Lavrov At the Future Forum 2050

Long posting.

The Tsargrad Institute is presenting The Future Forum 2050 that’s collected a very wide range of speakers to talk about various topics related to the primary theme. It has an English website in tandem with the Russian, which I haven’t had much opportunity to explore, although the 8+ hour video from the day’s main venue is overdubbed in English. Pepe Escobar in his chat with Nima today talked a lot about its background, which ought to raise everyone’s curiosity, and of course Pepe had a lot more to talk about. Larry Johnson is also at that event and talked about is during his much shorter chat with Judge Napolitano. His short Q&A with Lavrov was revealing. Lavrov as usual begins with a series of remarks which is followed by a Q&A session. The session is long at an hour forty-five minutes. The topic Lavrov speaks on is Multipolar World in the 21st Century. The overall video is just under 9 hours, which includes breaks between sessions. Lavrov’s begins at the 2:49:00 mark. Dmirti Simes introductory remarks aren’t on the transcript yet are very worthy of being included. If readers get the opportunity, I suggest watching the first few minutes of Lavrov’s portion of the video. I will say that Lavrov confessed feeling he’s in front of a jury of sorts, which also didn’t make it onto the transcript:

Dear friends,

Colleagues

Dimitri Simes began almost with the epigraph of former US Vice President Kamella Harris. She said that what is happening today will not be repeated tomorrow. This is roughly what she wants to say in her well-known expressions. This is life.

Thank you for such kind words addressed to me. The question of how a person changes when he occupies a fairly responsible post at the turn of epochs is very relevant. On the one hand, it is personal. I haven't thought about it for a long time. Now we have remembered that historical era. In memory and even in sensations, the feelings that we experienced then from the deepest disappointment and bitterness come to life. Then there were glimmers of hope.

The theme of a multipolar world brought to life the glimmers of hope that we saw in the mid-1990s. In January 1996, Yevgeny Primakov was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. He remains our great teacher. He is a bright, multifaceted personality. The gift of political and geopolitical foresight was inherent in him, like few people on this earth and few in politics. It was then that he formulated the revolutionary concept of a multipolar world at that time. It was a response to the "incantations" of well-known political scientists that the "end of history" had come, and from now on the Western liberal order would freely "envelop" the entire globe, human thoughts, souls, hearts and all everyday activities.

Yevgeny Primakov not only put forward this concept; he actively promoted it. The first concrete step on this path was the Declaration on a Multipolar World and the Formation of a New International Order, signed by the heads of Russia and China in Moscow back in 1997.

At that time, Yevgeny Primakov was still the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Boris Yeltsin's government. It was in 1997 that the legal foundation was laid for multipolarity to become permanent in the international dialogue.

In 2002, when Vladimir Putin became president, the first trilateral Russia-India-China summit was held. And since then, this "troika"–-RIC-–has established itself as a useful format for all participants. Perhaps not as much has been written about it as about the SCO, BRICS and other structures. Without much noise, but also without hesitation or hiding, RIC has been quite confident in promoting cooperation in this format. There have been about 20 meetings of foreign ministers and several dozen meetings at other ministerial levels, including the ministers of economy, transport, energy and the humanitarian sphere.

Multipolarity has been gaining momentum since then. We can say this with full responsibility. Yevgeny Primakov's analysis, which formed the basis of this concept, fully confirms its relevance.

New centres of power (economic growth, financial power, and political influence along with it) have appeared in Eurasia, the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America–-in general, everywhere. This trend reflects the desire of the countries of each region to take responsibility for their own development, for taking the development of their parts of the world into their own hands. I believe that this is a healthy trend. Moreover, it has gained new momentum and accelerated in the context of the changes brought to global economic and other relations with the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. The model of globalisation used by all his predecessors turned out to be not quite suitable for the philosophy of the Trumpists, too ideological. And they began to cleanse their actions in the international arena of any influence of various ideologies. Those ideologies were somewhat different, but they had the same essence–-neoliberal approaches, the spread of the influence of the "collective West" to the rest of the world, in fact, an attempt to replay and reinforce the end of history, and attempt to continue to live at the expense of others, only no longer by crude methods of colonial exploitation, but by the methods of modern neocolonialism, when the countries of the Global South, the Global East play the role of suppliers of raw materials, with some exceptions, in general. The lion's share of the added value is produced in the West. And there are many examples of this.

This second "awakening" of Africa, in particular, where colonialism was particularly brutal, is associated precisely with the struggle to abandon neocolonial methods of doing business, which are still very actively used by the West and are being rejected by an increasing number of countries around the world.

In December 2024, at the initiative of the Group of Friends in Defense of the UN Charter (a structure created in 2022 at the suggestion of Venezuela and now numbering about 20 countries, and the number of applicants is growing), a resolution was adopted on the need to counter modern practices of neocolonialism. At the upcoming 80th session of the UN General Assembly in the autumn, this topic will be one of the most acute and causes of serious debates.

This is not just a movement, some conferences, papers that are discussed and adopted. Statistics show the progress demonstrated by the process of multipolarity. For example, China is now the world's first economy in terms of purchasing power parity. By the way, Russia is fourth. I hope that we will not go any lower, given all the discussions that are currently underway about the macroeconomic tasks we are solving and the methods used in this process.

As announced back in 2024, Russia has overtaken Japan and Germany in terms of purchasing power parity, and the BRICS have surpassed the G7 Western countries in terms of the same indicator for several years now. And the gap between them is growing. At the same time, we do not just see mechanical figures of economic growth. All this is achieved through important structural transformations. Most countries in the Global South in one way or another, even while maintaining (we all understand this) business and normal relations with the West (we were also ready to maintain them, it is not our choice that they were severed or trampled), are nevertheless reducing dependence on Western countries and Western currencies, in particular, they are forming mechanisms for ensuring foreign trade operations that are beyond the control of the West, laying new transport and logistics chains, and creating a new architecture of interaction in culture, education and sports. The last thing I said is also a very interesting trend. It is taking place in parallel with the fact that the United States is also creating new forms of organising multilateral global sports competitions. We will see a lot more, including in the cultural sphere. Eurovision, with all its exotic "ornaments" and "vignettes", also makes you want to return to normal songs about normal human interests. The process is underway.

The fact that multipolarity is a geopolitical reality is also recognized in the West. Let me remind you that representatives of the Biden administration spoke about this. In January 2025, Marco Rubio, my colleague, the current US Secretary of State, called the unipolar world order "an anomalous product of the end of the Cold War." When it seemed that the "end of history" had come and everything would now be as decided in the West.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, for all his rather controversial and not very well-thought-out statements on other topics on the issue of multipolarity, clearly states that this trend is serious and for a long time, that it is irreversible.

Representatives of many European countries have repeatedly acknowledged the fact of a change in the balance of power on the world stage not in favor of the West.

It is another matter that all Western representatives, when they talk about this, recognize the facts. They see multipolarity not as a blessing, not as the implementation of the principle of equality, fraternity and freedom, but as a threat, a challenge to their interests and their dominion, with which they have ensured their well-being for many centuries.

We no longer go to the Munich Security Conference, which takes place in February every year. It has completely turned into an apologist for Western philosophy and the Western school of thought. The last meeting of this conference in February of this year was devoted to multipolarization, as they called it. The report that was released shows that they are afraid of multipolarity, they want to stop it, or better yet, break it altogether, and prevent these trends from resuming. Hence the impudence and rigidity to the point of ultimatums to sovereign states not to violate the unilateral orders that the West is establishing or trying to establish, including the illegal, criminal and undermining postulates of the West itself, which it promoted 3-4 decades ago: unilateral illegitimate sanctions.

The thesis that the report of the Munich Conference described multipolarity is almost synonymous with chaos and confrontation between great powers that are doomed to permanent rivalry and, accordingly, create threats to international security through this rivalry. The logic and philosophy of the people who wrote the report is such that only in "one-man management" can peace and a confident prospect of human development be ensured. "One-man management" is clear under whom. Any diversity, any multipolarity is seen as a threat, of course, primarily to those who wanted to ensure the "end of history" and preserve the unipolar world. It will not work. This conclusion is doubtful.

The work that is currently being carried out in the international arena proves the opposite: that whenever countries, including great powers, respect each other's interests, they manage to come to an agreement. We have many issues that cause disputes and require additional considerations and additional mutual concessions with our great neighbours from China, India, and the CIS and EAEU countries. The closer and closer the cooperation, the more issues arise on which everyone wants to defend their interests a little more. But in the end, if you work respectfully, if you do not use threats and ultimatums, let alone do not put them into practice, you can always find an honest balance of interests. This is happening, as I have already said, in our relations with China, India, with our neighbours, with the BRICS countries, with the SCO, with partners in the Arab world, in the Islamic world as a whole, in Africa and in Latin America.

To reiterate, the volume of contacts and joint work in our country is primarily concentrated in our immediate neighbourhood and in such organisations as BRICS, the SCO, the CIS and the EAEU. In order for the world to develop in this way, it is necessary to respect generally accepted principles. I have heard many colleagues and during various discussions they predicted that it would be necessary to break the Yalta-Potsdam system and create something new. I would warn against such radical approaches. Surely, as they say, law enforcement practice is not suitable in the form in which the West applies and uses it.

As for the international legal foundations, why did the UN Charter displease anyone? It states, first, that all the activities of the United Nations are based on the principle of the sovereign equality of States. It says that it is impossible to interfere in each other's affairs, that wars, threats of war must be eliminated, and this is the main goal of the UN. Another thing is that these principles of the Charter should not be applied selectively, as with a menu. "You found a cutlet for yourself, but you don't want a fish"–-this is what the West does. They clung to the principle of self-determination of peoples on the very first page of the UN Charter. And through him, in a situation where there were no wars, no risks of military confrontation, they took and "tore away" Kosovo from Serbia. And they said that this is an obvious thing, this is the self-determination of peoples. Although there was no referendum there, no one there was for self-determination, except for the parliament, which was "tame" and was headed, as well as the "government" of this Serbian province, by criminals from the "Kosovo Liberation Army". This was in 2008.

Suddenly, in 2014, having politically rebelled against the putschists who seized power in Kiev through a bloody coup d'état, trampled on the agreement signed the day before with the then president on the need to hold early elections under the guarantees of the European Union, and who declared themselves the "government of winners," Crimeans and people in Donbass asked to leave them alone. It was their putschists who declared them terrorists and threw a regular army against them, including the combat aircraft that bombed Lugansk. And many other things were happening there, including to this day. To the shame of the entire West, there are uninvestigated crimes, including such landmark ones as the burning alive of fifty people in the House of Trade Unions in Odessa on May 2, 2014. It was allowed. Then, apparently, he received a non-public explanation of where his "six" was, and what place on this "six" belonged to him. Disgrace.

I will mention Bucha here right away. More than three years ago, "by chance", two days after Russian troops withdrew from the suburbs of Kyiv as a sign of goodwill before signing the agreement (only local authorities were there for two days), BBC correspondents suddenly arrived there and miraculously showed the neatly arranged bodies not in the basements, but on the main street of this village. An explosion of indignation, "Russia is a barbarian, a butcher", a new package of sanctions.

Since then, we have sent several official requests to the UN agencies with a request to investigate human rights violations. They have deliberately created an independent commission on Ukrainian affairs at the Human Rights Council without our participation. We have officially appealed to it three times. Deathly silence. My direct, public questions to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at UN Security Council meetings are asking if it is possible to get a list of the people whose corpses were shown by the BBC correspondents who were so lucky in this place through his "good offices". He leaves, is embarrassed and averts his eyes. I have been to New York twice in the past two years at a meeting of the UN General Assembly. I have a news conference at the end. All the world's media are represented there. I have already appealed to their professional intuition, instincts and pride. I asked if they really don't care what happened there. Or were they forbidden even to touch this topic? There is no answer, of course.

In addition to territorial integrity and the right of nations to self-determination, there are many other principles in the UN Charter. In 1970, the General Assembly adopted a huge detailed Declaration on Principles of Relations among States in accordance with the UN Charter. It dotted the dots over the "ё" there. As for the principle of self-determination and how it is related to territorial integrity, it said that everyone is obliged to respect the territorial integrity of those states whose governments respect the principle of self-determination of peoples and therefore represent the entire population living in a given territory. That is, the government in a state whose territorial integrity must be protected must represent the entire population living in this territory.

Who doubted after the putsch that the racists and Nazis who came to power represented Russians, Russian-speakers, and many other ethnic groups that did not want this criminal government?

The UN Charter, even before the right of nations to self-determination, says (you won't believe it) that it is necessary to respect human rights, regardless of race, gender, language and religion. Have you ever heard Western countries, defending the government of Vladimir Zelensky, say that human rights must be respected? Not once.

No matter what country the West talks about in the public space (Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, even Hungary, Slovakia–-you name any country), human rights are somewhere at the very top of their complaints. And in Ukraine, there is nothing of the kind. The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the former head of the European Council, Charles Michel, and all sorts of other callas, most European leaders say that it is necessary to continue helping Ukraine so that it "defeats Russia." Then, after "winning," it was already "so that it does not lose to Russia," and now "we need a truce to make up for the supply of ammunition." But they all say that Ukraine "deserves their support" because it "defends European values." The laws that exterminate the Russian language in all spheres, and the latest law, which is in fact aimed at the extermination of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which directly violates the article of the UN Charter that I have quoted, are perceived by "enlightened" Europe as a struggle of Ukrainian Nazis for European "values." EU Commissioner for Enlargement Michel Kos said that "Ukraine has fulfilled all the preconditions necessary to start negotiations on its admission to the European Union."

The desire to "bury" multipolarity and any dissent in general, as they did with Romania, as they are trying to do with Hungary, Slovakia, and all those who think about national interests–-this is not for the European Union. Multipolarity is something different. It is being formed and will be formed regardless of how European leaders behave.

Some time ago, we thought about the fact that there are now many various integration groupings everywhere–-in Eurasia, in Africa, in Latin America. In Africa, there is a continent-wide association–-the African Union, in Latin America and the Caribbean there is a similar association–-CELAC, but in Eurasia there is not. Although it is the largest, the richest, probably the most successful continent in the foreseeable historical future.

When we talk about security in Eurasia, until recently, such structures as the OSCE (NATO, of course) and the European Union immediately came to mind. Yes, they tried to play the role of an "honest broker" in pulling their neighbors from the Asian part of the European continent to their mechanisms. But the OSCE and NATO were created on the basis of the Euro-Atlantic concept. Even when the Helsinki summit was being prepared in 1975, it was assumed that it would be Europe West of the Urals and all the way to Lisbon. However, the Europeans insisted on inviting the United States and Canada.

The Euro-Atlantic model has discredited itself. This applies not only to the OSCE, but also to NATO, as another product of Euro-Atlantic concepts. Now we can say with confidence that this also applies to the European Union, which was engaged in the economic, social and infrastructural development of the territories of its member states and ensured the connectivity of these territories. And a couple of years ago, in the midst of a special military operation, having thrown out hatred towards Russia, reviving Nazi predatory ideas about "inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia", putting the whole of Europe under arms, as Napoleon did, as they tried to do during the Crimean War and during the First and especially Second World War (now all normal people who believed in this have lost the scale), the European Union signed an agreement with NATO, according to which it provided the North Atlantic Alliance with its territory for the transfer of any weapons to the east to the borders of the Russian Federation. And it fell into Euro-Atlanticism.

The main thing is that these organisations can no longer claim to even partially fill the vacuum of a pan-continental forum. The OSCE has been destroyed almost to its foundations. The consensus has been trampled underfoot. Now Finland, which holds the chairmanship, is preparing the 50th anniversary session of the OSCE Council of Foreign Ministers. Not everyone is invited (they just decided so) so as not to spoil the holiday. NATO is in a deep crisis. Let's see how the reforms (5% for defence), which are now being discussed, will affect NATO. Let's see how NATO will be affected by Washington's obvious desire under the Trump administration to deal more with Far Eastern affairs, the "Indo-Pacific region", as they call the Asia-Pacific region, leaving Europe, as the French say, to deal with its own affairs on its own.

In this regard, a continent-wide format is being asked. We had relations with the European Union–-dozens of mechanisms. There was a Russia-NATO Council. There were also many programs: the fight against terrorism, cooperation on Afghanistan – there was everything. So far, there is no continent-wide mechanism.

At one time, when the first Russia-ASEAN summit was held, President of Russia Vladimir Putin proposed not to create something there, but to proceed from life. There is the EAEU. It has relations with the SCO. Each of these organizations has relations with ASEAN. There are relations between the EAEU and projects within the framework of the Chinese concept "One Belt, One Road".

If we bring together those who plan further work in each of these areas and see where these plans can be harmonised for the benefit of the cause, President Vladimir Putin called this process the formation of the Greater Eurasian Partnership. Not only the structures that I have listed. There is also the GCC, with which we have very close relations, the South Asian Development Council, the Central Asian Five and a number of other structures.

We propose to develop the Greater Eurasian Partnership on the basis of openness to all countries of the continent without exception, which gives the states located on it huge competitive advantages, which the West now wants to give up.

German Chancellor Frank Merz, no matter what happens, probably so that the Americans do not restore Nord Stream, said that Nord Streams are subject to sanctions and it is forbidden to restore them. He also "cries" that ordinary Germans are suffering from tariff wars. Well done.

If the Greater Eurasian Partnership develops naturally, it may well become the material foundation for the architecture of Eurasian security. We are now working on this, primarily with our Belarusian friends. This year they will hold the third conference on Eurasian security.

Foreign Minister of Belarus, my colleague Mikhail Ryzhenkov, will visit Moscow today or tomorrow. We have circulated the draft Eurasian Charter on Diversity and Multipolarity as an initiative for discussion. The process is underway and is of interest. Representatives of NATO countries and the European Union (Hungary, Slovakia and Serbia) took part in the Minsk conferences. The process is open to all countries on the continent.

Our ruling party, United Russia, together with representatives of other Duma parties, held public and political hearings on the same topic in Perm a week ago. Party leaders from a number of Asian countries, including Japan, South Korea, Thailand and China, participated. These are parties that are members of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties.

Question: I have a question about the US administration. They will already be in power for five months. During this time, there have been many statements and appointments. Some of these appointments have already resulted in revisions and dismissals. How do you see Russia's relations with the new Trump administration? Where are we located? Where is all this leading?

Sergey Lavrov: I believe that we are in a more correct and more normal position than it was in our relations with the Biden administration, which, after President Vladimir Putin's encouraging talks with US President Joe Biden in Geneva on June 16, 2021, turned 180 degrees (unfortunately, not 360 degrees, as Anna Baerbock advised). All channels of communication were blocked. The meeting in Geneva was good. In the initial part of the meeting (in a restricted format), Joe Biden said the following: the United States and Russia are two great powers. Each country has its own history. We must respect the history of each other and any other country. The United States was formed as a melting pot where all migrants plunged and left it with the inscription "human rights" on their foreheads, and "we are all Americans." The Russian Empire developed differently. It annexed territories where settled peoples had lived for centuries. They were not lowered into any melting pots, all their traditions were left with respect, and their history, culture and religion were respected. Even the Russian Empire had the practice of granting different status to its constituent parts in order to respect and take into account their diversity. Therefore, it is a completely different state formation, civilisational in the most diverse senses of the word. The United States does not want anyone to undermine this monolithic unity. Vladimir Putin had to do a lot after becoming president in 2000. This is very useful. We are safe when Russia, possessing nuclear weapons, controls the country.

Brazilian President Lula da Silva said the other day that Joe Biden, while still president, told him that Russia must be destroyed. It's like two different people. At that time, his main concern was that Russia did not lose the ability to control its military power. And then the main thing was to destroy Russia.

The mouth was a cliff. CIA Director William Burns came. He tried (as the Americans put it) to dissuade us from the "irrevocable" decision to attack Ukraine. We told them that our concern was not to attack anyone, but to protect our legitimate security interests. At that time, a draft agreement between Russia and NATO, as well as a draft treaty between Russia and the United States, were presented, in which Russia's security interests were clearly outlined, but not to the detriment of the security of our neighbors. We met with then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Geneva in January 2022 on both documents. We were actually ignored. The tasks that were put forward and which we are now solving as part of a special military operation were called unacceptable. No guarantees of Ukraine's non-accession to NATO. Don't even think about it.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told me that at most we are developing ground-based intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles. This is a class that was banned by the INF Treaty, from which the United States withdrew. They have not responded and will not respond to our call for two parallel, unrelated moratoriums in the absence of a treaty. Antony Blinken proposed agreeing that the United States will deploy a certain number of ground-based intermediate-range missiles in Ukraine. And Russia, they say, will also take on such a commitment near the Ukrainian border. A "ceiling" will be provided. A week later, at the Munich Security Conference, Vladimir Zelensky hysterically shouted that no one would ban Ukraine from joining NATO. He was applauded. A week later, in gross violation of the Minsk agreements, the shelling of Donbass increased by 10-15 times. When "Plan B" was ready to be implemented-–not through the Minsk Agreements, but through the forcible seizure of small territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, which were not under Kiev's control, we had no other choice.

We must never be under illusions. When we met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Riyadh in late February of this year, the Americans, as the initiators of the meeting, began the conversation and said that the foreign policy of US President Donald Trump and his administration is firmly based on national interests. They recognize that other countries have national interests, especially when it comes to great powers such as the United States and the Russian Federation. Therefore, in order to avoid surprises and misunderstandings, they proceed from the fact that in most cases the interests of large countries will not coincide. But when the national interests of countries such as Russia and the United States coincide, it would be a colossal mistake not to use this coincidence in order to implement mutually beneficial projects in the material sphere (economy, energy, transport, space, the Arctic, whatever). And in most cases where these interests do not coincide, it is the duty of the great powers not to allow this discrepancy to degenerate into a confrontation, especially a heated one. I support this approach with both hands. President of Russia Vladimir Putin has always proceeded from this in formulating his foreign policy. We are ready to talk to everyone honestly, without compromising our national, fundamental and legitimate interests and without demanding this from our partners. You can always come to an agreement. "Balance of interests" and "compromises:" these are the words that President of Russia Vladimir Putin has said many times when answering the question of who to negotiate with.

I would not flatter myself. We do not know how the situation within the Trump administration will unfold. I believe that the relations that were established between the presidents of our countries back in Donald Trump's first term are working. They do not need any preludes or prefaces. During their regular telephone contacts, they immediately get to the point. This is how we should work. It is always better to state your position directly. Then there will be no illusions or unfulfilled hopes. It seems to me that US President Donald Trump, his Secretary of State and Vice President are politicians who want to work in this way.

Question (retranslated from English): What problems and challenges do you see in Russia's movement from a special military operation to an anti-terrorist operation?

Sergey Lavrov: This is of concern to us not only because of what happened in early June of this year, but also because the Kiev regime has had these methods in one form or another (not as naked as it was done in the Bryansk and Kursk regions) from the very beginning. You can list any territory where hostilities took place, and the result will be the same. I believe that the most striking example is the Kursk Region. Our armed forces explain what facilities they attacked on the territory of Ukraine. These are facilities associated with the armed forces, military units, places where equipment is concentrated, or former civilian facilities used by the armed forces or the security service of Ukraine.

As for the Kursk Region, we all saw what the Ukrainian Nazis were doing there. There is not a single object there that could be presented to the "viewer" as an object related to the conduct of hostilities. Therefore, this is not surprising for us. At the last meeting with members of the government, President of Russia Vladimir Putin clearly stated what conclusion we had reached. We will proceed from this.

This threat is quite serious. Obviously, everything is being done by the Ukrainian side, but it would have been helpless without the support of the Anglo-Saxons. Now without the Saxons, simply without the support of the British. Although, perhaps, the US special services are also involved by inertia, but the British are 100%. It is necessary to take appropriate measures not only through the Russian Federal Security Service (it has a huge amount of work), but also through the Russian Interior Ministry, the National Guard and other special services. What is important is what we used to call increasing the vigilance of the population. This is what they are doing. You are right that there are risks of an escalation of the terrorist threat. We see them. We will do everything to ensure that they are suppressed and do not harm our citizens.

Question: In the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation 2023, your country is designated as a state-civilization. Its self-identification on Eurasian civilizational traditions, which are different from Western liberalism, is emphasized. What will be the impact of this identification, dedicated to cultural and civilizational sovereignty, on Russia's future relations with Europe and the United States? Civilizational states such as Russia and China are the main architects of multipolarity. Their civilizational legitimacy, especially the desire to get out from under the Western logic ("divide and rule", "zero-sum game"), contributes to improving cooperation between people. What do you think about the synergy of the economies of China and the EAEU? What will be the influence in the region and beyond? Can a pan-Eurasian organization be created? Can Russia and China lay the foundation for its creation?

Sergey Lavrov: The Eurasian continent is unique in that not only two civilisations are located here and have developed and created for thousands of years. There are many more of them. There is the Indian civilisation, the Ottoman civilisation, and there are civilisations that were once called the Roman Empire. Some echoes of those traditions also remain. On other continents, such as Africa and Latin America, there are civilisational roots, primarily of indigenous peoples, but they are not so delineated in civilisational symbols: culture, traditions and customs. Even Greenland does not have such traditions.

In my opening remarks, I tried to convey the idea that all people are different, as are civilisations, and different religions are different from each other. In Eurasia, we can find a common language with all our neighbours and with all major powers. I fully agree with you that it is through a dialogue of civilisations that this process can acquire a pan-continental sound, and that Russia and China can and should play a leading proactive role in this continent-wide process. As a first step, I hope that we will be able to restore the work of the RIC Troika (Russia, India and China). Over the past couple of years, we have not met at the level of foreign ministers. I am discussing this issue with both my Chinese colleague and the head of the Indian Foreign Ministry. I hope that after the tension on the border between India and China has significantly subsided and the situation stabilises, there is a dialogue between New Delhi and Beijing, and we will be able to resume the work of the RIC troika. This will be an important step forward in advancing continent-wide processes.

Question (retranslated from English): How can the way the West perceives Russia be changed?

Sergey Lavrov: Many Russians and representatives of other peoples of the USSR had a happy moment in their lives, similar to the "meeting on the Elbe," when a terrible enemy was defeated, when, despite all the diplomatic manoeuvres that we observed from the West in the first days, months and years of the war, there was aid, "lend-lease" (not for free). But the main thing was that the British were waiting for when and on whose side to enter the war. It was accumulating. Distrust remained. Thanks to several Russian-American-British summits, it was possible to work out geopolitical compromises at the highest level. There was both cold calculation and a balance of interests. I have never seen a greater manifestation of happiness than the footage from the chronicle of the meeting on the Elbe. Then all this was undermined. World War II had not yet ended, and our allies were already preparing Operation Unthinkable at the initiative of the British. It was good that they understood that attacking the USSR was unthinkable. But the direction of thought was set. Then there was Winston Churchill's Fulton speech, the Cold War and the Iron Curtain.

A happy community of people from different countries and cultures who have the same feelings after defeating evil is the most important thing. Now we are also talking about the struggle between good and evil. You are right when you say that the West (first of all, Europe and its aggressive core, led by the Starmers, Merz, Macrons), in addition to fighting against us, supplying Ukraine with high-precision weapons (the Ukrainians cannot control them, this is done by the citizens of the countries that supply these weapons), simply wants to demonstrate the isolation of our country by prohibiting everyone from coming here.

Some MEP came to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Victory. He was kicked out of some faction. They were not allowed to attend the meeting. Disgrace. Fascism. Dictatorship. I have already mentioned what was done to Romania.

All of these countries have ambassadors in Moscow. Some have consulates general in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The ambassador's job is to convey the truth to his government. The government has declared the goal of inflicting a "strategic defeat" on Russia. Ambassadors are obliged to report on how this task is being solved on the ground, that is, on the territory of the Russian Federation, against which a war to defeat has been declared. I don't know what ambassadors are reporting, but there are some things we can tell.

I have an example. A year ago, in May 2024, we thought about it in our Ministry and decided not to reciprocate rudely the procedures that the host countries have introduced in relation to our ambassadors to Europe. They did not accept them, with rare exceptions, when it was necessary to express some angry protests.

Before the start of the special military operation, we had a practice that twice a year we met with all the ambassadors of the European Union in turn, either at our site, or at their place, and discussed everything that interested anyone at a working lunch.

In May 2024, we decided to invite them and ask, without announcements (it no longer matters at all), what they did not understand from what was happening. Obviously, the capitals of these countries did not show awareness of what was happening and what result their aggression against Russia was having, what effect it had and is having on the Russian leadership, on the Russian people. We invited everyone, including the head of the EU Delegation, and set a date and time. Suddenly, a few days before the scheduled event, they replied that they had received instructions from their capitals to refuse this invitation. In other words, Europe did not care what the result (at that time) of its belligerent and aggressive policy was. They forbade the ambassadors to "move."

I mentioned this publicly. After that, we learned that they met with a representative of the European Commission and decided to respond to my public criticism by writing a paper that would then be published. In this draft, which was circulated, it was said that this was not the case, that they could not accept an invitation from the foreign minister of the country that attacked Ukraine and which, as it turned out, poisoned Alexey Navalny.

In this regard, I would like to remind you that we are also unable to get an answer to the names of those whose bodies were shown in Bucha from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, or from journalists who, it would seem, know about Jeff Epstein, but do not succeed in doing so.

Speaking of A., I think it is also blasphemy for Alexey Navalny to speculate on a person's life, no matter how they are treated. Alexey Navalny was instantly sent from Omsk to Germany within 24 hours, without drawing up any of the necessary documents that need to be drawn up in such cases, on a plane on which people without visas and passports arrived and flew accordingly. When he was brought to the Charité civilian hospital, nothing was found there. He was immediately transported to a Bundeswehr clinic and "something" was found there. We wrote a note saying that he was our citizen. We asked if we could see what they had found, because it was important for us to know. We were told that it was not, that if we were informed of the results of Alexey Navalny's tests, we would know at what stage their biological programme was. They said that they would give all the tests to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. We went there. The organisation, which the West privatised a long time ago, said that the Germans gave them the tests, but told us not to show them. I'm not joking at all now. We don't know how he was treated, what he was given there in this Bundeswehr clinic. I don't know how these drugs could have manifested themselves in a year, a year and a half, two or three years later. This conversation is based on a refusal to provide facts.

As well as the Malaysian Boeing. No one provided the facts. 13 witnesses, only one was in person, all the rest are anonymous. Recently there was a trial in the Netherlands. The United States provided satellite data, which is simply mentioned that it was shown to the court. Or maybe it was not shown, but the court trusts the United States that the satellite data is correct. Nothing more is needed.

This is again a manifestation of impunity and irreparable confidence in one's own rightness, which serves as the main engine of those who want to undermine the process of multipolarity, including by military means. I would like to say that the truth is on our side, multipolarity will be ours.

Question (retranslated from English): I am half Scottish and half Irish, so I would like to take this opportunity to absolve myself of any responsibility for the historical crimes of the Anglo-Saxons.

President Donald Trump is in office, but is he in power? In the last dizzying days in Washington, we have seen President Donald Trump's ability to "spin" no worse than Anna Baerbock at 360 and 180 degrees. Perhaps this is a trait of his character.

There is a dual power in the United States. I personally believe that President Donald Trump knew nothing about the terrorist attacks on military airfields in Russia over the past week. This was done quickly and clearly by those who acted on the orders of the previous administration. Do you think there is any reason to believe that there are forces in the United States that intend to interfere with any good that President Donald Trump may have in mind?

Sergey Lavrov: I think that in any society, especially one that has been developing for many decades within the framework of its political system, as if on a well-trodden track, the arrival of a bright, non-standard figure to the leadership of the state always causes some latent processes aimed at continuing to live as they are used to, spending and spreading their ideology on credit. I think that this is typical not only for the United States.

We have talked about this more than once over the past couple of years. There were also people in our society who hoped that everything would return to normal, those who fled (I mean Western business) would return again, and again they would be welcomed with open arms, there would be trips to the Côte d'Azur, to Sardinia. And that's it, life will be restored when consumption was mostly provided through imports.

President Vladimir Putin clearly said differently about our people, who are not called the "deep state," but the meaning is about the same. Our experience of uniting such "characters" is not nearly as strong as in the United States, but President Vladimir Putin clearly said, speaking about the return of business, that we are not against it, but it will be honest. If you run away and abandon your employees, then the niche is occupied, so excuse me, but offer us something that will be acceptable to us.

But the most important thing is that shortly after the start of the special military operation, speaking about the future of the world, he said that everything will never be the same for us, for Russia, for the Russian people. It didn't work out, they didn't believe us.

Just recently, there was an interview with President of Russia Vladimir Putin. He was asked a direct question whether this meant that he was naïve. He said, yes, he was naïve. But this means that we have been entwined with so many friendly formats and slogans such as "from the Atlantic to the Pacific", "common spaces with the European Union", four areas–- security, economy, infrastructure and humanitarian issues. Common spaces have been built from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Dozens of areas and joint projects, two summits every year, meetings of ministers and permanent representatives, Russia and the European Union, the Council of Russia and NATO, and much more. The oath at the highest level signed at the OSCE that security is indivisible and no one will strengthen their security at the expense of others. That is, all this was accumulating by inertia, and each time the West proved its complete inability to negotiate, that all these beautiful words were needed for only one purpose, to prepare again for a war with Russia for annihilation, as they did in past centuries.

But we did not want to believe it, and until the last moment we tried to promote the idea that we had reached an agreement in contacts with Germany, France and London. And they "broke off piece by piece" from these agreements and, as former US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland later admitted, invested a total of $5 billion. to Ukraine, only to make it "anti-Russia".

Forgive me for straying from the American agenda to ours, but the "deep state" is by no means unique to the United States. I have already mentioned today the European Commission, which was not elected at all, and whose composition is the subject of such "behind-the-scenes bargaining" (you for me, I for you). The "characters" in this European Commission are also playing their game as the "deep state" does. And they want to "crush" this "deep state". As soon as in some country the first round of elections is won not by a "nomenklatura person", but by someone who is a nationalist in a good sense (he may not like us or anyone else, but he thinks about his people, this is the duty of any politician), mechanisms like the "deep state" immediately turn on, and everything returns to normal.

I sincerely hope that constitutional norms will prevail in America, that President Donald Trump will not be constrained in exercising his constitutional powers, that he will not be interfered with, and that he will receive all the information.

I do not know about the situation with informing the US President about the operations that the Ukrainian regime is conducting against our country. The fact that a huge number of American advisers are sitting in the building of the security service of Ukraine is a fact. No one removed them anywhere. The fact that instructors from other states work there, supplying weapons to the Ukrainian regime is also a fact. We also know that they advise the Ukrainian armed forces in planning strategic operations, in deploying facilities, in camouflaging objects. I have already mentioned that a number of modern weapons cannot be used without the direct participation of the military personnel of the countries that supplied these weapons.

As far as I understand, President Donald Trump was asked on the plane what he thought about the latest attacks, not the last ones, but terrorist attacks. He said that when he heard about this, he immediately realised that the Ukrainians would get what they wanted for this and that they would be bombed "to hell," as he put it. I can only perceive and comment on what I hear. How is the US President informed by the special services? To be honest, I do not know. We do not invade other people's secrets through the Foreign Ministry.

Question (retranslated from English): What is the future of diplomacy in the conditions and circumstances of a multicultural, multipolar and interconnected world?

Sergey Lavrov: I believe that diplomacy in any system and format of the world order will not disappear.

I have already said that diplomacy is the oldest profession, because everything else must be negotiated. Without diplomacy, you can't get anywhere.

Speaking of the naïve perception of the "pink" post-Soviet period, when we were "courted" by everyone: hundreds of specialists worked in our state institutions, especially financial structures. It really seemed that it was the "end of history", now we are part of the civilised world. Disappointment came very quickly. But at that time, there was a formula in our foreign policy language (it was recorded in various analytical documents) that the new post-Soviet era, after the Cold War, had as its main feature a decrease in the factor of force in international affairs. Now we can only laugh at this topic. As soon as someone was persuaded to reduce the factor of force, the one who persuaded them used this factor to the fullest.

Now there can be no such naïve perception of all these promises and "incantations", but diplomacy is still needed. In particular, in order to prevent the arms race (especially nuclear weapons) from reaching a level where the irreparable can happen. Moreover, now such a serious risk as artificial intelligence is being added. Who knows what he will decide for himself when he understands how the governance of a particular country is organized. This is what many are doing now.

There is a desire in the Trump administration to resume a strategic dialogue. We proceed from the premise that as soon as the basic components of our relations, on which they are based, are brought into line with the principles of conducting equal talks on strategic stability, we will be ready to resume them. More needs to be done.

Another example when diplomacy is still needed is the Ukrainian "situation". Now our best diplomats are undoubtedly fighters on the front line, on the line of contact. They are fighting for the truth, honor and dignity of people.

Recently, German Chancellor Merz "went into a frenzy" in one of his speeches and said that Russia should be "stopped," saying that they [Germans] would again make Germany the number one military force in Europe. I don't know if he understood what the word "again" means in this context, but he later added that Russia would not stop in Ukraine and would conquer all of Europe. He judges by himself, he still has the mentality of Hitler's Germany, which needed territories to gain access to natural resources. And most people of certain ethnic norms and forms they were going to destroy and destroyed. He is trying to think about us based on his genetic instinctive assessments and plans.

We are conducting a special military operation not for territories, but for the people whose ancestors lived on these lands for centuries, created cities there, built ports, factories and roads, sowed wheat and produced other products. In September 2021, Vladimir Zelensky, answering a question about his thoughts on the people on the other side of Donbass, said that there are people and there are "creatures." If you live in Ukraine and think that you belong to Russian culture, his advice is: for the sake of the safety and happiness of your children and grandchildren, go to Russia. In fact, they listened to him. They held a referendum and, as he says, "failed" to Russia. This is what I am talking about.

When the Nazi regime in the Russian city of Odessa, ignoring the protests of the townspeople, demolishes a monument to the city's founder, Empress Catherine the Great, and a week later UNESCO declares the historical part of Odessa where this monument stood a world cultural heritage, what should we think about this organisation headed by French citizen Audrey Azoulay? How can one disgrace oneself and make sure that no one in the West even mentions this? Although the fact is absolutely obvious.

We have just held talks in Istanbul. Our operation will continue. President Vladimir Putin has clearly explained this. But at the same time, we are ready to contribute classical diplomacy to achieving the goals of the special military operation. First of all, in resolving humanitarian issues, including the exchange of prisoners of war, the return of young guys "shaved" by Ukrainian territorial recruitment centres, the wounded, sick and the bodies of the dead.

So much has already been said about Vladimir Zelensky's refusal to take away the bodies of his military that I do not even want to talk further about this blasphemous topic. But once again, the results achieved on the ground will still be formalized in legal documents. This will be done together with the military, but above all by diplomats. Our position is clear, we know what we are fighting for there, directly at the front, in the diplomatic and economic areas, and in the direction of raising our children.

Question (retranslated from English): I know that you care about the UN, the international organizations in which you began your diplomatic career. My question is about the geographical status of such organizations that now have offices in "neutral countries" such as Switzerland and Austria, although, as we know, they have ceased to be neutral over the past three years. I believe that in a multipolar world, it is necessary to relocate. For example, OPEC could move to Istanbul, or some UN organizations based in Geneva could be moved to India or the African continent.

Sergey Lavrov: The best thing to do is to move the UN to Sochi.

Stalin seriously proposed this. But then he met Franklin D. Roosevelt halfway–-first Long Island, and then New York and Manhattan.

Now all these structures have taken deep roots. And not only physically in the form of buildings, property, but also in the form of personnel. Moreover, after permanent contracts were introduced, the staff bought apartments and houses for themselves. If all this is suddenly transferred now, it will be such a movement of peoples, it is even scary to imagine.

I believe that we should approach this with the same principle as the UN Charter. There is not a single principle that would be irrelevant or unfair today. And the only drawback is that they have not been implemented. As we used to say in the Russian Empire: the severity of Russian laws is mitigated by the fact that they are not mandatory.

The same is true of the UN Charter. The same is true of the countries you listed where their headquarters are now located (the United States, Austria and Switzerland). If the UN Charter is implemented, then all global problems will probably be resolved much more effectively. What is the principle of sovereign equality of states worth? Do it. It is difficult, hardly realistic, but nevertheless.

The same applies to relocation. Each city where UN agencies are currently located has obligations written in the agreement between this organisation and the host country. These obligations unequivocally require not to delay the issuance of visas for a year or two, and not to restrict the movement of diplomats who work in the missions of an international organisation.

Therefore, the UN Committee on Relations with the Host Country was created in New York, within the framework of which, even during the Biden administration, we wrote down a provision on the need for the United States, the state masters of the headquarters, to perform their functions. This is important not so much because it will be cheaper than moving, but it is important on the principle that you do not want to put up with the fact that once written obligations are grossly violated.

Rightness is always on the side of the one who demands the fulfillment of agreements. Russia always fulfills its agreements. We reaffirmed this during the talks in the context of the special military operation. [My Emphasis]

As usual, Lavrov employs many small, very sharp rhetorical knives. He could have said much more about many other things. Often the simplest question provides the most impact. I didn’t add any emphasis to this although it deserves plenty:

As for the international legal foundations, why did the UN Charter displease anyone?

No one was forced to sign and ratify the Charter. As I’ve written many times, the initiator of the UN was already breaking the Charter it devised when it came into full legal force on 24 October 1945, which is why I call it the Outlaw US Empire because under the International Law stated in the UN Charter the USA is an Outlaw as it breaks many of its provisions daily. Lavrov is actually very diplomatic not to mention that fact constantly, so I make up for that omission. That the Empire is an Outlaw immediately answers the question about the existence of a Deep State that controls all or a significant portion of the US Federal government—who/what caused its Outlaw status? And then there’s those “constitutional norms” which impede the whims of the executive and can impose actions upon him that go against his preferred policy; for example, the current bill to levy 500% tariffs on any nation’s goods that conducts commerce with Russia that has a veto proof margin in both houses of Congress.

The last comment I’ll make is on the story Lavrov told about Biden talking about how the US and Russia were “made.” The "Melting Pot” was never a viable description; it was a pipe dream negated from the beginning by slavery and genocide against the natives. Russia’s movement to its East into the Siberian and Arctic regions was mostly non-confrontational. Moving into long-settled regions was a different matter, particularly the long struggle with the Turks on the way to the Black Sea. I asked one of my Russian readers about the possible return of the Cossacks as an official member of the state tasked with populating the Buffer Zone. Very possible. Leaving peoples to continue their traditions is very much in-line with the UN Charter. During the Cold War, Russia’s 100+ “nationalities” were seen as a tool to destabilize the USSR and cause it to change its political-economy and the philosophy t rested upon. But the actual welfare of those 100+ peoples was never considered, just like the propagandized Ukrainians are today. Russia and others prove that multipolarity can work. What needs to vanish are the people who want to exploit all others for their own benefit and the exceptionalist ideology that drives them.

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