His Excellency Sergey Lavrov Minister for Foreign Affairs - UN General Assembly

23rd September, 2023 - His Excellency Sergey Lavrov, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, delivers his speech to the United Nations General Assembly.

Statement summary
SERGEY V. LAVROV, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, said that a new world order is being born “right in front of our eyes”, while the rejection of the principle of equality, along with its total inability to negotiate has long been a “calling card” of the collective West. “As President [Vladimir V.] Putin pointed out, the West is truly an ‘empire of lies’,” he said, recalling the concrete political assurances given to Moscow regarding the non-expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). “In 2021, our proposals to conclude treaties on mutual security guarantees in Europe without changing the non-bloc status of Ukraine were rudely rejected,” he noted, adding that the West continued the militarization of the Russophobic Kyiv regime which was brought to power as a result of a bloody coup and was used to wage a hybrid war against the Russian Federation. Also describing a series of recent joint exercises between the United States and European NATO allies, he reported that they included testing scenarios for the use of nuclear weapons in the Russian Federation.

Such organizations as BRICS [Brazil, Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa] and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, are on the rise, he pointed out. However, the United States and its subordinate “Western collective” continue to generate conflicts that artificially divide humanity into hostile blocs. The West still believes it is superior to the rest of humanity, he noted, recalling acts of burning the holy Qur’an, insults to the Torah and persecution of Orthodox clergy in Europe. He also demanded the end of the blockade of Havana and the policy of economic suffocation of Venezuela by the United States, as well as the lifting of sanctions on Syria. “Any measures circumventing the Security Council must be ended,” he emphasized. Welcoming the return of Syria to the Arab family, he also noted that Palestinians have been waiting for over 70 years for their State. In addition, he expressed hope that, with the assistance of the United Nations, Libya can prepare for the general election. He added: “The tragic development of the situation in Sudan is nothing other than the West’s failed experiments.”

He also spotlighted the deteriorating situation in the Serbian province of Kosovo and the attempts by Brussels to impose so-called mediation services on Azerbaijan and Armenia. Underscoring the West’s commitment to provide developing countries with $100 billion annually to finance climate-mitigation programmes, he called for these broken promises to be compared with the amounts that the United States, NATO and the European Union have spent “supporting the racist regime in Kyiv — an estimated $170 billion since February 2022”. Also highlighting the increasing need to expand the Security Council, he called for solely eliminating the underrepresentation of the countries of the world majority — Asia, Africa and Latin America — and appealed for fair ways of forming the United Nations Secretariat so that citizens of NATO and European Union countries stop their excessive dominance.