Lavrov's Remarks at the High-Level International Conference "Eurasian Security: Reality and Prospects in a Transforming World"

Held today in Minsk.

Supremo Diplomat Sergei Lavrov was in Minsk talking at yet another security conference. Every time he gives one of these talks they become more terse and denser in content as ever more meaning gets packed together. Readers ouy=ght to find this a good compliment to Putin’s meeting with Russia’s religious leaders that took place the day before Lavrov’s address, which follows:

Dear Sergey Fedorovich,

Honourable Ministers,

Colleagues

Thank you for the invitation to the conference on Eurasian security. For me, this is an important opportunity to continue the dialogue with interested members of the foreign policy services and the expert community on how to build our policy further.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the initiator of the conference, President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, for this initiative and to all our Belarusian friends.

International relations are undergoing new, truly epoch-making, tectonic shifts. A new, fairer multipolar world order is being born before our eyes. It is based on the cultural and civilisational diversity of the modern world, the natural right of peoples to determine the ways and models of their own development, implementing the most important principle of the UN enshrined in its Charter – the sovereign equality of states.

A sign of the times is the desire of an increasing number of states in the Global South and East to strengthen their sovereignty in all areas, to implement a pragmatic, independent nationally-oriented course in world affairs, which was most clearly reflected in the process of rapid expansion of BRICS that has begun.

The geopolitical balance of power continues to change not in favor of the "historical" or "collective" West. Representatives of Western elites, who are talking about the end of the post-Cold War era, are beginning to admit this, including publicly. This was stated by US President Joe Biden and, not so long ago, French President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders of Western countries.

These major trends also have an impact on the international processes that are unfolding on our common continent, Eurasia. New world centers continue to strengthen their positions here. Not only do they have a large-scale potential, but they also demonstrate the political will to find political, security and economic solutions that would be based on a balanced balance of interests. In particular, President Vladimir Putin spoke about this on October 18, speaking in Beijing at the Third Belt and Road International Forum.

The efforts of the world's majority countries, including Russia, to promote a positive, forward-looking interstate agenda both in Eurasia and in other regions of the world are met with fierce resistance from the Western minority. The United States and its satellites do not hide their goals – to maintain dominance and monopolize the right to make globally significant decisions. Unilateral, non-consensual "rules of the game" and a "rules-based order" are being imposed on the international community. In relation to dissenters, the "collective West" uses a wide range of methods of pressure, from unilateral coercive measures to demonization in the global information space.

By making a disastrous choice in favor of zero-sum geopolitical games, the states of the North Atlantic Alliance, led by Washington, have provoked a serious security crisis in the European part of our continent. And they have been doing this for many years. The bombing of Yugoslavia, the forcible separation of Kosovo from Serbia, the reckless eastward expansion of NATO contrary to the promises made to the Soviet leadership, support for the unconstitutional armed coup in Ukraine and the long-term pumping of the criminal Kiev regime with billions of dollars and weapons for the war against Russia – all these are links in the same chain. Without the direct encouragement of the United States, Kiev would not have dared to embark on the path of destroying everything Russian – language, education, media, culture, Orthodoxy, would not have dared to legally and physically exterminate the opposition and openly introduce Nazi orders, including through legislation.

The Westerners have destroyed the system of confidence-building and arms control measures in Europe. Suffice it to mention the withdrawal of the United States from the treaties on anti-ballistic missile defense, on the prohibition of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles, and on "open skies." Increased strategic risks are created by the forward basing of American nuclear weapons in a number of European countries and the implementation of "joint nuclear missions." This has an extremely destabilizing charge and, against the backdrop of a general increase in threats from NATO, forces us to resort to compensatory measures.

Western geopolitical "engineers" who seem to have lost any connection with reality and imagine themselves to be "God's vicegerents on Earth" are not embarrassed by the fact that their actions have trampled on the commitments made at the highest level, including at the OSCE (as Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó mentioned today), to observe the principle of equal and indivisible security: not to strengthen one's own security at the expense of others. to prevent any country or organization from dominating Europe. NATO is doing exactly the opposite. And the OSCE itself, originally conceived as a pan-European platform for equal dialogue and broad cooperation, is turning into a marginal structure that does not affect the state of affairs in the field of security to any extent, thanks to the efforts of NATO and EU members.

The true intentions of Western politicians were once again revealed when Washington and Brussels arrogantly rejected the proposals put forward by Russia in December 2021 to agree on reliable security guarantees and to resolve the situation around Ukraine without its involvement in NATO and without using the Kiev regime against Russia's legitimate interests. They didn't even want to talk to us seriously.

The military activity of the alliance is consistently and manifold. Unprecedented since the end of the Cold War was a series of recent joint exercises between the United States and its allies in the bloc, including the development of scenarios for the use of nuclear weapons against targets on the territory of the Russian Federation. Washington is pushing the most aggressive Russophobes out of Europe to the forefront of such a reckless course in the hope of dragging other EU and NATO members along with them, and sitting it out overseas. Inciting EU members against the Russian Federation and demanding that they sever all trade, economic, investment and cultural ties with Russia, while at the same time organising terrorist attacks like the Nord Stream bombing, which no one is going to investigate. Many other actions are being taken that are destroying the infrastructure that has been built up over decades and ensured the interconnectedness of the economies of the West and East of the continent. All this destroys the foundations that have decisively ensured rapid and sustainable economic growth and socio-economic development of countries, including the European Union.

In the doctrinal documents of the alliance, Russia is declared a "direct threat." An open and real hybrid war is being waged against us using all available forces and means. The declared task is to inflict a "strategic defeat" on Russia "on the battlefield," including with the hands and bodies of Ukrainian neo-Nazis. Then, subsequently, to "cobble together" a new European architecture, but without Russia and Belarus. Remember the invention of the "European political community." This initiative was put forward by French President Emmanuel Macron, who openly announced that everyone except Moscow and Minsk was invited.

I don't think there is any need to explain how short-sighted and simply unprofessional this is for any person who has decided to engage in foreign policy – to build security in Europe without taking into account the opinion and legitimate interests of our countries. Equally futile are the Kiev regime's attempts to secure some unilateral security guarantees from its Western masters. This also suggests that the goal is to tear Russia and Belarus away from the agreements that the West will subsequently build on the continent. They openly say that Russia will have to be reckoned with, and after the war they will have to secure some agreements that would "protect" them from Russia. That's the mentality.

Our readiness to negotiate, demonstrated back in March and April 2022, led to the fact that the principles between the negotiators of Moscow and Kiev were agreed. But they seemed insufficient for the United States and London. The Anglo-Saxons simply forbade it. This is well known. All those who were involved in this event are writing about this: former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and journalists such as Stephanie Hersh in the United States, and many others. It is difficult to talk about anything now when the West declares on a daily basis that Russia must be defeated on the battlefield, and Vladimir Zelensky has forbidden himself and all his employees to enter into any negotiations with Russia, with Vladimir Putin's government.

Obviously, the West's aggression against Russia is only part of the "crusade" of the United States and its satellites against any member of the international community who demonstrates independence and defends national interests.

It is obvious that Washington and its allies are striving to create a long-term hotbed of tension in the Asia-Pacific region, which is already openly declared and is, in their opinion, NATO's area of responsibility. The situation around Taiwan is being deliberately escalated. Various narrow formats for military preparations are being cobbled together with the participation of the Anglo-Saxons (AUKUS) and their obedient fellow travelers, and "Indo-Pacific strategies" are being promoted aimed at containing China, isolating Russia, and dismantling the open and equitable regional architecture based on consensus that has developed around ASEAN.

Recently, the United States has been trying to spread its destructive influence to the South Caucasus and Central Asia with particular zeal. They continue to destabilize the situation in the Middle East. The consequences of their adventurous policy of undermining the principles of the UN Charter and the decisions of its Security Council are still felt by the peoples of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Sudan and Palestine.

Washington's attempts to monopolize the Middle East settlement process have led to the current catastrophic situation. Condemning terrorist acts and any other actions that violate international humanitarian law and cause harm to the civilian population, Russia calls for the immediate cessation of hostilities and the resumption of negotiations on the establishment of an independent Palestinian State, which was solemnly promised to the Palestinians almost seventy-five years ago. President of Russia Vladimir Putin spoke about this in detail yesterday.

Taking into account the West's destructive policy of undermining the sustainable development of Eurasia and its unpreparedness for fair competition and joint work, the task of forming a new continental architecture of equal and indivisible security, as open as possible to the widest range of states ready for equal and constructive cooperation, is more urgent than ever. The purpose of the conference, convened at the initiative of the President of the Republic of Belarus, is to "bind" Eurasia into a united space to counter common challenges in the name of ensuring peace and prosperity for all its peoples.

In this context, it is logical to rely on the potential of the existing international structures operating on our continent. These are the Union State of Belarus and Russia, the CSTO, the EAEU, the CIS, the SCO, the Arab League, the GCC, and ASEAN. Other unification processes on the continent, including in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, are also promising.

Contacts have already been established between many of the above-mentioned formats in one form or another, including at the level of the executive secretariats, there is an exchange of experience and information. Complementarity, the very "connectedness", is naturally formed; a positive and natural "division of labor." If the tasks coincide, then the efforts to solve them can and should be combined, increasing their mutual efficiency. It is in this vein that relations between the EAEU, the SCO, ASEAN and China's One Belt, One Road project are being built, objectively contributing to the formation of the Greater Eurasian Partnership.

A collective approach is in demand not only in the economy, but also in the field of security. In addition to the relevant programmes of the SCO and the CSTO, we see an opportunity to creatively unleash the potential of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia. As part of the work to transform it into a full-fledged Organisation, this structure could become a platform for discussion among like-minded people on a broad Eurasian agenda, including issues of ensuring military-political stability on a mutually acceptable basis.

Our Belarusian friends are holding today's event under the auspices of their chairmanship in the CSTO. The organization, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2022, is proving its effectiveness in practice, contributing to ensuring the security of its members, and contributing to pan-Eurasian cooperation.

I would like to recall the initiative of the leaders of the CSTO states to launch a dialogue between the integration structures of the continent to exchange views on the security strategies adopted in each of them and experience in their application. This could be an important step in understanding the prospects for building an indivisible Eurasian space of mutual trust, including in the context of the discussion on the Charter of Diversity. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus mentioned this today. Diversity should be much broader than "garden and jungle". Josep Borrell, who came up with this "scheme", did not mention the taiga, the tundra, or the sultry sands of the Central Asian deserts. I think that we should correct this narrow view of the universe. It is important that the discussions that I am talking about and in which everyone is interested should be based on the universally recognised norms of international law, primarily those enshrined in the UN Charter.

It is clear that the architecture of indivisible Eurasian security should be all-encompassing and take into account the interests of all countries on the continent without exception, literally from Lisbon to Vladivostok. But this time, the conversation should be honest and aimed at achieving practical results, and not at "throwing out" beautiful slogans, which hid a desire to pursue a selfish policy anyway.

This dialogue and the architecture we are talking about should ultimately become a solid foundation that will contribute to the prevention and settlement of conflicts, the refusal of each state to provide its territory to create threats to anyone, and the exclusion of the possibility of forceful diktat on the part of extra-regional and extra-continental players.

As for the attitude of our Western neighbours on the Eurasian continent to this, most of them are completely subordinate to Washington. We do not see any prospects for a meaningful conversation with the overwhelming majority of these countries today. They are not viewed. But in principle, I would like to emphasise this once again, we are always ready to work together if our Western neighbours on the continent find the strength to become independent and gain the "strategic autonomy" that French President Marcon and a number of other leaders are constantly talking about. If they are able to abandon their neo-colonial instincts and thoroughly ideologized confrontational policies, and return to the path of pragmatic mutually respectful cooperation in search of an honest balance of interests. Let's wait and see.

In this regard, I welcome the participation in our conference of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary, my friend Péter Szijjártó. His participation shows that the leadership in Budapest sees the possibility of using the natural competitive advantages of cooperation between the countries of our common continent and the importance of this cooperation for the national interests of Hungary for the sake of more effective development of its country for the benefit of its citizens.

In any case, the work on Eurasian security will be titanic. But postponing its practical start would only create additional risks.

I would like to once again thank our Belarusian friends for their timely initiative. I am confident that the discussions at the conference will help us better understand the prospects that will need to be implemented in the interests of our citizens.

Again, Lavrov’s message is that Eurasia must act on its own with the expectation that European nations will eventually gain their freedom and join the cause. Eurasia in many respects is already acting and has accomplished much, but lots of work remains, particularly within ASEAN to block the Outlaw US Empire’s machinations and use of the Philippines and Taiwan to sow discord.

*
*
*
Like what you’ve been reading at Karlof1’s Substack? Then please consider subscribing and choosing to make a monthly/yearly pledge to enable my efforts in this challenging realm. Thank You!