Opening remarks by Deputy Foreign Minister Dmitry Lyubinsky at the 2025 BRICS+ Counter-Terrorism Conference, Moscow, December 3, 2025
3 December 2025 14:58
2014-03-12-2025
Colleagues,
Friends,
It is a pleasure to welcome you to the Counter-Terrorism Conference in the BRICS+ format, and it is a great honour for us to host representatives from friendly countries in Moscow which, these days, has effectively become the capital of an international dialogue on combatting terrorism.
I will take the liberty of calling today's forum a landmark event. First, this year marks the fifth anniversary of the BRICS Counter-Terrorism Strategy which was adopted at Russia's initiative in 2020 following a well-coordinated and painstaking collaboration with Brazil, China, India, and South Africa. At the institutional level, the document established an all-encompassing approach to countering terrorism and outlined the main avenues of cooperation aimed at improving our countries' protection against terrorism.
Later, in 2021, an action plan for implementing the strategy was agreed upon by the BRICS Counter-Terrorism Working Group (CTWG). It specified steps for continued efforts to expand cooperation across a wide range of pressing counter-terrorism issues and to improve its quality.
The CTWG position paper which was approved at the 2024 meeting in Moscow helped new BRICS participants smoothly integrate into the efforts pursued by this group of countries.
Without a doubt, these documents laid a solid foundation for effective counter-terrorism cooperation within BRICS, which we must jointly and consistently advance considering the rapid development of innovative technology, the unstable international geopolitical situation, and attempts by external destructive forces to use terrorism as a lever to exert political and other kinds of influence. As we know from the past, this emboldens terrorists and extremists.
BRICS partners are participating in this conference, which significantly expands the geography and scope of cooperation, strengthens the collective potential, and increases our ability to contain extremist and terrorist threats at the international level. Greater BRICS thus proves its sizable contribution to promoting global efforts to maintain international peace, stability, and security.
Regrettably, threats from international terrorist organisations (ITOs), primarily ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and affiliated terrorist groups, have not only intensified but continue to evolve which we can clearly see from regular reports compiled by the UNSC Sanctions Monitoring Group on ISIS and Al-Qaeda, as well as on the Taliban Movement, the members of which are taking part in our forum.
The international community is seriously concerned about terrorism in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and the Sahel. The situation must be thoroughly monitored in order to timely suppress emerging challenges to our shared counter-terrorism efforts.
ITOs are widely adopting the latest advances in science and technology, developing innovative methods to pursue destructive activities, and making extensive use of AI and cryptocurrencies to promote extremist ideology, raise funds, and expand the criminal ecosystem.
It should be noted that amid the growing terrorist threats around the world, the collective West is not genuinely interested in consolidating the counter-terrorism efforts of the international community.
On the contrary, Western countries condone the politicisation of the counter-terrorism agenda and use double standards; they do not regard terrorism as the absolute evil and do not practice zero tolerance policy. For them, it is a tool for pursuing neo-colonial policies, exerting pressure on sovereign states, and ensuring dominance which often comes hand in hand with them imposing their military presence in order to keep hotspots of regional instability smoldering. For us, the Western practice of leveraging terrorist organisations for pursuing self-serving geopolitical purposes across the world is unacceptable.
The use of terrorists and extremists to achieve Western geopolitical objectives is widely practiced in Ukraine, where Western-nurtured neo-Nazis carry out terrorist attacks against infrastructure and civilians in Russia using weapons supplied by Western countries.
The criminal Kiev regime not only employs overtly terrorist methods but closely cooperates with international terrorist groups and transnational criminal networks to train their militants to fight against legitimate governments, especially in Africa.
Colleagues,
The commitment to rebuff terrorism underscores the importance of our joint work within multilateral organisations, primarily, the UN and other platforms. This is particularly important today when a just multipolar world order is taking shape and the global balance of power is, without a doubt, shifting in favour of the world majority, to wit, the Global South and the Global East.
Importantly, Russia consistently advocates an honest, depoliticised, and results-oriented fight against terrorism without hidden agendas or double standards. We are open to close cooperation with all BRICS+ countries based on the principles of the UN Charter, above all the sovereign equality of states and non-interference in internal affairs.
The UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (GCTS) is a unique global instrument to coordinate the efforts of the international community in countering the global terrorist threat. Next time, the strategy will be reviewed in the first half of 2026. We look forward to constructive cooperation with all interested partners in the upcoming efforts to update the shared strategic and operational approaches embedded in the GCTS that are aimed at strengthening national, regional, and international efforts to eradicate this scourge.
International cooperation based on mutual respect and dialogue is the way forward if we want to achieve a sustainable reduction in the terrorist threat levels and to strengthen international security.
I am confident that your discussions over the next two days will be productive, and their results will contribute to enhancing the counter-terrorism potential of the BRICS+ countries and give another boost to deepening cooperation for the benefit of the peoples from BRICS+ countries.
I wish you success.
Once again, welcome to Moscow.
Thank you.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
