The Ukrainian crisis has resulted in the acceleration of global processes aimed at the creation of a new global economic, political and security architecture to challenge the unipolar hegemony of the United States and its allies. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has played a key role in helping to facilitate this global transformation.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has given a broad-ranging interview with Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn, Russia’s leading international affairs journal, discussing the rapidly changing global geopolitical situation, what he believes is the West’s main fear about the rise of a multipolar world order, the causes and consequences of the Ukrainian crisis, the risks of a nuclear war, and Russia’s cooperation with partners abroad.
Lavrov had a lot of important things to say. Sputnik brings you the most important highlights.
Biggest Problem Facing Humanity
The Russian top diplomat cited the West’s seemingly insatiable drive to dominate of other nations as one of the key factors standing in the way of harmonious global development.
Russia, he said, has to “deal with the constant desire of the Western minority for military-political and financial-economic expansion. The slogans change, from globalization and Westernization to Americanization, universalization, liberalization, etc. But the essence remains the same: to subjugate all independent actors to their will, to force them to play by rules that benefit the West,” Lavrov said.
According to Lavrov, Washington and its allies are seeking to slow down “or even reverse” the evolution of the international affairs to prevent the emergence of a multipolar order and a “more just architecture of international affairs,” which Russia sees as its “mission” to support.
“The West has people leading it today such as Josep Borrell [the European Union’s foreign policy chief, ed.] which divide the world into their ‘flowering garden’ and the ‘jungle,’ where, in their view, most of humanity resides. With such a racist worldview (and I’m not afraid to use this word), it is of course difficult to come to terms with the arrival of multipolarity. The political and economic establishment in Europe and the United States is right to fear that the transition to a multipolar system will be associated with serious geopolitical and economic losses for them, including the final breakdown of globalization in its current, Western-crafted form. First and foremost, they are afraid of the prospect of losing the opportunity to live parasitically off the rest of the world, ensuring faster economic growth for themselves at the expense of the rest of the world,” the Russian top diplomat said.
No One to Blame But Themselves
Pointing to what he characterized as the “professional degradation” of the current crop of Western leaders, and their inability to correctly analyze events and predict trends, Lavrov emphasized that the “ill-conceived” policy of the US and its allies turned the “full-scale European security crisis” presently playing out in Ukraine into an inevitability.
Russia, proceeding from the new Foreign Policy Concept released in March, strives to create the conditions necessary for the “peaceful and progressive development of humanity based on a unifying agenda,” Lavrov said, with one of the key goals being to “revive” the United Nations’ ability to return to a “central role” in harmonizing the interests of member states.
“We are far from alone in pursuing this goal. More and more countries of the Global South and East are starting to realize and formulate visions of their national interests, to pursue a policy focused on their implementation in the spirit of international cooperation. These nations are increasingly insisting on the creation of a more just world order – through reforming existing interaction formats, or creating new ones, to solve specific problems in the fields of security and development. Russia supports this trend based on the clear understanding that the future lies with it,” Lavrov said.
Nuclear Danger
Highlighting the growing threat of a global nuclear catastrophe stemming from the prospect of a direct Russia-NATO clash in Ukraine, Lavrov emphasized that at its core, the risks stem from the Western alliance’s “gross violation” of the principles of indivisible security, and a desire to see Russia’s “strategic defeat” in the proxy war in Ukraine.
The Russian top diplomat stressed that Russia’s nuclear doctrine was and remains “purely defensive in nature,” and “aimed at maintaining the minimum necessary nuclear force potential to guarantee the defense of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the state, and prevent aggression against Russia and its allies.”
“In the context of deterrence, the possession of nuclear weapons is presently the only possible response to some of the major external threats to the security of our country. The situation around Ukraine has only served to confirm the validity of our concerns in this area,” Lavrov said, with a “great danger” posed by the US and NATO’s drive toward escalation resulting in “direct armed clashes between nuclear powers. We believe that such a development can and should be prevented. Therefore, we are forced to remind and send sobering signals to our opponents of the existence of these extreme military-political risks.”
In the meantime, he said, Moscow will continue to adhere to the view that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, and to urge other nuclear states to “maintain adherence to these understandings and to exercise maximum restraint.”
Crisis Has Unmasked the West
The crisis in relations between Russia and the West has created considerable risks, but also at least one benefit, Lavrov believes, with the majority of the world getting a unique “opportunity to see the true face of those who claimed almost a monopoly on the right to determine ‘universal values’.”
Lavrov stressed that the Ukrainian crisis didn’t start in 2022, with Western countries spending “many years” working to turn Russia’s neighbors into military footholds hostile to Moscow, “nurturing a whole generation of politicians preparing to declare war on our common history, culture, and in general everything Russian.”
“Western leaders have openly admitted that they did not plan to implement the Minsk Agreements aimed at resolving the conflict in Ukraine. In reality, they only stalled for time to prepare for a military scenario while pumping Kiev up with arms,” Lavrov said, referring to recent revelations by former leaders of Ukraine, France and Germany regarding the Minsk deal.
Hybrid War’s Main Goal
“I think it’s important to understand the main thing: that the West wants to eliminate our country as a serious geopolitical competitor,” Lavrov said.
This, he noted, explains the “hybrid war” being waged against Russia, through sanctions, threats of secondary restrictions against countries cooperating with Russia, acts of sabotage, such as last year’s terror attacks against the Nord Stream pipeline network, efforts to “disconnect” Russia from international cultural, educational, scientific and sporting events, etc.
Meanwhile, he added, the roughly 50 countries representing the so-called “Ramstein Coalition” supporting Ukraine militarily are “factually involved in the armed conflict” against Russia, delivering cluster bombs and long-range missiles, using NATO instructors to plan operations and providing Kiev with intelligence.
“It’s clear that these and other aggressive measures are aimed at weakening and exhausting Russia. They seek to exhaust our economic, technological and defense capabilities as much as possible, to limit our sovereignty and force us to abandon our independent course in foreign and domestic policy,” the diplomat said.
Lavrov pointed out that the West has now provided in excess of $160 billion in military and economic aid to the Zelensky regime, with one Washington-based think tank calculating that the $113 billion provided by the United States alone is equivalent to about $900 for every American household, plus $300 in interest on servicing the related debt obligations. “These are huge sums, especially given the difficult situation in the global economy.”
Western leaders continue to repeat the “mantra” that their countries will provide as much military and other assistance to Ukraine as required, and are prepared to “fight to the last Ukrainian,” according to Lavrov. However, the record US support to its client states abroad, from South Vietnam to Afghanistan, offers hints about Kiev’s “bleak” future, with Ukraine today “almost completely dependent on Western financial inflows and weapons deliveries.” The longer the crisis continues, the less attractive the country will become to Western investors taking part in “reconstruction,” and the heavier the burden of Ukraine’s state debt will become, the Russian diplomat stressed.
“The West should also realize one more thing: Russia will protect its people and its vital interests using all available means. And it would be better if our opponents realized as soon as possible the utter futility of the confrontation with Russia, and moved on to more civilized political-diplomatic methods to ensure the balance of interests,” Lavrov said.
West’s Schizophrenic Approach to Peace Talks
Pointing to Russia’s long-standing efforts to restore peace, from the 2015 Minsk deal to the comprehensive security agreements proposed to the US and NATO in late 2021, to peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in the first weeks of the special military operations, which were ultimately sabotaged by the West, Lavrov indicated that the problem is that Washington, as the main party fueling the proxy war, refuses to come to the negotiating table, while the Zelensky regime has signed a law prohibiting peace talks.
“Today, in different cities, first in Copenhagen and now in Jeddah, multilateral meetings are being held, without Russian representatives being invited, to support Zelensky’s ‘peace formula’. Meanwhile, Moscow is accused of ‘unwillingness to participate in negotiations’, and any arguments about the need to take into account the vital interests of our country are swept aside. It is clear that such an approach means the West has no intention to negotiate anything with Russia. Therefore, the prospects for negotiations between Russia and the West are, alas, not clear,” Lavrov said.
“We regard the hypocritical calls by the West for negotiations as a tactical ploy to once again gain time, provide exhausted Ukrainian forces a respite and the opportunity to regroup, and to pump them up again with weapons and ammunition. This is the path of war, not a peaceful settlement. This is absolutely obvious to us,” the Russian foreign minister added.
Russian-African Cooperation Signals West’s Failure
Asked for his views on the significance of last month’s Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, Lavrov said that the summit’s importance could not be overstated in terms of African countries’ ability to resist the concentrated campaign by the West to pressure them over ties with Russia.
“Notwithstanding enormous pressure from the West, 48 official delegations and representatives of five leading regional integration associations arrived at the meeting. Moreover, 27 countries were represented by heads or deputy heads [of state and government, ed.]. These numbers clearly demonstrate that our nation’s independent foreign policy enjoys understanding from developing countries, and that the efforts of the United States and its allies to isolate Russia internationally have failed,” he said.
Russia’s goal in Africa, Lavrov said, includes “strengthening” the political, economic and technological sovereignty of its partners, with Moscow ready to share knowhow on improving public administration, ensuring food security, and implementing socio-economic development, and partnering up with regional nations to help preserve security and stability, settle regional conflicts, fight terrorism, drug crime and other cross-border threats and challenges
Russia’s Near Abroad: Cooperation Within Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization
According to Lavrov, Russia’s partners in the EEU and the CSTO have also faced “colossal” pressure from the West throughout the past year-and-a-half, with unfriendly countries using “threats and blackmail” to try to “force our allies to abandon their absolutely legal cooperation with Russia.”
Russia is “sympathetic” to its allies in the face of the external pressure being exerted on them, Lavrov said, and their need to “exercise caution” in cooperation. At the same time, “mutual trade and economic obligations that exist between our nations continue to be fulfilled…Naturally, countermeasures are being taken on our part aimed at curbing destructive influence from outside.”
For example, within the EEU, joint measures have been set up to help nullify the effects of sanctions imposed on Russia and Belarus. These measures have borne fruit, with inter-bloc trade growing, along with the use of currency swaps for trade, while food and energy security cooperation continue to be “fully insured,” according to the diplomat.
“In general, we of course expect that in developing ties with third countries or organizations, our allies in the EEU and the CSTO will not take steps which contradict their obligations within these organizations. At the same time, we don’t have the right to lecture other states or dictate to them how and with whom they build their relationships. Russia does not prohibit any of our neighbors and partners from establishing interaction with anyone, but always asks that our legitimate interests be taken into account. I think that they hear us,” Lavrov summed up.
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