Evening with Vladimir Solovyov & Lavrov

The Evening with Vladimir Solovyov programme on the Rossiya 1 TV channel is usually an hour long. What the MFA has provided is deemed an excerpt with the accompanying video lasting 24.5-minutes, which of course is better than nothing. IMO, what’s important is the indignation of the interviewer whose program is one of the most popular in Russia. Lavrov mostly reviews the relevant history but does give one very short answer that doesn’t prompt any response, which I find odd. So, here’s the Q&A discussion with all emphasis being mine:

Question: To what extent did the events of 2014 – the return of Crimea to its native shores – change the geopolitical map of the world? How has this affected our relations with the United States and NATO?

Sergey Lavrov: These events have changed a lot. First of all, the mood that appeared among the Americans in the last year and a half of the existence of the Soviet Union and immediately after its collapse. In September 1990, then-US President George H.W. Bush, speaking in Congress, proclaimed the advent of a new world order. This was the forerunner of Fukuyama's declaration of the "end of history". A year later, the Americans had no doubt that from now on no one would even try to compete with Washington as the undisputed hegemon, that they would "order the tune," appoint "dancers," and determine the duration of "performances" in all cases and on all continents. It wasn't hidden.

Two factors contributed to this in many ways. The disappearance of the socialist camp, which was part of the bipolar world and was led by the USSR. The Soviet Union itself disappeared with it, disintegrating into former Soviet republics within the inscribed borders. With regard to Crimea, we know with what violations of Soviet law and procedure this "gift" was made.

In 2007, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin delivered his Munich speech. It reflected his analysis of what was happening in relations between Moscow and the West, the line that the Westerners initially decided to pursue with regard to the new Russia. They considered our country to be significantly weakened and internally unstable. It was said that it should obey and be ready to support (or at least not interfere with) Western initiatives in other parts of the world, be it in the Middle East, Africa or Latin America.

The attitude to his speech was twofold. Some people were indignant: they said that how dare Vladimir Putin, he had a lot of economic problems, they were helping him, promising him something. Someone laughed and said that these were all attempts to justify the "unhappy" affairs in Russia's foreign policy by the intrigues of the West. But some took it seriously. They were in the minority. Most of them ignored it, shrugged it off, and were indignant.

A year later, the North Atlantic Alliance summit was held in Bucharest (at the same time, a summit meeting of the Russia-NATO Council was held there), where the sacramental words were recorded that Georgia and Ukraine would be in the bloc – exactly what Vladimir Putin warned against in 2007 in Munich. When we were confronted with a fait accompli and gathered for a Russian-NATO meeting, the President of Russia asked why they had done this. Then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel explained something to him for a long time. Like, they didn't give Ukraine and Georgia a plan for membership, they just said that they would be in NATO. Vladimir Putin looked at her with regret.

Indeed, a plan for membership was not mentioned. But this peremptory phrase blew Mikheil Saakashvili's head off a few months later. He took it as carte blanche, attacking the peaceful city of Tskhinval and the positions of Russian peacekeepers, thereby carrying out an attack on the Russian Federation. And he paid for it. Then, during our five-day operation, our Western colleagues begged us to stop the march on Tbilisi.

Question: In 2008, the West de facto declared war on us, stepping over Russia's national interests and showing by NATO's decision that it was not going to reckon with our country.

Sergey Lavrov: I am most amazed by something else. Only a year passed after Vladimir Putin's Munich speech before they wrote down this "slogan" on their tablets. But the West understood that we are for our peacekeepers, for the people who were the subject of agreements in the OSCE and the UN. Their safety was guaranteed. Russia was one of the guarantors. Could we really allow the then Georgian leadership to destroy them?

To reiterate, not much time has passed since President Vladimir Putin's Munich speech. And by 2014, a lot of time had passed. And not only after the speech itself, but also after our actions in August 2008 and our decisive steps to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. During this period, after August 2008 and until the Crimean Spring, relations with the West became more and more open, and therefore tense.

They "didn't want to" draw conclusions. Neither the EU nor NATO wanted it. They directly began to implement their plan to draw Ukraine into their arms, to make it an instrument of deterrence, suppression of Russia, preventing our country from taking a place in the world worthy of its history, economic potential, and people.

Question: This is an interesting situation. At the same time, they are withdrawing from all agreements on strategic stability, violating all the agreements reached with us, and are actively working to support the opposition. At the same time, they are doing everything possible to make the opposition feel that America is with them. The "collective West" does not understand at all what is happening in our government, in the military-industrial complex, but is so confident that it will be able to "crush" and destroy us, that it is "overlooking" Crimea in 2014. And all of a sudden, we respond in Syria in 2015, and they had a complete "geopolitical hysteria."

Sergey Lavrov: They simply have no Sovietologists or Russologists left, who had good knowledge and analytical skills during the Cold War. When the "end of history" came, everything around...

Question: They have replaced Russophobes with Russophobes.

Sergey Lavrov: They treated it as if they already had everything in their pocket and Russia would do as they said. They stopped training Sovietologists. Americans, on the other hand, are pragmatic people – why do they need Sovietologists if they can tell everything themselves? This is a complete failure, ignorance of our history, people, habits, proverbs.

Question: US President Ronald Reagan was still trying to study it.

Sergey Lavrov: The Russian is slow to harness, but it is fast. Until the roasted rooster crows, the man will not cross himself.

Question: French President Emmanuel Macron should not say this saying, because the Gallic rooster is still trying to peck at something.

Sergey Lavrov: And not only that. I think this is a big failure of Western "planners". Moreover, they had a "swing" on the entire globe.

Question: We tried to do everything in a human way, but then we had no choice. I spoke with Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service Sergey Naryshkin. He said that, according to information received in early 2022, the Ukrainian authorities turned to their American masters and received the "go-ahead" to conduct an operation to "cleanse" Donbass.

Sergey Lavrov: Yes, Plan B is to clean up Donbass. Moreover, preparations for this operation had already begun. Since the beginning of February 2022, the bombing has intensified 10-12 times.

Question: We have cited specific statistics. There was no such intensity of shelling of Donbass even during the special military operation. It was clearly an artillery preparation. It is clear that this war is by no means against the people of Donbass. This is a war with Russia.

Sergey Lavrov: Back in the days of illusory hopes for the implementation of the Minsk Agreements, when the Kiev regime shelled Donbass in violation of them, about two million people left for Russia. And after the start of the special military operation, even more.

You were there. I'm going there. Foreign Ministry offices have been opened in Lugansk and Donetsk. In the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, they will be created a little later. I want to go there and talk to the staff of our representative offices. See what they need. The Foreign Ministry, foreign missions, units and the Foreign Ministry's GlavUpDK are providing humanitarian aid. I think this is the right thing to do. We get feedback. Guys from the front line send videos with welcoming words.

Question: I have seen some of your phrases and images on chevrons. You are very much loved on the front line. You decorate the lives of the fighters. They are happy to quote you.

Sergey Lavrov: I watch documentary footage of your programmes and those on other channels. Avdiivka is almost completely destroyed. The Armed Forces of Ukraine, as always, dug in there, mined everything in the residential sector. It is impossible to "play", to learn, to "master" the joy of people who meet our soldiers according to Stanislavsky's system. They waited for us. And this is in a situation where people have half a house left, wells and electricity do not work. This means one thing: the burden of the Nazi regime, which held them as "creatures," has been lifted from their shoulders.

In 2021, even before the start of the special military operation and when there were attempts to implement the Minsk agreements, an interviewer asked Vladimir Zelensky how he felt about people on the other side of the contact line. He was surprised and answered, "There are people, and there are creatures." In another interview, he said that those who live in Ukraine, feel their involvement in Russian culture and civilization, and for the sake of the future of their children and grandchildren, let them go to Russia. This was said in August 2021, and this rhetoric has been in place for all the years that the Minsk agreements were in force.

Question: It turned out that our "partners" had been lying to us all these years, solving completely different problems than those discussed in the agreement.

Sergey Lavrov: Absolutely. It was a confession. As well as a "leaked" audio recording of a conversation between German generals. The same candid confession. They spoke from the bottom of their hearts and remembered the "good glorious Luftwaffe". This is revealing.

Question: De facto, they have declared war on us if you look at how America is behaving.

Sergey Lavrov: It is already underway.

Question: French President Emmanuel Macron's statement that they are allegedly testing the waters, but de facto French troops are almost declared ready to enter Ukraine. The Germans, who at their core...

Sergey Lavrov: Several dozen French mercenaries were killed there...

Question: ... They were there all the time. France disagreed. I think it's a disagreement that they don't see them as mercenaries, but as career officers. I guess I don't like the word "mercenaries". And the death of French citizens there, apparently, does not cause them doubts.

Taurus missiles are also a big question. This is a violation of the basic document that gave shape to modern Germany. Should we denounce the agreement, demand a return to the GDR, and not recognize the FRG?

This is the brazen and cowardly reaction of the ambassadors of the EU countries, who are afraid to meet with you. Why do we need them in Moscow at all?

Sergey Lavrov: This is a big mystery to me. By and large, this is rudeness. If this is how they feel about the opportunity to talk to representatives of the Russian leadership, then, of course, we will take into account that they have no interest in this. Let them sit in their offices and talk to their capitals on the phone.

But what is happening to the West now is a frenzy. The worse things get at the front, the more frantically the West begins to speak: they say, we have no right to allow Ukraine to lose, and to allow Russia to win.

It turns out that French President Emmanuel Macron was trying to persuade NATO members a couple of weeks before he made this public statement. They told him they thought it was a bad idea. Still, he said it. Then he was "corrected" and "forwarded" by the French Foreign Minister. As a result, the French president said that they had not yet fully decided, but nothing could be ruled out, this remains his position, and they will think about what else needs to be done to help Ukraine, including in terms of sending their troops to Ukrainian territory.

Question: In other words, war and a direct clash with NATO are becoming inevitable?

Sergey Lavrov: I don't know what their plans are. But, apparently, they will be cunning, either like the Germans ("we will remotely direct lethal weapons against Russian cities"), or they will say that these are just instructors who sit and watch what the Ukrainians are doing.

Question: We have lost the West, but we have gained the world majority.

Sergey Lavrov: Yes, that's right. President of Brazil Lula da Silva (I attended the G20 meetings in Brazil and met with him) confirmed his plan last year to develop alternative payment methods through BRICS.

Finance ministers and central bank governors met in São Paulo the week before last. These things are being dealt with in detail. Upon his return, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that this work was underway. Including the transition to national currencies and the creation of alternative multilateral payment systems. Of course, gradually, not in one abrupt move, the reserves held in dollars begin to decline. Not abruptly, because there is too much of this money lying in other countries. The main thing is not to hurt yourself. This world order will be built in all these directions.

Question: We say that we are ready for talks. Who should I talk to? The language of diplomacy is gone. It is spoken in BRICS, but the West has switched to the language of outright rudeness. The way America's leaders behave is not described by any diplomatic norms. With whom should we negotiate, who will not deceive us?

Sergey Lavrov: When we talk about readiness for talks, we keep emphasising that there was an example – Istanbul in April 2022. Dmitry Arakhamia said this with such a naïve face that I felt a little sorry for him. It's as if he's worried that Boris Johnson has behaved badly.

In addition to what we are saying, if there is a willingness to conduct honest talks on the basis of and taking into account our real concerns, Russia's legitimate interests, which we have been telling you about for many years, and all of this has been bouncing off of you, if you return to what we have been calling for, let's talk. So far, there is no such evidence.

Question: Who should I talk to? With US Secretary of State Antony Blinken? With French President Emmanuel Macron? With US President Joe Biden?

Sergey Lavrov: No. But there was a delegation that came from the African Union.

Question: Can I talk to them?

Sergey Lavrov: They have brought a proposal to exchange prisoners. This was supported. We have issued a statement. This has had an impact on humanitarian issues.

There is a Chinese proposal. Recently, China's Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui visited for the second time. The main thing that distinguishes his proposal from others is that it is necessary to recognize the true causes of the situation and "resolve" it by eliminating the causes that led to the current crisis, by ensuring the legitimate security interests of all participants. We have repeatedly proposed this.

As for Vladimir Zelensky's ultimatum, I will not even discuss it. It is strange to me that Swiss Foreign Minister Yibra Cassis fell for this bait. Now he has taken it upon himself to push through Vladimir Zelensky's formula. Although I explained to him in New York in January of this year (when we were at the UN Security Council meetings on Palestine, he asked for a meeting, and we talked one-on-one) that this was a "dummy" and he would waste time. They have a plan to hold another meeting in Switzerland, not to invite us, and to complete the editing of Vladimir Zelensky's entire "formula" at this meeting, giving it a final, irrevocable and unchangeable form. Then we should be summoned and handed over, as Vladimir Zelensky said later. Like, we'll hand it over, but not for negotiations. They're "serious guys."

Question: I won't even ask them what they smoke, because they sniff.

Sergey Lavrov: Yes. It is telling that this neo-colonial thinking does not change in any way.

“It is already underway” elicits no verbal response, which IMO means the interviewer agrees. The big question: Is that how Russian’s see it? The feedback Putin gets in his chats seems to indicate that—that the issue isn’t with Ukraine but with NATO and America most of all.

The statement, “We have lost the West, but we have gained the world majority,” repeats a fallacy often committed by the West—to lose/lost something means you had it, possessed it, but Russia has never “had” the West, although it’s probably had enough of it. The other side of that statement is somewhat different as gaining doesn’t precisely mean acquiring as in possessing; “we now have closer comradery with the world majority” would be more exact. Hopefully, the other portion of the chat will focus on the glowing possibilities that increasing closeness provides and plans to make them reality.

I’ve added Medvedev’s response to the latest version of the Zelensky Formula in the comments.

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