Lavrov at Antalya Diplomatic Forum

On 12 April 2025, Sergei Lavrov was the featured guest at the Antalya Diplomatic Forum, which is an interview style show open to connected members of the public and press. The talk lasts an hour, and the moderator at the outset outlines the situation and context for the discussion very well, so let’s dig in:

Moderator: Ladies and gentlemen,

Dear guests,

Welcome to ADF Talks: Russia, a one-on-one conversation we are having. I think it is fair to say that the global diplomatic landscape is under extreme pressure and in a state of transition. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov joined us today. As we all know, he is an experienced statesman and one of the most influential figures in world diplomacy. Sergey Lavrov has been Russia's chief diplomat since 2004, and over the past two decades, from the UN Security Council to the Geneva talks and other negotiation venues, he has implemented and responded to key moments in world affairs.

Today, when Europe's security architecture and infrastructure are under enormous pressure, and the world order is divided into competing currents, we are asking ourselves what Russia's position, strategy, participation in alliances and worldview are. Over the next hour, we will hear Minister Sergey Lavrov's views on this changing geopolitical reality. What does Russia want? What role does it see for itself in the emerging multipolar world? How does it define peace, power and diplomacy in the 21st century? Let's begin.

Question: Minister Sergey Lavrov, welcome to Antalya. I know that you would most likely like to answer in your native Russian language, but I would like to ask you to answer this question in English.

You see a full house here. I think that after President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan, you are undoubtedly the most famous person here. What is it like to be a diplomatic rock star?

Sergey Lavrov: I think if we have heads of state who are real rock stars, then there is nothing wrong with diplomats being the way they are. If people like it, if they think it's fun, so be it.

Question: I think, as the saying goes, "the main thing is not the form, but the content." As you can see, the hall is full here. Next year we will probably ask for another venue—in the ancient theater of Aspendos (it is only 14 km from here). It accommodates, I think, 14 thousand people.

Anyway, last year I had the honor and privilege of sharing a stage with you. One of the things that you tried to highlight at that time was the formation of a multipolar world. A year later, how do you assess the current state of this "transition"? Do you think this movement has met your country's expectations?

Sergey Lavrov: I think that this trend has become even more noticeable. More and more countries, both large, medium and small countries, would like to have an equal right to vote in world affairs in full compliance with the UN Charter, which states that the world organisation is based on the sovereign equality of states.

More and more countries want to determine their own lives, to receive fair treatment, to have fair competition in the economy, trade and other areas in accordance with the principles of globalization promoted for many decades by our Western "friends", especially the United States. And when everyone was convinced, globalization stopped. What we are witnessing now is the fragmentation of the global economy. I would call it a time of uncertainty. No one knows how the situation with global trade and investment will end, where it will all lead. There will be no end to this. Rather, how it will develop. Because in this situation, there will certainly be new "turns".

But as far as multipolarity is concerned, we can say that it is strengthening its position. There is no doubt about it. Not only such large countries as China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt, South Africa and many others believe that they deserve the right to vote in world affairs. Therefore, multipolarity is a chance for the principles of the UN Charter to be implemented. Because earlier, during globalization, especially during the Cold War, the sovereign equality of states was never respected by our Western "colleagues".

If we look back at the history after World War II and the creation of the UN, there has not been a single conflict where Western leaders treated the parties to the conflict as equals. I understand that this may sound idealistic, and perhaps this equality will never be implemented. But the principles of the UN Charter, developed by the founding fathers, already provided for multipolarity. Just like respect for human rights, the right of nations to determine their own destiny. This movement is also gaining momentum. The manifestations of this are numerous. It is important to emphasize that in our vision (since we are promoting this idea with our partners in the SCO, BRICS, EAEU), the concept of multipolarity does not exclude the West. It encompasses everyone, as the UN Charter prescribes for us. I see no reason why China and the United States, Russia and the United States should not have good relations, why everyone should not be treated with respect and understanding of their national interests.

I have had several contacts with members of the current US administration. I like the message they voiced. I will not quote it verbatim here. It was that U.S. foreign policy was based on the national interests of the United States. At the same time, the United States recognizes that other countries also have their own national interests. These interests will never coincide completely, maybe even half of them will not be similar. But when interests, especially those of large countries, coincide, it is important to find ways to materialize them into mutually beneficial economic, logistical, and other projects. At the same time, when these interests contradict each other, it is the responsibility and duty of these countries, especially if we are talking about major Powers, not to allow these differences to escalate into confrontation, especially in a hot phase. We absolutely support this. We have acted in this way throughout our history.

The last element of this multipolarity is that in our common region, security issues after World War II were resolved from the point of view of Euro-Atlantic logic. NATO and the EU were essentially European. Recently, the European Union signed an agreement with NATO. The EU is now part of Euro-Atlantic policy (there is no doubt about that), including making its territory available for the alliance's plans to move east, south, I don't know where else. The OSCE was created as a clearly Euro-Atlantic "structure". I think that all these Euro-Atlantic structures have failed. They have failed to strengthen security and stability. What they have succeeded in is inflaming tensions and remilitarizing Europe, including Germany, despite the fact that the economic and social situation there is deteriorating. But all the "efforts" of this Euro-Atlantic community are focused on preparing for a new war. Germany, together with France and the United Kingdom, are leading this "process".

If you think about what the world looks like now. There are sub-regional organisations everywhere. On our continent there are the Organisation of Turkic States, the EAEU, ASEAN and the SCO. There are many of them. The same applies to Africa and Latin America, where there are many sub-regional structures. But Africa and Latin America have their own continent-wide structures–-the African Union and CELAC. Nothing like this has ever happened in Eurasia. As I have already said, attempts to implement some major unifying projects were made only on the basis of the Euro-Atlantic concept. Last year, President of Russia Vladimir Putin, speaking at the Foreign Ministry, proposed discussing a potential security architecture in Eurasia as a continent, in which all countries without exception, including the western part of the continent and all regional associations, would be invited to participate. In fact, a few years ago, we began to build bridges between the SCO and the EAEU, the EAEU and ASEAN, the SCO and ASEAN. We also planned contacts between these groups and, for example, the GCC, which is a security organization, but also includes economic aspects.

About ten years ago, we began to build these "bridges", not referring to security issues, but only economic and logistical aspects, finding ways to cooperate, join efforts and harmonize plans. This is a promising process. We call it the Greater Eurasian Partnership. Potentially, this can become a kind of material basis for a future security system open to all countries and organizations representing the continent of Eurasia.

I think that we are in favor of an interactive discussion. Therefore, with your permission, I will dwell on this.

Question: Do you think this is a failure of the West? You described some of the institutions and bodies that they created after World War II as a failure. What you are saying about the Greater Eurasian Partnership, in addition to the military and strategic perspective, is it a success in the 21st century?

Sergey Lavrov: No, you cannot call success what is just emerging in people's minds. But the process of analysing the situation is based on the failures of Euro-Atlantic security models. NATO should have been dissolved first of all, after the Soviet Union ceased to exist, after the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist. In the West, voices were heard saying that now let's focus on the OSCE. Let's "push" it, and we will all be in one organisation.

You know about the promises made to Mikhail Gorbachev and then to Boris Yeltsin. There are memoirs. Some people ask why we did not insist on written guarantees when former US Secretary of State John Baker said that NATO would not move an inch to the East.

This has just occurred to me. In Russian history, since the XVII-XVIII centuries, when trade flourished, no one signed any contracts. They sealed the contract with a handshake, believed their word of honor. It was never broken.

It is likely that those who ran NATO in the times we are talking about did not have relatives from the former tsarist empire and did not inherit these traditions. But NATO not only survived, but, in fact, it was announced that it would be the only organization that could guarantee security.

In 1999, at the OSCE summit in Istanbul, a solemn declaration was adopted, which, among other things, stated that security is equal and indivisible. Everyone has the right to choose security alliances. But this cannot be done at the expense of the safety of others. Then it was said even more clearly that no country, no group of countries, no organization in the Euro-Atlantic OSCE area can claim dominance. This is exactly what NATO has been doing.

When Vladimir Putin was elected President of Russia, he repeatedly warned about the very dangerous nature of this course. His speech in 2007 in Munich (if you listen to it now) was prescient, unfortunately. This was followed by the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008, followed by the NATO-Russia summit. I was there with President of Russia Vladimir Putin. Then it was announced that Germany and France would not allow a decision on the official start of the negotiation process on the admission of Georgia and Ukraine to NATO. As the Germans and French said at the time, they were proud of this fact. At the same time, they included in the declaration a provision that Georgia and Ukraine will be admitted to NATO.

When President of Russia Vladimir Putin asked then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel what the difference was, she replied that it was just a political statement and that we had managed to avoid the start of the legal process of accession. But this, to be honest, is child's play.

Because the then President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili was "blown away" a few months after this summit in Bucharest. Then he ordered an attack on Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia, violated the agreement approved by the OSCE, and so on.

Then, in 2010, the last OSCE summit was held in Astana. The Astana Declaration repeated verbatim the "Istanbul formula" that no organization can claim dominance, no one strengthens its security at the expense of the security of others.

Then, when NATO expansion continued and when it became clear that the principles proclaimed in the OSCE on equal and indivisible security were not being implemented, we proposed to use the same language and enshrine it in a legally binding agreement.

We were told (this was already during the Obama administration) that we did not understand that legally binding guarantees could only be obtained from NATO. To this, we replied that it was the US president who signed this OSCE declaration. They retorted that it was a political statement. Fraud is the right word for what really happened.

This is our last attempt. But back in 2008 and 2010, we proposed draft agreements between Russia and NATO, Russia and the United States. We did the same in December 2021.

Yes, I want to say that NATO did not strengthen security, but rather failed to do so, because the alliance was manipulated by those who did not want to share the benefits of security. They wanted to keep all the benefits for themselves, and others just had to listen and receive instructions.

The OSCE (another Euro-Atlantic structure) collapsed a few years ago, when the basic principle of consensus was grossly violated by people who succeeded each other as chairman-in-office, secretary general and all the other institutions on national minorities, media freedoms, etc. You see, I have already forgotten about some institutions. This means that no one takes the Organization seriously anymore. Yes, they failed.

We are not proposing to create another "closed club". All continents have their own continental associations, but not in Eurasia. And Eurasia is, I would say, the largest and richest continent. Yes, Africa is also rich, but it has not yet revealed its potential.

From a civilizational point of view, a large number of great civilizations have been formed in Eurasia, including China, Persia, Turkey and India. Russia is younger, but you will forgive me if I say that it is also a great civilization.

Question: You said that NATO's desire to expand eastward is a key issue, and then you said that the OSCE is another "chapter" in this fraud. Do you think that there is any viable way (not to mention a return) to create collective security on the European continent?

Sergey Lavrov: Collective security is one of the terms used in NATO, the EU and the OSCE. It all depends on the circumstances. To be honest, we are only at the beginning of the process. We do not want to rush things. We want everyone to participate in free discussions and present their views.

I have repeatedly mentioned that a couple of years ago, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko convened the first Conference on Eurasian Security. The second took place in the autumn of 2024. I participated in both. This is a new feature. Not only like-minded countries, but also members of NATO and the European Union, such as Serbia, Hungary (which participated in both conferences) and Slovakia, were invited to this conference. The list of invited countries will grow.

This is not against anyone, not against NATO. I believe that the biggest enemy of the alliance is the bloc itself and those who are trying to use it for domination in violation of their OSCE commitments.

The process of fragmentation (which I mentioned) taking place in the global economy is also reflected in the security sphere, in the discussions of NATO countries, in the fears of Europeans that they will be left to themselves. We do not interfere in this. If they believe that it still matters in a way that has been repeatedly shown to be untenable, then this is their right. It's up to them to decide.

It is our right to make sure that the issues of the Eurasian continent are discussed and resolved by the countries located on it.

Take Central Asia, for example. The 5+1 format is growing like mushrooms. More than a dozen destinations have already been created: with the United States, with the European Union, separately with France, with Germany, Japan, South Korea, Turkey and Russia.

Yesterday I met with the five Foreign Ministers of the Central Asian States. "Extracurriculars" are always involved in something that, in their opinion, is of interest to them. They can find a form of cooperation that will be mutually beneficial.

We cooperate with many countries in Africa and Latin America. Western states do the same. Turkey is significantly represented in Africa. Just like the Arab countries.

The fact is that when you come to someone's region, you must respect the opinion of the Party of Regions or the host country. You cannot impose your own rules, as our European and British "colleagues" around the world do. The Biden administration did the same. They "ran" around the world and said, they say, do not trade with Russia, do not sell to Russia, do not buy from Russia, do not meet with Russia. I know this because they are facts.

This is not about multipolarity, but about the obsession with your global role, which you yourself invented and applied during colonialism and during some period of postcolonialism.

Now there is a second "awakening" of the Global South. After the process of decolonization, the Global South was happy, free. Now they understand that the world economy was set up in such a way that it left them mere pennies from the use of natural resources that they inherited from God and by the right of history.

I remember that during the second Russia-Africa summit in 2023 in St Petersburg, President of Uganda Islam Museveni gave statistics on the global coffee market. It was estimated at about $460 billion, of which Africans were left with $2.5 billion, which is less than 1%. The West took raw materials, collected and sent them for roasting, packaging, and advertised. Germany alone received more from the world coffee market than all African countries combined.

So this awakening is inevitable. The tariff wars that we are witnessing now will change a lot. We hear that many countries would like to sit down with the United States at the negotiating table. We will only be happy if people peacefully reach some agreements for mutual benefit.

Unfortunately, the WTO is paralyzed. For many years, it was paralysed by previous US administrations. There is not a single sufficiently authoritative global institution whose decisions would be recognised by everyone. I believe that we should discuss Eurasian security, but in the context of moving towards multipolarity, which is now objectively taking shape.

Question: You have mentioned many times that Russia's relations with its Western neighbors essentially depend on their willingness to admit and correct some of the "mistakes." You have reviewed some of them in the last 15-20 minutes.

But I want to ask, we talked about the US administration, what is it like to have Donald Trump on the other side of the negotiating table? Is it easier? In the last 48 hours, we have suddenly started talking about the possible lifting of sanctions against Russia's leading airline, Aeroflot, and the release of ballerina Ksenia Karelina. Is there any potential for more development?

Sergey Lavrov: There is always potential. As I said in my opening remarks, there is nothing wrong if the United States and Russia have good relations, if the United States and China have good relations. What is happening between us and the Trump administration is actually very banal. Countries talk to each other without dictating or putting forward any preconditions. They just talk to each other.

As for China and the United States. They have many differences. Russia was seen by the Biden administration as a direct threat. China is the biggest long-term "challenge" to American dominance. This is competition in the world of economics. You can see what forms it is taking. The situation in the Taiwan Strait, in the South China Sea, who will have more influence on the countries of East and South Asia.

China and the United States are exchanging statements that are not very pleasant for both, including on Taiwan. The West, led by the United States and other Western countries, says that it recognizes and follows the one-China policy, but at the same time, do not even think about touching the "status quo". And what is the "status quo"? This is not a one-China policy.

From time to time, we hear threats from Washington to Beijing, saying that don't even think about using force, it would be a disaster. So they exchange "pleasantries" in public, but they never stop talking to each other at the level of foreign ministers, defense ministers, national security advisers, and presidents.

For some reason, the Biden administration decided that it should behave differently with Russia: "Russia must learn a lesson." This "lesson", this punishment will be in the form of isolation. This, if you assess it politely, is stupid. How can it not communicate with each other?!

Therefore, what Donald Trump proposed is to return to "normality" and stop this idiotic posturing policy, which was a "disgrace" for the American role in world affairs. I will put it this way.

Yes, we are discussing bilateral relations, starting with the normalisation of work and the conditions in which our embassies operate. The Obama administration had begun to expel our diplomats. He stole several of our diplomatic property, which are still under arrest.

In the same way, the Biden administration stole Russian assets. Now they are thinking about what to do with them so as not to create a precedent. They have already created it. If the Americans believe that they should not touch the stolen money themselves, but can steal interest from it and spend it on Ukraine, then this is disgusting logic that shows that neocolonial thinking has never left these people.

The activities of embassies, the issuance of visas within a certain period of time so that diplomats do not have to wait for visas for years, the normalisation of the issuance of US visas to Russians working in the UN Secretariat (there were also problems with this)—we want to see what can be considered and discussed together. This was the proposal of the Americans. We have never rejected proposals for cooperation in the economy, in resolving conflicts. Never.

When we met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US National Security Adviser Mark Waltz together with Presidential Adviser Yury Ushakov in Riyadh, we touched on some regional issues, the Middle East, the situation with the Iranian nuclear programme and a number of other topics. Of course, we discussed Ukraine.

I will repeat what I said then (I have said this publicly many times). When we talk about eliminating the root causes of any conflict, including the Ukrainian conflict, the only way to solve the problem and establish lasting peace is to eliminate the root causes.

US President Donald Trump was the first and so far practically the only Western leader who repeatedly said that drawing Ukraine into NATO was a big mistake. This is one of the root causes, which we have talked about many times. The Americans are also mentioning another thing that has to do with the root causes of the crisis. This is the territorial issue. They have publicly admitted, including US Special Representative Stephen Whitkoff, that territorial issues will have to be resolved in the context of a long-term settlement.

Question: Are they Americans?

Sergey Lavrov: Yes, the Americans. When the delegations of Ukraine and the United States agreed in Riyadh on a document in favour of a 30-day ceasefire, this was done in the context of the fact that questions about NATO and territories are inevitable. No NATO and no discussion of the status of the territories.

Ukrainians and figures such as Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen are now saying that Ukraine is in favour of a ceasefire, while Russia is against. But they deliberately overlook the "nuances" (as Russian President Vladimir Putin called them)–-NATO and the territories. It is in the context of these aspects that the American proposal was put forward. Immediately after the Americans mentioned this, the Zelensky administration said that NATO was none of their business, they did not discuss territories, and all they needed was weapons. And then, since it was during the discussion of the peacekeeping issue, Vladimir Zelensky said that they did not need peacekeepers, they needed combat units. The schizophrenic nature of these mutually exclusive statements is obvious.

As for the territories, I want to note one important point.

We are not talking about the territories, but about the people living there, whose ancestors lived there and founded cities such as Odessa (Catherine the Great did it), built factories, roads, ports. It so happened that these people, by the "will of history", became part of Ukraine in the Soviet period, and not Russia. At that time, this was seen as a unifying factor for neutralizing the ultra-radicals living in Western Ukraine (this part of the country was annexed just before the war).

People living there are deprived of all human rights. I have already referred to the first article of the UN Charter, which states that human rights must be respected regardless of race, gender, language and religion. The linguistic and religious rights of ethnic Russians living in the territory of the former Ukrainian SSR are being violated. The Russian language is banned at all stages of education, in culture and in the media. Books in Russian are thrown out of libraries. The Nazis in Germany burned them. Ukrainians are acting more "smartly". They dispose of them and get money for it. And everyone is happy. Recently, the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church was banned. They are literally destroying everything Russian.

In November 2021, long before the forced start of the special military operation, Vladimir Zelensky was asked in an interview what he thought of the people on the other side of the line of contact in Donbass. At that time, the Minsk Agreements were still in force, although later the Germans, French and Ukrainians admitted that they had never intended to implement them and needed more time to arm Ukraine. This, by the way, is about a 30-day ceasefire. The logic is the same.

So, going back to November 2021, Vladimir Zelensky, trying to seem smart, said: "You know, there are people and there are individuals." In another interview, he said: "My advice to those who live in Ukraine but feel connected to Russian culture, for the sake of your children and grandchildren, go to Russia." A couple of weeks ago, in another interview, when he was asked what motivates him, he said: "Hatred of Russia." The interviewer wanted to clarify whether he was talking about Vladimir Putin. He replied: "No, hatred of all Russians." And this is being said by a man who in his creative years defended the right of Ukrainians to speak Russian. He said: "Don't even think about touching the Russian language, this is our history." Just like that.

Hatred is not the best conduit. Israel has never banned the Arabic language, has it? No? I don't think so.

Ukraine is the only country on Earth that is multinational, and the language of one large ethnic group is banned. The West (NATO, especially the EU) constantly says that human rights are above all. When they discuss Venezuela, Russia, Serbia and Turkey, they never forget about human rights. Check what they say about the situation in Ukraine. They say that Vladimir Zelensky and his team are defending European values. So your value is the extermination of the language of those who founded the country, if your value is the glorification of the Nazis and their accomplices convicted by the Nuremberg Tribunal, to whom you erect monuments whose birthdays you celebrate as a national holiday, while destroying monuments to those who saved Europe from Nazism, demolishing the monument to Catherine the Great, who founded this city in Odessa. By the way, soon after this monument was demolished, UNESCO granted the central district of Odessa, where it was located, the status of a World Heritage Site. This is a shame for a lady who accidentally turned out to be French, and, apparently, "by default" became the general director of this respected organization.

Question: You spoke about eliminating the root causes, about territory. I heard your position. I have just been to a session where they talked about the European security structure. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine was there. He said that they would not accept anything less than the 1991 borders.

Sergey Lavrov: This is not about them "accepting." It's about making sure that the people who have lived there for centuries have not been deprived of their inalienable right.

If the Ukrainian Nazi regime (I cannot call it otherwise) uses the cover of the EU, which has never said a word about the human rights situation in Ukraine, then this is not our problem. We are listening to those people who voted in the referendum to join Russia in order to restore all their rights that belong to them under international law and history, according to justice.

Question: You have repeatedly stated that even the thought of foreign peacekeepers is a hostile act. Under what circumstances will the Russian Federation think about neutral peacekeepers in this territory?

Sergey Lavrov: The biggest supporters of some kind of "forces of stability" and "forces of stability" are Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer. They are not thinking about any neutral forces. They say that their countries will provide most of the troops, and sometimes they mention states outside the European Union, including Turkey (according to rumors). They said that they are talking to China (this is a lie), India and Indonesia.

US President Donald Trump understands much more about what is happening than any European leader, with the exception of Hungary and Slovakia. The leaders of these countries are quite conscious of this topic. But it was Donald Trump who was the first to say a lot of things about NATO and the territories. When he was asked about this idea of a contingent and peacekeeping forces, he said that both sides needed to discuss it. And President Emmanuel Macron said that there should be no discussions with the Russians, Ukraine is a sovereign country, it has the right to invite whomever it wants and invites us. I will repeat what Vladimir Zelensky said: we do not need peacekeepers, we need combat units. Draw your conclusions.

Yesterday, Keith Kellogg said that why don't we divide Ukraine, as we divided Berlin after World War II. Then he said that he had made a mistake, that he had been misunderstood.

Everyone is missing the key point. The leaders of the Brussels bureaucracy say that it is necessary to reach an agreement that should ultimately guarantee Ukraine's sovereignty. By the way, they did not mention territorial integrity. Only sovereignty. I have a question for them: do they really mean that they want to have peacekeepers in order to preserve the regime that Vladimir Zelensky is currently heading? Do they want to ask this regime whether it is interested in fulfilling international obligations, including the UN Charter, regarding the rights of ethnic minorities, language and religion? No one raises this issue. Therefore, my conclusion is as follows: ignoring the gross violation of all international human rights norms by the Zelensky regime and at the same time discussing the deployment of peacekeeping or stabilisation forces in the rest of Ukraine, they want to use them not to maintain peace, but to preserve and protect the Nazi regime. This is a key point. Everything else is a smokescreen.

Question: You mentioned the important talks that took place in Riyadh and some of the conversations you had with the American delegation. They also talked about safe navigation in the Black Sea. We know that the process of creating similar mechanisms with the Republic of Turkey is underway. What is your position on the development of this?

Sergey Lavrov: This was one of the proposals mentioned by US President Donald Trump in his last telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin said that it is necessary to think over the agreement in such a way as to prevent a repetition of the failure of the first one. The first was concluded in 2022, it was a "package deal". The first part was guarantees for Ukrainian exports, and the second part was a memorandum between the UN and Russia on guarantees of exports from Russia by ensuring normal freight rates, insurance rates, the rights of Russian carriers of fertilizers and grain to enter European Mediterranean ports, etc. The Ukrainian part of the deal was implemented. The Russian one was not even started.

We do not blame the UN, whose representatives have tried and continue to do this. Formally, the deal between Russia and the UN is valid until July this year. It was a three-year "deal", and for Ukraine, a one-year one. At the end of the first year, we said: thank you very much, we don't want to "play one-way" anymore. And then UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UNCTAD Secretary-General Richard Greenspan tried, but the position of the UN Secretariat was cunning. In fact, they said that they could not violate sanctions, that is, in fact, they recognized unilateral sanctions as legal. They told us that they would try to find a way to circumvent the sanctions so that they would not violate them. They have been trying to do this for almost three years. Unsuccessfully.

This is not the first time that the topic of the Black Sea Initiative has been raised. Last year, President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed to President Vladimir Putin to resume the deal. He said that Vladimir Zelensky was ready to cooperate. The proposal differed from the original "deal" because the original one called for inspections of Ukrainian cargo ships returning to Ukrainian ports to make sure they were not carrying any weapons. Last year, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan invited President Vladimir Putin to trust him. It is enough to announce that there are no weapons on board, and the ship will be allowed to sail further. It was not an easy situation, but President of Russia Vladimir Putin said that he would support this proposal on the condition that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would make efforts to influence the Ukrainians so that they would not violate them. At the last moment, Vladimir Zelensky refused. Yes, President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan called President of Russia Vladimir Putin and said that Vladimir Zelensky also wants to add a commitment not to attack nuclear power plants. Vladimir Putin said, okay, this has nothing to do with Black Sea transportation. Then, when the Russian president agreed to this addition, Vladimir Zelensky refused. So we are again in this situation "going around in circles". At the same time, I do not think that Ukrainians complain about the difficulties with the export of their grain. They send a lot of it at dumping prices to the European Union. The European Union is unhappy. Instead of doing something about this situation for the sake of its citizens, Brussels threatened to stop importing grain from Russia.

These are specific "leaders"—K. Kallas, A. Baerbock. When their people criticized and said that now they live worse than before, they replied that they understand everything, but their electorate should suffer for the sake of Ukraine. At the same time, thousands of Ukrainians live in the EU in luxury, buy expensive cars. This is what the European elite calls European values, which they defend in the person of the Zelensky regime.

This time, when US President Donald Trump proposed another Black Sea deal, Vladimir Putin said: "Yes, we are ready, but we need to learn lessons from the past. Let's make sure of this before we launch this. It is necessary to resolve issues with freight, insurance, port calls." The Americans wrote it down and took it to work. So far, they have not contacted us.

Another initiative of US President Donald Trump was a 30-day moratorium–-not a complete ceasefire, but a 30-day moratorium on attacks on energy infrastructure. During the telephone conversation, President of Russia Vladimir Putin agreed and ordered the Chief of the General Staff to stop attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, including those related to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At that moment, there were seven Russian drones in the air. Vladimir Putin gave the order to shoot them down, which was done. Since then, we have kept our word, and the Ukrainians attack us every day, with maybe two or three exceptions. I handed over to Turkish Foreign Minister Hassan Fidan what we are conveying to the Americans, to the UN and to the OSCE–-a list of facts confirming Ukraine's attacks on Russian energy infrastructure over the past three weeks.

We understand that Vladimir Zelensky hates all Russians, so he gives orders. Either he gives orders and they are not carried out, or he lies that he gives these orders. This is a tragedy.

Question: Were there any direct or indirect contacts with the Ukrainian side in Antalya?

Sergey Lavrov: As far as I know, no. I came here for work.

***

Question: Can you say that US President Donald Trump or his supporters want to push Russia away from China and reorient itself towards Russia after the war in Ukraine?

Sergey Lavrov: This issue has never been raised in any of our contacts with the Americans. There was not even a hint of it.

I think that US President Donald Trump and his team have sufficient life experience. When you understand life, it's much easier to get involved in politics. And since he understands life, he will not think about trying to quarrel Russia and China. [My Emphasis]

Much of what Lavrov spoke about is reiteration for most readers here, with the narrative changing because of the meeting’s context. Perhaps the explanation for the failures of NATO and OSCE were better, but still don’t match the explicitness I applied when I wrote OSCE NATO members violated all the treaties they signed regarding the indivisibility of security which was/is the core concept of all three OSCE treaties, the Helsinki Final Act, and the UN Charter. I agree with Lavrov that this second rise of multipolarity can breathe new life into the UN as the old colonial structures wither away and the new reality takes hold. The key is for the Collective Western Empire to admit the fact that it’s in decline and can no longer claim Primacy over all others. That it really needs to reinvent itself into nations that work to benefit their citizenry and not a small elite. Of course, what we see is the resistance to all that from that small elite. If Lavrov were asked the right question(s) about the cabal of elites wanting to retain power using any and all means, then we might get some insightful answers, but he’s never asked such questions.

IMO, one of the key impediments to establishing a Eurasian Security Structure is the continuing idea that Europe is its own separate continent when it clearly isn’t. And that of course goes along with Eurocentrism, which a form of exceptionalism. And then there’s the Zionists and their ism that’s also exposed what it is as it conducts Genocide. Their conduct has no place on the planet, and IMO the Zionists present the greatest impediment to the formation of a Eurasian Security Structure for Palestine and Levant are Eurasian regions. Note how both the Palestinian and Syrian issues were ignored in the Q&A. I imagine the time factor was an issue so not everything could be explored.

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