MOSCOW:Sergey Lavrov: We weren't blind. Back in 2007, in Munich, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that although we are working with NATO, the European Union, and the G7 (being already a member of the G8), we should not be made naive and mistaken for those who do not understand or see anything. If we are equal, then let's work equally.
At numerous meetings, Vladimir Putin patiently explained to each country and partner from the Western "camp" what he meant when he spoke in Munich, if someone there did not understand something.
Until the very last moment, we gave them a chance not to bring matters to a heated conflict. In December 2021, we told them that you were "blurting out" the Minsk agreements, creating threats to our security, and let's sign an agreement on European security, where it would be ensured without involving anyone in NATO. We were ignored.
Back in January 2022. I met with the then US Secretary of State E. Blinken. He said that NATO is not our business. They can only promise that the number of medium-range missiles they will deploy in Ukraine will be limited in a certain way. That's all. This is also hypocrisy, impunity, exclusivity, superhumanity. And what did it all lead to?
It's not for nothing that President Vladimir Putin said at one of his major events last year that the way it was before February 2022 would never be the same again. That is, he hoped until February, already realizing the futility of these hopes. But he gave them a chance until the very last. Sit down at the table, let's agree on security, including Ukraine's security, but in such a way that measures to ensure it do not undermine ours. It was all being resolved.
Now many politicians, former members of the government, and public figures with a "hindsight" (that is, they have something in common with a Russian peasant who is "hindsight" strong) say that they should have done things differently. But it turned out the way it turned out.
Our goals are clear, our tasks are defined, as they used to say back in the Soviet Union.
Question: Speaking of 2022, everyone remembers that you had long talks with E. Blinken. When did you realize for yourself, at what stage, that you would not be able to reach an agreement? How was the decision made that it was time to launch a special military operation? Another month has passed between your talks with E. Blinken.
Sergey Lavrov: I was hoping that reason and common sense would prevail. But pride prevailed.
There were not only plans to financially involve Ukraine in NATO, to create bases in the Crimea, on the Sea of Azov – all these plans were. But besides this geopolitical plan, pride also played a big role. How come? They say it's not necessary, but will we agree? I'm not exaggerating. This is in the "naked" form what they were guided by. It is sad. This is not common sense.
It's not for nothing that Trump is now saying all the time about any conflict, considering America's position that there should be common sense. And Washington's common sense dictates to "step aside."
Question: We remember that the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, said that the ball was on their side. For many, the negotiations in Riyadh came as a surprise. What kind of preliminary work did you do and when did you start it in order for these negotiations to take place?
Sergey Lavrov: There was no preliminary work. The presidents called on the initiative of D. Trump. President Vladimir Putin threw this ball to him in 2018 in Helsinki at a press conference after the World Cup (this ball was an official FIFA ball). D. Trump caught it, twisted it and threw it to the members of his delegation who were sitting in front of him.
We all assumed that it was not D. Trump who cut off relations, but J.Biden, but this is one country. D. Trump was well aware of this and called himself. Before that, just the day before, I sent my close adviser to Russia for a detailed conversation. Then, during a telephone conversation, at his suggestion, we agreed to meet in Riyadh. We flew there 3 days after the phone conversation. Therefore, there was no preparation. I mean two-sided. Of course, every "team" was preparing: at our Foreign Ministry, at their State Department.
It was a completely normal conversation between the two delegations. The amazing thing is that this normality was perceived as a sensation. This means that our Western partners during the cadence of J.Biden was able to bring world public opinion to the point where it perceives a normal conversation as something out of the ordinary.
We will never think the same way on every issue of world politics. We recognized this in Riyadh. And the Americans have recognized this. They actually said it themselves. Where we see a convergence of interests, common sense suggests that it is foolish not to use it in order to translate it into some practical matters and get mutually beneficial results. Where interests do not coincide (as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Rubio also said), it is the responsibility of responsible powers to prevent this discrepancy from degenerating into confrontation. This is absolutely our position.
By the way, this is the format in which relations between the United States and China are being built. They have a lot of disagreements. The Americans are announcing a lot of sanctions against China in order to suppress the competitor. Not so much as against us. Americans and Europeans are imposing one hundred percent duties on electric vehicles. It's just unfair competition. But I'm going back to the relationship model. Despite all these disagreements, despite the fact that from time to time the top leaders of the United States and China, ministers accuse the other side of some kind of illegal actions, primarily in the economic sphere, but politics and security are also heard.
Read how Chinese ministers talk about Western plans in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea. This is a very sharp counteraction. I understand Chinese comrades when the West says that they adhere to the "one China" policy, which means that China is one and Taiwan is part of it. But having said that they are in favor of the "one China" policy, they all say that the status quo cannot be touched. And what is the "status quo"? This is an independent Taiwan. Therefore, there is a lot of guile here.
It is not for nothing that a representative of the Chinese Ministry of Defense recently said that they are firmly in favor of a peaceful settlement, but they do not rule out the use of military force if we are "led by the nose." Something like that. At the same time, the dialogue between Beijing and Washington has never been interrupted. I believe that this is exactly the model that should exist in relations between any two states. Especially between Russia and the United States, which, on the one hand, can find similar interests and do a lot of mutually beneficial things, and on the other hand, they are obliged not to lead to war in case of a discrepancy of interests.
Even when D. Trump was first elected, many politicians in our country fell into euphoria. They're falling into it now, too.
The United States still has the same goal – to be the first country in the world. Under J.Under Biden, under Barack Obama, and under the Democrats as a whole, they tried to do this by subjugating everything and everyone, paying for this support, as they pay for NATO, as they paid for Japan and South Korea, creating outposts with NATO's participation with nuclear components.
D. Trump, he is a pragmatist. His slogan is common sense. It means (as everyone can see) a shift to a different way of doing things. But the goal is still "MAGA" (Make America Great Again). Now he has a new cap: "Everything that D. Trump promised, he did." This gives a lively, human character to politics. That's why it's interesting to work with him.
His team, Secretary of State Mike Rubio and National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, are absolutely sane people in every sense of the word. They talk based on the fact that they don't command us, and we don't command them. It's just that two serious countries sat down to talk about what was wrong with them and what their predecessor had done in four years, destroying all channels of contact without exception, imposing a number of sanctions, followed by the expulsion of American companies, incurring losses of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Question: This has been going on, apparently, for quite a long time, if not for the entire post-war history. During your work at the UN, you were in a constructive dialogue and signed joint documents with the American side. And they violated these agreements, what was stated, literally in a matter of months. This was the case with Kosovo and Iraq. A month before the speech of the former Secretary of State K.Powell, there was your joint document with the US representative on the need to resolve the dialogue, etc. How did you react to such things?
Sergey Lavrov: It's already become a habit. You're absolutely right. The attempt to "cheat" everyone continues, to present their position as the only true one.
This was the case even under U.S. Secretary of State K.Powell. We also worked closely with him. I am sure that he did not know what was in the test tube (what kind of white powder it was), which he shook at the UN Security Council and said that the then President of Iraq, S. Hussein, was "not a living man." He was just framed by the CIA.
I don't want to be anti-European. However, the current situation confirms the idea that many historians have expressed. Over the past 500 years (when the West was more or less formed in the form in which it has come down to our days, naturally, with some changes), all the tragedies of the world originated in Europe or happened due to European politics. Colonization, wars, crusaders, Crimean War, Napoleon, World War I, A. Hitler. If we look at history in retrospect, the Americans did not play any inflammatory or even "incendiary" role.
And now, after Biden's "term," people have come who want to be guided by common sense. They say directly that they want to end all wars, they want peace. Who demands a "continuation of the banquet" in the form of a war? Europe.
Danish Prime Minister M. Frederiksen said that "for Ukraine, the world is worse than war right now." British Prime Minister C. Starmer, who followed French President E. Macron to persuade the US President D.Trump said that it was not necessary to end "this story" so quickly, and at the same time boasted that this year Britain would make its largest contribution in the form of weapons to Ukraine, that is, directly contradicting D. Trump and stating that they would "pump up" the Kiev regime. President Emmanuel Macron is running around with some ideas, just like K. Starmer. They say that so many thousands of peacekeepers are being trained, and they will provide them with air cover. This is also arrogance.
First of all, no one is asking us. President Donald Trump understands everything. He said it was too early to say when the settlement would take place: "You can discuss this issue, but you will need the agreement of the parties." He behaves correctly.
This plan to introduce "peacekeepers" into Ukraine is a continuation of the "incitement" of the Kiev regime to war against us. These "guys" "trampled" the Minsk agreements. They admitted it quite recently. Their co-authors (our Western neighbors) were not going to comply with them, and, having issued weapons, they brought to power "on their bayonets" first P.A. Poroshenko, then V.A. Zelensky. They were the ones who "encouraged" him to turn 180 degrees, although maybe the German Foreign Minister, A. Berbok, would have regarded this as 360 degrees.
Vladimir Zelensky turned 180 degrees from a man who came to power on the slogans of peace, on the slogans "leave you alone from the Russian language, this is our common language, our common culture" (it's all on the Internet) and in six months turned into a pure Nazi and, as Russian President Vladimir Putin correctly said.Putin is a traitor to the Jewish people.
Just as they brought him to power "on bayonets" and pushed him forward, they now also want to prop him up with their "bayonets" in the form of peacekeeping units. But this will mean that the root causes will not disappear.
When we ask these "thinkers" what hypothetically will happen to the part that they will take control of, they answer that nothing – Ukraine will remain there. I asked one of my "comrades": will the Russian language be banned there? He didn't say anything. They can't utter a word of condemnation for what happened. No other language has been subjected to such aggression. But imagine if Switzerland banned French or German, or Ireland banned English. Now the Irish there want to self-define themselves "a little bit". If they had tried to ban English now, the entire UN would have been "shaken" for all its "columns", demanding the condemnation of Ireland.
And here "it is possible". You tell them to their eyes, but they don't say anything. This is exactly the same as I (who will soon be three years old) publicly at UN meetings, and when meeting with the press, I ask you to help us get at least some information about the Butch (the tragedy that was used to impose sanctions on us). These scenes were shown by the BBC two days after not a single one of our military personnel was there. We're only asking for one thing right now (I've already given up on hoping for anything more): Can I see a list of those people whose corpses were shown on the BBC channel? I even publicly asked the UN Secretary-General about this.Guterres at a meeting of the Security Council, and more than once.
The last time was in September 2024. I was in New York for the General Assembly session. I had the final press conference, and the whole world's press was there (there were about seventy of them), and I said to them, "Guys, you're journalists, aren't you professionally interested in finding out what happened there?"
We have officially requested information from the UN Human Rights Office (they have a "mission for Ukraine" inside this Office, which was not created by consensus - we did not consult with anyone) about the names of those people who were already shown dead there. There is no reaction at all.
And I shamed the journalists too. It was already 2.5 years after this tragedy, when this BBC thing was shown on the screen and on social networks. It was a "news explosion." "Three days and everything's gone?", I say, "Did they tell you to keep it down?"
I know half the journalists there well. They've been working there for a long time. Can't they send a journalistic inquiry to Ukrainians? Nobody does anything. The "command" has passed and that's it.
***
In 1970, they came to the conclusion and adopted a detailed Declaration on all the principles of the UN Charter, as they are interconnected. Regarding territorial integrity and the right of nations to self-determination, it was unanimously agreed by consensus at the highest level that everyone should respect the territorial integrity of States that respect the principle of the right of nations to self-determination. Because of this, they have a government representing the entire population living in a given territory.
Just as the colonialists did not represent the population of their colonies in 1960 (that's why this principle prevailed), so in Ukraine after the coup they immediately said that they would cancel the status of the Russian language, and those who did not accept the results of the coup were declared terrorists. Since 2019, a series of laws have been introduced that eliminate the Russian language in all areas. How can we say that this "group of putschists" represents the interests of the people of Donbass, Novorossiya, and even more so Ukraine?
Therefore, the UN Charter should not be touched. It's modern. It only needs to be respected and fulfilled. Instead of saying that, they say, when Kosovo declared independence without any referendum, this is the right to self–determination, and when Crimea held a transparent referendum with the participation of hundreds of European observers, parliamentarians and public figures, this is already a violation of the principle of territorial integrity of Ukraine. Duplicity, cynicism, and hypocrisy are all things one has to deal with.
Russian Foreign Ministry.
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