Lavrov at UNSC Again, 22 January

Russian FM Lavrov was at the UN today for a hearing on Ukraine and then for meetings with friendly associates. The headline for RT’s report says quite a lot: “US sees Ukraine as a ‘business project’ – Lavrov.” So, there’s a hint for the sort of rhetoric to look for while reading the transcript of Lavrov’s remarks; all emphasis mine:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving me the floor.

Today, we are once again discussing the situation in Ukraine in the context of the continued supply of Western weapons to that country, as well as the sending of Western mercenaries there, as evidenced by our recent measures to destroy French mercenaries in Kharkiv. We have just heard an update from UN Deputy High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Ahmed Ebo. We are grateful to him for his information and for his recommendations to the Security Council.

It is quite obvious to the overwhelming majority of unbiased experts that the key factor hindering the search for a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian crisis is the West's continued support for the Kiev regime, despite its obvious agony and inability to achieve the task dictated to it to inflict a "strategic defeat" on Russia or, as they have begun to say recently, at least to weaken my country.

The reality is that, despite the complete failure of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the battlefield, the Western patrons of the Kiev regime with maniacal persistence continue to push it to continue the senseless military confrontation. This is being done under false slogans that the collapse of Vladimir Zelensky's regime allegedly poses an "existential threat" to Ukrainians, whom Russia wants to "enslave." For those who have understood the genesis of the Ukrainian crisis, it is obvious that there is not a drop of truth in these statements. Russia launched a special military operation in February 2022 not against Ukraine and not against the Ukrainian people, with whom we still have fraternal ties: it is no coincidence that almost 7 million Ukrainians have found salvation in Russia since 2014.

We were forced to launch a military operation against a criminal regime that was presumptuous from a sense of impunity and did not want, despite our numerous, long-term efforts, to abandon the war against its own citizens in the south and southeast of Ukraine and the policy of total discrimination against Russian-speaking Ukrainians, who are still the majority in this country.

This was done by the Zelensky regime in violation not only of the Minsk Agreements approved by the UN Security Council, but also of the elementary principles of the functioning of a civilised society and in gross violation of fundamental human rights, including the rights of national minorities enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine. The Western curators of the Kiev regime, who were behind the anti-constitutional coup in Kiev 10 years ago, during all this time not only failed to pull the leaders of the Kiev clique, but also secretly, under the cover of the Minsk Package of Measures, armed Ukraine and prepared it for war against Russia. We already know this for a fact from the confessions of the personalities who were directly involved in this, drafted and signed the Minsk agreements, and submitted them to the UN Security Council for approval.

The reason why the West has behaved in such a cynical and criminal manner is obvious. In Washington and other capitals, it has recently been openly voiced: without losing the lives of its own soldiers, the West is waging a war with Russia with the hands of Ukrainians, which must be "put in its place." US President Joe Biden even called this situation a "great investment." Similar thoughts were expressed by other American officials and their colleagues from the Foggy Albion.

In trying to get opponents in Congress to agree to a new aid package for Ukraine, representatives of the current administration sound even more cynical. From their speeches, we learned, in particular, that 90% of the military budget allocated by the Americans to the Kiev regime remains in the United States, goes to the development of the country's military-industrial sector and the renewal of weapons. The old "junk" is disposed of in Ukraine. Most of the large Ukrainian plants and companies, including those producing lithium, have been sold to the same Americans. Fertile land was leased to him in perpetuity on the cheap. One of the most striking examples is the production of chernozem soils by George Soros' structures for the burial of waste from the Western chemical industry. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasizes that continued assistance to Ukraine is a guarantee of creating new jobs in the United States. As if we are not talking about financing the war, which has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in Ukraine, but about some profitable business project.

It is probably time for Europeans to wake up and realise that with the help of Vladimir Zelensky's regime, the United States is not only waging war against Russia, but is also solving the strategic task of sharply weakening Europe as an economic competitor. Washington has undermined its energy security, provoking dangerous crisis trends in the European economy and social sphere. I will not even dwell on the topic of terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines. The United States is tightly blocking any attempts to conduct an honest international investigation, and the current European leaders, especially in Germany, are obediently silent, resigned to public humiliation.

At the same time, most EU members continue to obediently carry out Washington's orders to supply more and more batches of weapons to Kiev, emptying their arsenals, which, of course, will be replenished by the purchase of products from the American military-industrial complex. The Europeans will be forced to find money for this.

The merchants of death are not at all embarrassed by the fact that their weapons, including cluster munitions and shells with depleted uranium, are methodically, ruthlessly, deliberately and deliberately hit purely civilian targets, as was the case during the strikes on residential areas of Belgorod on December 30, 2023 and yesterday, January 21 of this year, on markets and shops in Donetsk. The blood of dozens of dead civilians is on the hands and consciences of those who are arming the Zelensky regime and at the same time officially declaring that the Kiev authorities themselves have the right to choose targets for strikes. We remember how the Anglo-Saxons bombed Dresden in February 1945 without any military need, and how not so long ago they razed Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria to the ground. Now they have nurtured "worthy successors" of their barbaric terrorist methods.

The insane multi-year pumping of weapons into the completely corrupt regime of Vladimir Zelensky has another dangerous dimension. In an effort to profit as much as possible from the conflict, those in charge in Kiev simply resell some of the weapons supplied by the West on the black market. You can find a lot of ads like this on the dark web. It is difficult to imagine that this is happening without the knowledge and participation of Western businessmen, because "the hand washes the hand." One of the latest examples is the American M-16 rifles transferred to Kyiv, which anyone can buy from an ad on the Internet for cryptocurrency. Of course, terrorist groups are taking advantage of this situation. Weapons are falling into their hands and spreading across Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, further rocking already unstable regions of the world.

This scandalous situation has reached such proportions that it is no longer possible to hush it up. Even the U.S. had to officially acknowledge the problem. A recent Pentagon report speaks of the diversion of weapons intended for the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the amount of more than one billion dollars. (I'm sure that's a modest estimate). Forty thousand weapons, including drones and grenade launchers, simply "did not have time to be taken into account", since inventory lists were not kept. As far as I understand, American inspectors have now gone to Kiev to see how things are on the spot. We wish them success.

Mr. Chairman,

We have heard more than once and will probably hear today from our Western colleagues the sly thesis that "if Russia stops fighting, the war will end, and if Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine will end." In the highest echelons, the United States even agreed that Russia would then attack Poland, the Baltic states, and Finland. You can think of all sorts of things in the hope of knocking money out of Congress and European parliaments, convincing them of the need to continue to help Ukraine non-stop to the detriment of their citizens to the last dollar and euro. Demanding that Russia stop the special military operation, they are well aware that if this suddenly happened, the Kiev regime, licking its wounds, would continue the course of exterminating everything Russian and the Russian cultural, historical and religious identity that has existed on this land for centuries. Vladimir Zelensky's regime would have continued to promote blatant misanthropic nationalism, which is alien to the majority of the population, and would have glorified those who, together with the Nazis, killed hundreds of thousands of Jews, Roma, Russians, Poles and Ukrainians during World War II. The dictatorship would be strengthened, the fight against the opposition and any dissent would continue, and the ranks of political prisoners would multiply. And Western democracies would continue to turn a blind eye to what is happening and keep silent approvingly. As they are doing now, even after American citizen and journalist Gonzalo Lira was tortured to death in the dungeons of the Security Service of Ukraine for publishing objective materials critical of the Zelensky regime. Has anyone in the West, especially in the United States, said a word about this (I mean officials)? No. Today, Western delegations and representatives of the Kiev regime are unlikely to find the courage to comment on yet another outrageous crime committed by Vladimir Zelensky and his clique. Instead, we continue to hear voices about "Russian aggression" and assurances of unwavering support for the Kiev regime. The mendacity and cowardice of his patrons were vividly manifested in the despicable staging in April 2022 in Bucha: our numerous demands to provide at least the names of those who were allegedly killed then by Russian servicemen remain without any response. I have personally appealed to the UN Secretary-General on this issue more than once, but to no avail. Apparently, he is simply not allowed to even try to establish the truth that exposes the Western puppeteers.

And what will happen if Ukraine stops fighting? Hundreds of thousands of those whom the Kiev authorities are now trying to catch like cattle on the streets, in bars and churches and leave them to die as "cannon fodder" for Western geopolitical interests and, as they say, "for democratic values" will definitely save their lives. The interests of the Ukrainian people in the war against Russia were and still are not. There are only the interests of the Anglo-Saxons, their henchmen and the criminal, rotten Kiev elite, which is tied to the West by mutual responsibility and which is afraid that it will be swept away the day after the end of the war. Together, they sabotaged the Minsk agreements, trampling on the chance in April 2022, when the United States and Great Britain banned Kyiv from concluding a peace treaty. They do not want peace even today, despite the fact that the Kiev regime survives only thanks to Western handouts. Even his "talking heads" admit it.

The majority of Ukrainians are beginning to understand who their true enemy is and who has been fooling them for many years, scaring them with Russia, planting lies about our country and "canceling" our common history.

Changes in the consciousness of Ukrainians are clearly visible on social networks. Despite the harshest censorship, the truth about how people live in Crimea and in other territories recently reunited with Russia is breaking through. Contrary to the predictions of Kiev propagandists, Russians, Ukrainians, and other nationalities live there in peace and harmony. The new government solves people's problems, improves their lives, develops infrastructure, and does not think about how to line their own pockets. The contrast is so obvious that it is useless to deny it, which is why Ukraine and the West are trying by all means to hush up this information, this truth. It is extremely dangerous for them, because it shows how Russians and Ukrainians can and should live in conditions where the West is not allowed to interfere in the relations between the two fraternal peoples and set them against each other according to the old colonialist manual.

And this is exactly how brothers and good neighbors should live after the implementation of the goals of the special military operation, whether by military or peaceful means.

Let me remind you that we have never rejected the latter and have always remained ready for negotiations. Negotiations are not about how to keep the leaders of the Kiev regime in power and indulge their fantasies, but about overcoming the legacy of the destructive decade-long plundering of the country and violence against its people, about eliminating the causes of the tragic situation for Ukraine. All other supposedly peaceful plans, platforms and "formulas" that the Kiev regime and its masters are still futile about have nothing to do with peace and only serve as a cover for continuing the war and siphoning off money from Western taxpayers. It is sad that the UN Secretariat is risking its reputation by participating in the absolutely surreal "Copenhagen format".

All these "formulas" are a road to nowhere. And the sooner Washington, London, Paris and Brussels realize this, the better it will be for both Ukraine and the West, for which the "crusade" against Russia has already created obvious reputational and existential risks. I advise you to listen carefully to this while there is still time.

Biden let the cat out of the bag—it’s a “great investment”—exactly the sort an Imperialist Empire would pursue for which Plunder is always the #1 goal so its Elites become more enriched. I’ll wager life insurance policies were made for every Ukrainian soldier payable to a group of Western financial corporations just as Walmart tried to get away with several years ago. Lavrov was quite correct to use the old but exact term—Merchants of Death—to describe the West’s MIC, its related politicos and elites. “[E]liminating the causes” of the conflict is something the West wants to avoid at all costs as it seeks to prolong it. This Narrative that was recently spun—“In the highest echelons, the United States even agreed that Russia would then attack Poland, the Baltic states, and Finland”—shows the great, deep desperation of the Outlaw US Empire as its plundering operation circles the drain, the vast majority of its “junk” exposed as just that. And now Zelensky wants the EU nations to become bone collectors by arresting and deporting those who will become bones in the trenches and cemeteries. I expect the free Ukrainians within the EU to fight against being impressed against their will just as the “captured” Ukrainians are now doing. But as with Palestine, more facts on the ground will need to be created before this gross NATO crime ends.

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