Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks at the 11th International Meeting of High Representatives for Security Issues, Moscow, May 24, 2023
24 May 2023 12:53
994-24-05-2023
Mr Chair, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
I appreciate the invitation to speak at the 11th international meeting of high representatives for security issues.
The importance of these discussions can hardly be overestimated. International relations are going through truly crucial and tectonic shifts. The idea of one country or even a group of countries dominating the world has sunk into oblivion. The world continues to head confidently towards a more just multipolar system which, as President Vladimir Putin noted during the Victory Parade held on Red Square on May 9, is based "on the principles of trust and indivisible security, of equal opportunities for a genuine and free development of all nations and peoples."
The countries from the Global South and the Global East are primarily guided by their core national priorities rather than the self-serving interests of former colonial powers and are consistently strengthening their positions right before our eyes. Multilateral diplomacy is part of the general trend as well. The democratisation of international life is facilitated by associations of a new type, such as the SCO, BRICS, and the EAEU. In the long run, all of that should bring about a more balanced, sustainable, and inclusive international order.
This objective trend is outright rejected by the US-led Western minority. In an attempt to achieve global domination, Washington and its satellites do not hesitate to use any means ranging from unilateral sanctions to media wars. Acting in line with the logic of the Cold War, they have added liberal doses of ideology to geopolitics. In defiance of the sovereign equality principle that is enshrined in the UN Charter, they are imposing on the international community an artificial division of the world into "democracies" and "autocracies". As follows from statements made at the recently held G7 summit in Japan, the West sees Russia and China as strategic adversaries that pose an almost existential threat to its dominance.
It has got to the point where the West is now seeking to replace the UN-centric world order that took shape after the Second World War with some kind of "rules-based order." The Western elites seek to internationalise these "rules", which no one has ever seen and which, by definition, cannot be legally binding. Their goal is clear and it is to destroy the existing international legal system and to hold back the development of new world centres in the hope of being able to stick to their colonial policies as they continue to deal with their issues at other countries' expense.
Washington has been purposefully destroying the European security architecture for years on end, as it remained focused on creating threats that were unacceptable to Russia. The US withdrawal from the ABM treaties (including 20 years ago), the INF Treaty and the Treaty on Open Skies are among such threats. Having degraded the OSCE into a fringe entity with no influence whatsoever on the state of affairs regarding European security, the United States and its European allies have long since taken an openly provocative course on NATO's eastward expansion despite the political promises to the Soviet leadership not to expand the alliance "one inch," or the commitments assumed at the highest level not to strengthen their own security at the expense of the security of other countries. In fact, reckless NATO expansion is reminiscent of Hitler's Drang nach Osten policy. The Western politicians' true intentions once again transpired in December 2021, when Washington and Brussels once again rejected Russia's proposals to provide our country with legally binding security guarantees. Notably, Russia's recent decision to denounce the CFE Treaty is just a formal statement of the fact that this treaty has become outdated amid deep degradation of the military-political situation in Europe through the fault of the United States and Brussels.
Acting under Article 51 of the UN Charter, which sets forth the right of states to self-defence, we were compelled to carry out the special military operation. It was also a necessary step in order to eliminate security threats created by NATO along our border and prevent the extermination of people, whose ancestors have lived on their land in cities founded by Russia for centuries.
The so-called collective West has made no secret of its intention to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, and has been using the Kiev regime as an anti-Russia battering ram by sending more and more NATO weapons there. However, most of the Western deliveries spread around the world in an uncontrolled manner. In fact, NATO countries essentially, I mean de-jure, are directly involved in the conflict on Kiev's side. This irresponsible policy does nothing but heighten the threat of a direct military confrontation between nuclear powers. We have been signalling to our partners that this would be an unacceptable path to take, but unfortunately, they either ignore these signals or grossly distort them for propaganda purposes.
There is also another reason why our opponents have been seeking to raise the stakes in Ukraine. For them, the attempt to rely on Ukrainian neo-Nazis in order to break Russia emerged as an integral part of their overall aspiration to revive the unipolar world order. They placed their bets on getting rid of competitors to enable the so-called golden billion to keep following its neo-colonial agenda by siphoning off resources from other countries.
This is the very purpose of Western-style globalisation, including its monetary and trade aspects. When the United States realised that it was about to lose its global dominance and had to undermine its competitors, Washington moved swiftly and without any second thought or hesitation in violation of its own sacrosanct principles of free trade, fair competition, inviolability of property and the presumption of innocence.
Apart from Moscow, most other countries have been facing these threats and blackmail. We see that the United States is intentionally seeking to escalate tension around Taiwan as part of its so-called Indo-Pacific strategies. Washington has been drawing its satellites, not only those in Europe, but also in the Far East into its destructive plots. During the NATO summit in Madrid, the West proclaimed the principle of indivisible security in the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions, deciding to deal a fatal blow to the ASEAN-centric security architecture in that part of the world. Instead of effectively cooperating for the benefit of all, the Anglo-Saxons have been deploying NATO's military infrastructure in the region, established AUKUS and other variable-geometry military and political alliances in an attempt to draw several Southeast Asian countries into these incendiary games. All this cannot but cause serious concern.
For many years now, the collective West has been sowing instability in the Middle East and North Africa. It has been trying to institute its own rules across the post-Soviet space, including in South Caucasus and Central Asia. In keeping with its colonial practices, it has been seeking to exploit the African continent with its rich resources. The United States still views countries in Latin America and the Caribbean as its backyard and takes it badly whenever any of these countries adopts an independent policy line. In all the regions I mentioned, the West has been intentionally inciting inter-ethnic and religious strife and interstate conflicts. Sudan provides the latest example. The problems the country is facing are rooted in the long-standing policy by the United States to break a single state - Sudan - apart into Sudan and South Sudan. As a result, neither of the two can live in peace and achieve wellbeing.
In the interests of reducing international tensions, we call on Washington and Brussels to give up their strong-arm unilateral solutions and their attempts to marginalise the United Nations and create select organisations outside of its framework, organisations devoid of any legitimacy but aspiring to dominate others. We have to state that the Western ruling circles are not ready to readjust their foreign-policy thinking based on the principles of international law, collectivity, equality, and regard for each other's interests.
Coming to the fore today is the task of renewing the global security architecture and making it more stable based on unconditional respect, in practice, for the principles of the UN Charter in their entirety and interconnection. Given the West's destructive policy and its unpreparedness for honest cooperation, this goal can be attained by creating regional and inter-regional security mechanisms that are not controlled by Washington and its satellites, something that might be done by forming coordinated spaces for pragmatic cooperation and stable growth.
Some truly democratic interstate organisations are likely to provide crucial support in this work, organisations promoting a constructive, creative, and forward-looking agenda, and based on consensus rather than on the bloc discipline of the rod. Intensifying versatile ties between multilateral associations in Greater Eurasia, including the CSTO, the EAEU, CIS, SCO, ASEAN, and CCAS, is highly relevant as well. All of this begs the inclusion of continental security issues on the list of subjects to be considered by an international organisation, which is to be established to replace CICA.
The need to create a stable international environment and an atmosphere of neighbourliness is increasingly important for states in a dynamically developing Eurasia. I am pleased to state that there is interest in joint activities without diktat or interference by extra-regional forces. Collective security efforts are designed to complement naturally the existing cooperation in industry, infrastructural connectivity, and contacts between people. In the final analysis, this will benefit not only the peoples of Eurasia but also the world at large.
Colleagues,
We consistently proceed from the premise that the current geopolitical turbulence should not be an obstacle to aligning international efforts designed to effectively curtail numerous threats common to the whole of humanity.
Biological security is still a high-profile matter, primarily in connection with uncontrolled US military biological activities in different regions of the world. Under the guise of sanitary and epidemiological assistance, the Pentagon has organised mass-scale construction or upgrading of microbiology laboratories to develop components for biological weapons along the borders of Russia and China.
The activities conducted by the United States and its allies are at variance with their obligations under the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction. There is ever wider support for initiatives aimed at an urgent strengthening of this convention by coordinating reliable verification mechanisms that can guarantee the transparency of these programmes and their non-orientation towards developing biological weapons.
In recent years, the collective West has applied pressure to create obstacles to international antiterrorist cooperation, this despite the mounting threats of terrorism and extremism. Strong challenges are still coming from ISIS and al-Qaeda, as well as from the extremist groups under their control. Operating in the Middle East, Africa, and East and Central Asia, they demonstrate the ability to rapidly adjust to the changing geopolitical conditions.
The NATO countries, led by the United States, continue their vicious routine of using radical nationalists and extremists in their irresponsible geopolitical games. This includes turning Ukraine into a seat for fostering and disseminating Nazi ideology and practices, where the rights of national minorities guaranteed by numerous conventions are trampled on through openly racist methods. The United States and its satellites are turning a blind eye to the Kiev regime using terrorist methods to kill politicians, public figures, journalists and anyone who disagrees with the revival of Nazism.
The militarisation of outer space is a problem that requires close attention. Russia has put forward a number of constructive initiatives in this regard. Russia and China have proposed a draft treaty on the prevention of the deployment of weapons in outer space and the threat or use of force against outer space facilities.
We believe that the use of commercial satellites by the United States and its allies for military purposes, to interfere in other countries' internal affairs and for other subversive actions is an extremely dangerous trend. Like the overwhelming majority of countries, we call for using civilian space infrastructure exclusively for stated purposes, in accordance with the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.
The mounting threats from the use of information and communications technologies have become a challenge to international security. The United States and its allies have committed to the militarisation of cyberspace, and are building up respective offensive arsenals and perfecting attack methods. Washington is grossly abusing its position, given that the internet today is actually under the sole control of the United States and American corporations. We call for the intensification of the long-term effort by the International Telecommunication Union to put an end to this monopoly and democratise internet governance.
Contrary to the West's attempts to turn the digital space into an arena of geopolitical confrontation, the majority of member states are in favour of depoliticised and constructive interaction. The concept of establishing a special UN international information security convention, as well as the draft of another convention on combating crime in cyberspace, presented by Russia, were given a broad and positive response.
Russia, the largest Eurasian and Euro-Pacific power and one of the world's leading centres, has consistently advocated the consolidation of the international community in countering pressing security challenges.
Russian diplomacy is always open to dialogue with its partners to reach practical agreements based on a balance of interests and respect for each other. The key to success is reliance on the universal norms of international law, primarily the principle of sovereign equality of states.
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