Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's opening remarks at a meeting with Chairperson of the Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova and the heads of certain Russian regions, Moscow, February 5, 2024
5 February 2024 17:57
196-05-02-2024
Colleagues,
We have just had a useful conversation at a meeting of the Foreign Ministry Collegium on the preparations for the election of the President of the Russian Federation in our representative offices abroad.
Polling stations will open as usual. We are working in close coordination with the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation on organising the election in a way that will be convenient and understandable for all our citizens living in other countries.
The work is already underway, but the main stage is still ahead. Speaking at today's meeting of the Foreign Ministry Collegium, Ella Pamfilova described in detail the difficulties that will arise this year, and that will be mounting. They are unprecedented due to the illegitimate sanctions of the Western governments, which include the closing of many consulates general and expulsion of hundreds of employees of our embassies and other missions. No doubt, our physical capabilities are much less this year than during the previous election campaign.
The second problem related to the same Russophobic campaign unleashed by Western governments lies in the security of our missions. There have been many attacks at our embassies and consulates general including physical attacks in one form or another.
We are paying heightened attention to the security of our diplomats. When a foreign mission opens its doors to our citizens who want to vote, the risks of a provocation increase enormously. This is why the measures that we have approved today at the Collegium meeting take these risks into account.
We would like to draw special attention to the development of our relations with Crimea (a Foreign Ministry office has been operating there for 10 years now), as well as with the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic. In August 2023, we established Foreign Ministry offices in these republics and they are already operating.
Of course, we will open our offices in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. For the time being, their functions will be performed via our office in Simferopol. We will prepare for the opening of full offices soon.
Our offices should pay special attention to the elections in these territories - Crimea, the DPR, the LPR, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions. Working under the guidance of the local administration and in close contact with a representative of the Central Election Commission, they should assist the foreign observers that we expect to arrive in large numbers.
Ms Pamfilova also spoke about this. We reflected this in our resolution.
The central office of our ministry will help them in every possible way. If need be, we will assign additional staff to our offices in these regions of the Russian Federation for the election.
Naturally, we will proceed from the need to draft medium- and long-term programmes for their activities. The goal of these programmes will be to establish and expand the external ties of the regions you represent as well as the other regions of the Russian Federation. The Foreign Ministry's Council of Heads of Constituent Entities of the Russian Federation has been operating for several decades now. We will do everything possible to involve the regions represented here in its work.
I would also like to say a few words about our representative office in Crimea. In cooperation with the heads of Crimea and Sevastopol, it holds events with the participation of our foreign partners and conducts visits. This is a good experience. It will certainly be useful for the four regions of the Russian Federation represented here.
Recently, last December, a session of the Mercury-2023 forum took place at Kuindzhi Mariupol State University.
I think it would be good to make this forum traditional, to hold it every year so as to improve the level of knowledge about what is happening in the territories liberated from the Ukrainian Nazis.
In conclusion, I would like to note that we spoke about this at today's Collegium meeting. The top management of the Foreign Ministry supports the initiative of our team to organise voluntary fund raising and collection of medications and basic necessities and render other forms of assistance to participants in the special military operation and the residents of the regions that are now affected by the actions of the enemy forces. Seventy-two of our foreign missions are taking part in this work. We should get all our embassies and consulates general involved in it. Let us support this initiative by our diplomats made in the first days of the special military operation at the official ministerial level.
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