underway in Germany are absolutely non-transparent. Some time ago, reports appeared in the European press, including in the German press, about how this terrorist attack was organized: five people were sitting, drinking, joking and suddenly decided: why not blow up the Nord Streams? They had the skills of divers. They allegedly hired a boat. Six people. They sailed on this boat to the place where the Nord Streams passed, went down, put explosives and blew it up. If anyone can believe in this version, it is only those who are afraid of the truth and want to shield the criminal Kiev regime in every possible way. We will not leave this topic. We will continue to seek a transparent investigation, which is being blocked in every possible way by the United States, Britain and their allies. They say they have full confidence in the national investigation and that it is enough.

When the presidential elections were held in Venezuela and the results were announced, according to which President Nicolas Maduro was re-elected for another term, none other than Berlin, together with other members of the European Union, officially questioned the results and demanded an investigation into how the elections were organized. That is, the elections in Venezuela across the ocean from Germany arouse interest and a demand for an investigation. And the fact that a critically important facility was blown up on the territory of Germany, designed to ensure further well-being in socio-economic and industrial terms, is shamefully "swept under the carpet". Because you cannot "offend" the United States and everything that the United States has told you, you are obliged to fulfill. It is sad that Europe and its former leader, Germany, have completely resigned themselves to their subordinate position. We strive to ensure that all these facts are investigated honestly and are not swept under the carpet.

The Kyiv regime is also terrorizing its western neighbors. I am sure that some Ukrainian trace will certainly be found and invented in the Nord Stream explosions. What the Ukrainians are doing on their own is blackmail against Slovakia and Hungary, which take a balanced position and are not "running" after President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen under the banner of "destroy Russia."

A month ago, Ukraine stopped the transit of Russian oil through the southern branch of the Druzhba oil pipeline to Slovakia and Hungary. She took it and stopped it. Although there are contracts, obligations. It is clear that this was not without the "advice" of Kiev's Western curators to put pressure on Budapest and Bratislava in connection with their independent position, which involves refusing to pump Ukraine with modern weapons. Political scientists in these countries honestly explain to their voters what is happening in Ukraine. Recently, Prime Minister of Slovakia R. Fico personally firmly said that it is unacceptable that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are fighting under Nazi standards, with Nazi chevrons. In general, Nazi instincts can be seen not only externally on their clothes, on their camouflage, but also in the nature of their actions. Including what you have just seen when prisoners are shot at point-blank range blindfolded and their hands tied. In response to the Slovak Prime Minister's assessments, a representative of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry tried to accuse Mr Fico of misleading the "honest and noble Ukrainian servicemen" whom former President Vladimir Zelensky had just "advertised" on the screen as a role model for all the armies of the world for their humanism and attentive and almost paternal attitude towards prisoners. You have just been able to see what is really happening.

The regime in Kiev continues to terrorize its own citizens. On August 20 of this year, a law was adopted that actually bans (with a short delay of several months) the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This is already the "final chord" in the persecution of the canonical Church. For more than one year, radical thugs have been attacking churches, beating parishioners and priests. More than once, the authorities have forcibly taken away the property of the UOC and transferred it to the use of the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine, artificially created in 2018 by President Petr Poroshenko. He specially flew to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (he calls himself Constantinople, but "works" in Istanbul). This "operation" was organized with the direct support of U.S. representatives, including their special envoy for religious freedom. In order to have freedom of religion, he forced the Ukrainian president, together with the "patriarch" living in the Phanar, to start a movement to ban and exterminate the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. They have created an artificial structure that is now barely gaining a small number of supporters. If the Ukrainian people are resisting, then it is necessary to completely ban the canonical church. Priests were imprisoned and deprived of citizenship. The Kyiv regime is fighting everything related to the Russian world.

Russian-speaking, ethnic Russians living in Ukraine, who were citizens of Ukraine, are the most discriminated group. Not only them. Belarusians and Ukrainians who want to speak Russian are also discriminated against. There are many of them there - Armenians, Jews, Greeks and representatives of other national minorities.

Now laws have been adopted according to which it is forbidden to teach children in their native language, to speak it in almost all spheres and areas of life. It is excluded from television, radio broadcasting, literature is withdrawn from libraries, processed and destroyed. For communicating in a language other than Ukrainian, fines are threatened. There are dismissals from work. Harassment by nationalists with the use of force is far from rare. All these measures are taken with particular frenzy against the Russian national minority. Although the Constitution of Ukraine still states that the Ukrainian state guarantees Russians (separately mentioned) and other national minorities all their rights, including educational, linguistic, cultural, etc.

Ukraine is being dragged into the European Union with great difficulty, realizing that it not only does not meet the criteria, but is pursuing a diametrically opposite line. The European Union in the adopted "road map" for Ukraine wrote that it must ensure the implementation of the provisions of its Constitution on national minorities. I believe that this is a bold step on the part of the European Union, because they hit the nail on the head, at the very heart of what the Kiev regime is doing.

Despite terrorist actions, the ban and extermination of everything Russian in Ukraine, discrimination against other national minorities, the West, the United States and the European Union continue to pump huge money into this war, which they are waging with Ukrainian "hands" against the Russian Federation. Since February 2022, Washington has provided Ukraine with $175 billion. This is three times more than Washington spent on foreign aid to all states in fiscal year 2024.

The same figures characterize the assistance of the European Union. It transferred more than 80 billion euros to the Kyiv regime in the two years after February 2022. And 110 billion euros are provided for assistance to developing and least developed countries for 8 years, which is several times less than the "clients" of the West who have settled in Kyiv.

There is a lot of talk now about the need to comply with international law. Many initiatives have been put forward in this regard, including by the countries that are represented here. Everyone talks about international law, stressing that any settlement must be based on international law and the UN Charter, and above all, on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.

Appealing to international law is not a new method of the Kiev authorities. They have been trying to formulate accusations against us for a long time. They say that Russia violated the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 and therefore our state, as one of the four signatory countries that guaranteed the security and territorial integrity of Ukraine, was the first to violate international law.

We began to hear such statements after the coup d'état in February 2014. We note that Kiev grossly violated its obligations when it carried out a coup d'état organised by the United States and the United Kingdom. It was not accepted and recognized by a large part of the Ukrainian population, which declared its independence and refused to obey the putschists. The putschists organized an anti-terrorist operation against them. You know all this. But the point is that when the coup d'état was organised in 2014, the territorial integrity of Ukraine was violated. This does not need to be explained to any lawyer.

Second, Kiev has for many years introduced Ukrainian ultra-nationalism into the country's daily life and discriminated against numerous national minorities. The Joint Statement of the leaders of Russia, Great Britain, the United States and Ukraine at the signing of the Budapest Memorandum notes that the memorandum was concluded in the context of reaffirming all the obligations undertaken within the framework of the CSCE "to counter the growth of aggressive nationalism and chauvinism."

This is also not our fault. It was not us who "led" Ukraine from the path of neutrality and rejection of bloc status. The only thing is that the Budapest Memorandum guaranteed Ukraine (as well as any other non-nuclear state) that the nuclear states that signed the memorandum would not use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. There are no other obligations. The second time this was recorded when the Ukrainian declaration of independence, which is still in force, solemnly promised to remain a non-aligned state – not to join NATO or other military-political blocs.

We have never committed ourselves to continue to implement the Budapest Memorandum regardless of the coup d'état and the drastic change in Ukraine's practical actions on the European continent and, most importantly, in relation to the Russian Federation.

We are committed to resolving the crisis. President of Russia Vladimir Putin has repeatedly confirmed this, including at the Eastern Economic Forum, recalling the statement he made in his speech at the Foreign Ministry on June 14. In turn, we do not see a readiness for honest diplomacy.

I have already mentioned the Bürgenstock Trial today. The West is trying in every possible way to keep Ukraine within the framework of the ultimatum. As our Arab friends say, there is no God but Allah. There are no negotiating proposals in the West except for the "Vladimir Zelensky formula." Such a comparison is not very correct, but it is necessary to understand how they cling to this unacceptable and dead-end document and how they are trying in every possible way to "drag" as many countries of the Global South as possible into these meetings around the "Vladimir Zelensky formula" and its individual parts.

On September 11, another "gathering" took place in Kiev – the fourth summit of the Crimean Platform. A joint statement was adopted as a result. They did not see anything new in it.

The organisers of the Bürgenstock summit are trying to integrate the "Crimean Platform" into the "Bürgenstock" or "Copenhagen" process, and on this basis put together an anti-Russian coalition.

Speaking yesterday at this platform, Vladimir Zelensky said: "We are tirelessly bringing closer the time when Ukrainian Crimea and other temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine will be liberated from the occupiers, and we will be able to fully engage in the reintegration of the peninsula." He did not decipher what "reintegration" is, but he has spoken about it more than once before. His entourage also spoke about how they see the "reintegration" of Crimea and other territories that have turned their backs on them.

Long before our special military operation on August 5, 2021, Vladimir Zelensky said in an interview that was widely distributed: "If you live in Ukraine, including the occupied territories of Donbass, and consider yourself a Russian and a part of Russian culture, then it is a big mistake to stay there. Without Ukraine, there will be no civilization on this territory (in Crimea and Donbass)..." Does it remind you of anything? In the 1930s, the "superior race" proclaimed that it was the only race that could bring civilization to the people of Europe. And here, then, without Ukraine, there will be no civilization in Crimea and Donbass?

Vladimir Zelensky continued: "For the future of your children and grandchildren, if you love Russia and have been in Ukraine all your life and felt that you are involved in Russian culture, you must understand that for the sake of your children and grandchildren, it is time to wrap up your things and leave these territories for Russia." Ethnic cleansing of pure water.

Thank God, without serious military clashes, they are trying to slowly squeeze the Serbs out of Kosovo using various administrative methods. The Nazis, who are now settled in Kyiv, had the same plan.

Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the President's Office, said on May 19, 2022 that he was in favour of forgetting the word 'Russians' in the Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions."

On November 20, 2023, Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Roman Stefanchuk said that there are no Russian national minorities in Ukraine at the moment and there cannot be. This is the chairman of the parliament, who should be the guardian of the Constitution together with the president. The Constitution, as I have already said, contains guarantees of the rights of Russians and other national minorities.

On June 24, the same Mikhail Podolyak told how they would "reintegrate" Crimea: "There are no and cannot be any 'beaches', 'tourist zones' and other fictitious signs of 'peaceful life' in Crimea. That is, there can be no civilian objects in Crimea. According to him, Crimea is a large military camp and ammunition depot. Allegedly, there are a huge number of military targets in Crimea, which the Russians are trying to disguise as civilians. And the civilians living in Crimea themselves are nothing more than civilian occupiers.

The leaders of the Nazi coup in 2014 said about the same thing: people who rejected their anti-constitutional coup were declared terrorists and launched an anti-terrorist operation against them. In the same way, now, killing civilians, attacking schools, hospitals, administrative institutions in the Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk regions with planes and artillery, they are killing civilians under the slogan "Death to the Russians."

A couple of years ago, there was an episode that we discussed with our Kazakh friends. There was Ukrainian Ambassador to Astana Pavel Vrublevsky, who, in an interview (it was broadcast), said in response to one of the questions that their main goal was to kill as many Russians as possible now, the less their children would have to kill later.

Everyone who wants to understand what the leaders of the Kiev regime are preparing for the residents of Crimea and other regions that they want (as they say) to "regain" the "1991 borders" – they are preparing what I have just said. They do not hide it. If they say this, then they will carry out their ideas even more cruelly than it sounds. You can be sure of that.

Against this background, Vladimir Zelensky said yesterday at the Crimean Platform that the citizens of Ukraine who are now in the occupied territories remain the most valuable for his regime. I don't know how to feel about all this. [My Emphasis]

As early as the fourth paragraph, Lavrov makes it clear Russia’s sees this as a conflict started by the West/NATO, which means at the behest of the Outlaw US Empire. It should also be noted that nowhere do I recall any Western politico explaining why this war against Russia is “existential.” Russia’s similar POV is very understandable based on centuries of western behavior. and IMO is the only one having validity. The video of Russian POWs being executed in imbedded within the main video and begins at the 15:25 mark. (The video loads very slowly for me and I didn’t view in completely.) Lavrov’s not a lawyer, but he sets out Russia’s case rather well. It’s beyond clear that Outlaw US Empire/NATO/EU collectively violated Ukraine’s territory with the 2014 Coup from which all atrocities have flowed. I recall a judgement from Nuremburg about those responsible for waging aggressive war being responsible for all that occurs, and IMO that applies in this situation which is why the West is adamant about it all beginning in February 2022. Obama/Biden/Clinton, and the rest of that team and their European associates are guilty of that crime and ought to face the same consequences that Hitler would’ve faced had he lived to be prosecuted.

As for arriving at a political settlement, we must revisit Russia’s security offer of December 2021 that was ignored by the West, just as Russia’s been ignored since 1992. There are now other security initiatives that are based on the same ones Russia proposed—China’s Global Security Initiative and Russia’s Eurasian Security System, both of which are based on what exists within the UN Charter—indivisible security, which was at the core of the three OSCE Treaties all Europe, Russia and other OSCE members agreed to, signed and ratified, but were too cowardly to admit they’d broken them again and again just like Minsk. All that and more is why Russia is correct not to trust anything the West says or even signs in agreement. As documented, Nazism was allowed to live after WW2 by the Outlaw US Empire and no other nation, although the UK and Canada helped. It thus must be assumed that its Deep State—the West’s longstanding ancien regime—is Nazi at its core, which is publicly reflected in its stated policy to attain Full Spectrum Domination of the planet and its people—precisely what Hitler aspired to accomplish. As Russia announced back in February 2022, you don’t make peace with Nazis or Nazism—it/they must be eradicated and Ukraine deNazified. The West’s Nazis aren’t as overt as Hitlers. That they try to hide what they are indicates they know their actions are wrong and opposed by the vast majority of Humanity, yet they persist in trying to attain their goal.

IMO, those seating at the ambassadorial roundtable with Lavrov and his delegation must be able to see and accept some of the above analysis, although IMO it’s very difficult logically to only accept part of the whole. The further key is having a very deep historical understanding that covers the last 140 years or so, roughly beginning with the Scramble for Africa, although a case could be made for beginning in 1848 and its many revolutions and their main reasons. And lastly, there’s the disproven concept of Race that is also a big part of this along with the concept of Chosenness/Exceptionalism. There’re a great many cultures and ethnicities, but there’s only one Human Race. All humans that are born without abnormalities have the same potential, thus there can be no exceptions. If Humanity can agree with the prior two sentences, then Humanity can stand together in solidarity against the few trying to destroy that solidarity. And they are only a few compared with the billions of us who want to stand together.

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