🇷🇺🇺🇳 Permament Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN:

🎙Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at UNSC briefing on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine (15 May 2023)

Read in full

☝️ Western delegations were never interested in the situation of ordinary people of Donbas since 2014. Today we are not going to hear from them a word of condemnation of another atrocious shelling of Donetsk by Ukrainian forces on 28 April.

• Responsibility for these crimes rests not only with the Kiev regime, but also with those who supply Kiev with weapons. <...> All those weapons that are being provided i.a. by Security Council member states who are represented in this chamber, and who claim so concerned about the humanitarian consequences of the Ukrainian conflict, kill civilians daily. Those weapons kill women and children, destroy schools and hospitals in the DPR and LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

• With total connivance of Western sponsors, Kiev does not hesitate to use terrorist methods. Among its crimes – terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge, killings of journalists Daria Dugina and Maxim Fomin, attempted assassination of Zakhar Prilepin that killed his friend, Alexander Shubin.

❗️ Today we are going to hear a lot about solidarity of Western community with Ukraine, and their readiness to stand with it “until the end”. It must be understood however that their support is exactly what is pushing Ukraine towards this end.

• Under the guise of raising private investment for large-scale projects in key areas of the economy, Ukraine’s state sovereignty is in fact being transferred under the external corporate management of the world's major investment fund that is based in New York.

🇪🇺 Most of the food that is exported from Ukraine (and which was supposed to go to the countries of the Global South) ends up within the European Union. It is a fact and the most telling demonstration of the true essence of Brussels’ celebrated humanitarian initiatives.

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at the 40th meeting of the Council of the Heads of Constituent Entities of the Russian Federation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Moscow, May 16, 2023)

Key talking points:

☝️ Our colleagues in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation have heeded our recommendations and launched system-wide efforts to promote relations with our relevant partners.

• The level of collaboration with the CIS states, China, India, Iran, Türkiye, and Arab countries has risen significantly in the past period.

• Today’s meeting is dedicated to interaction with the Central Asian states. Our relations with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are those of alliance and strategic partnership and are based on equality, mutual respect, friendship, and neighbourliness. They are characterised by an intense political dialogue.

🤝 The political dialogue helps to promote active investment cooperation and address issues ensuring a stable growth of trade. Scientific, educational and humanitarian ties are making good headway.

• Along with bilateral cooperation, there is an increasingly active six-sided cooperation (CA5+Russia) with each of the Central Asian countries.

Read in full

🗓 On May 15, Russia together with Belarus, North Korea, Nicaragua and Syria as co-sponsors, submitted the Concept of the UN Convention on Ensuring International Information Security (IIS) as an official document of the 77th Session of the UN General Assembly.

The ongoing international discussion on the IIS indicates growing support among the UN Member States of adopting a universal legally binding instrument that would ensure stability and security in the global information space.

☝️Our initiative is a prototype of such an international treaty. The Concept of the Convention is based on the principles of sovereign equality of States and non-interference in their internal affairs. It is aimed at prevention and settlement of conflicts, establishment of interstate cooperation, including on building capacities of the developing countries in the field of information security.

🇷🇺 Russia and the co-sponsors are ready to further discuss the language of the document and take into account possible suggestions and comments.

We call on our foreign partners to join the initiative in the interest of building a fair and comprehensive system of international information security.

🇷🇺🇰🇿📞 President Vladimir Putin spoke over the phone with President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

During the telephone conversation, Vladimir Putin warmly congratulated President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on his 70th birthday.

The two Leaders reaffirmed their mutual commitment to further strengthening Russian-Kazakhstani allied relations and expanding mutually beneficial cooperation in all areas.

✉️ Earlier, the President of Russia sent a message of greetings to Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remarks at talks with Foreign Minister of Belarus Sergey Aleinik (Moscow, May 17, 2023)

💬 We are glad to welcome you to Moscow.

This is your first visit to the Russian Federation after taking the office of Foreign Minister of the Republic of Belarus.

Today we have a busy agenda. Our countries are working on increasing the defence capacity on the western borders of the Union State, upholding justice in international relations, and asserting the inadmissibility of double standards in approaches to ensuring security in Europe.

☝️ The security architecture on the European continent is being actively destroyed by our Western neighbours. All the more important is coordination on the foreign policy front, which we carry out on the basis of two-year plans.

We will discuss the roles and tasks our ministries are facing in supporting the union state building, the implementation of the 28 union programmes, the provision of foreign political stewardship of the trade and economic cooperation, our actions at the #UN, #OSCE, #CIS, #CSTO, and #EAEU, as well as the strengthening of the Union State as the core of integration processes in the post-Soviet space.

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with Tsargrad TV (Moscow, May 17, 2023)

Key talking points:

🔹 We will no longer rely on the West, as a partner that can be negotiated with to any extent. We will work with the rest of the world that is ready for this.

🔹The West’s share in the economy of Central Asia and the South Caucasus is growing. The West methodically and cynically demands that they refrain from taking steps contrary to its interests, promising them everything under the sun. Although in reality it only means interference in internal affairs.

🔹 The #CIS retains its important economic cooperation contacts because the CIS has a free trade zone. It is also contributing to the efforts to counter current challenges and threats (terrorism, extremism, drug trafficking) and efforts in the humanitarian area as well. The CIS has announced 2023 the Year of the Russian Language as the Language of Interethnic Communication.

🔹 Since 2001, we have been working to strengthen relations, primarily with China, India and #ASEAN nations. It is said now that Russia has turned away from the West. We haven’t, or rather the West has turned away from us, betraying its own interests.

🔹The West has made its choice. They insist that Russia must suffer “a strategic defeat,” must give up Crimea, betray the Russian people in other parts of former Ukraine. They are referring to Russians as “non-humans,” whose physical elimination is stated as a goal of the current Kiev regime.

🔹 This [Kiev] regime is killing Russians, Russian culture and the Russian world in any of its manifestations, physically exterminating the Russian people who were its citizens.

🔹 When the Moscow Patriarchate proclaimed the autonomy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, this did not change the Kiev regime’s aggressive policy of eradicating the genuine, canonical Orthodox Church in Ukraine and did not stop it from cultivating “the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.”

Read in full

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks and answers to media questions during a joint news conference with Foreign Minister of Belarus Sergey Aleinik following talks in Moscow

💬 <...> Our commitment to coordinate our foreign policies is one of the main pillars of the Union State’s development. This is increasingly emerging as a critical element when it comes to ensuring the national interests of our countries in today’s geopolitical environment. We agreed to keep supporting each other as allies and strategic partners in the interests of our countries, our people and the Union State.

<...>

We exchanged views on the implementation of the Supreme Council’s resolution to draft a Security Concept for the Union State. The Foreign Ministries of Russia and Belarus will proactively support this effort, while the secretariats of our respective security councils oversee this process.

Answers to media questions

🔹 I share these considerations and our determination to develop integration-related processes in order to make them independent from the illegitimate unilateral actions of the US-led collective West.

🔹 Equal and indivisible security was declared in the OSCE. It was expressly stated that no single country and no single organisation in the Euro-Atlantic space would strengthen its security at the expense of the security of others or claim dominance in this geographical region. All of that was torn to pieces by our Western colleagues when they set a course for unapologetic NATO expansion.

🔹 We hear wailing in Washington, Brussels and London that “Russia has no interest in peace.” I’m tired of commenting on this. They have said that they would only accept what suits Zelensky. It’s a case of the tail wagging the dog, as has happened in American history before.

Read in full

🇷🇺🇺🇬 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remarks at the talks with Foreign Minister of Uganda Jeje Odongo (Moscow, May 18, 2023)

💬 I am delighted to welcome you to Moscow.

I have fond memories of my visit to the hospitable Republic of Uganda back in July 2022 and our fruitful talks with President Yoweri Museveni.

🤝 We consider the development of bilateral partnership, which stretches back several decades, to be a priority. In 2022, we marked the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between our countries.

We hope that President Yoweri Museveni will attend the second Russia-Africa Summit, which will be held in St Petersburg in late July, like he did the first summit. In autumn 2019, the President of Uganda visited Sochi, where he held talks with President Vladimir Putin.

I believe that today we have a great opportunity to discuss all areas of our cooperation ahead of this event, both as part of bilateral cooperation and at the global stage, including regional processes underway on the African continent.

#RussiaUganda #RussiaAfrica

❗️ О продлении «черноморской инициативы»

Читать полностью

• В связи с истечением 18 мая 60-дневного срока продления «черноморской инициативы» по вывозу украинского продовольствия и в ответ на обращения, прежде всего турецких партнёров как стороны договоренности, подтвердили её продление ещё на два месяца, до 17 июля включительно, без каких-либо изменений.

• Наши принципиальные оценки реализации взаимоувязанных Стамбульских соглашений остаются прежними – до сих пор выполняется только «черноморская инициатива» за исключением экспорта аммиака.

• Конкретный прогресс по Меморандуму Россия-ООН отсутствует.

• Сохраняются и явные проблемы с заявленной гуманитарной составляющей «сделки» – украинское зерно вывозится по морскому коридору преимущественно в государства с высоким уровнем доходов и выше среднего, в том числе на «сытые» европейские рынки.

• Нуждающиеся страны получают абсолютный мизер – 722 000 тонн (или 2,5%) от общего числа в 30 млн тонн, вывезенных из украинских портов за 9 месяцев.

• Поставки российской продукции, даже безвозмездная передача удобрений беднейшим странам, продолжают сталкиваться с блокирующим влиянием незаконных односторонних санкций.

• Нет подвижек и по возобновлению поставок аммиака, прописанных в обоих Стамбульских документах.

• Вынуждены напомнить и повторить пять «системных» задач, которые должны быть решены в рамках реализации Меморандума Россия-ООН и прогресс по которым до сих пор отсутствует:
– переподключение «Россельхозбанка» к SWIFT;
– поставки запчастей;
– разблокирование транспортной логистики и страхования;
– реанимирование аммиакопровода «Тольятти-Одесса»
– «разморозка» активов российских компаний.

• Без выполнения этих требований ни о каком расширении «черноморской инициативы» речи в принципе не идет, а сама договоренность будет прекращена после 17 июля.

🌐 On May 18, 1899, the Hague hosted a first ever international peace and disarmament conference. The initiative and idea for the event was that of the then Russian Empire.

The meeting resulted in the signing of 3 conventions:

• Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes
• Convention with respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land
• Convention for the Adaptation to Maritime Warfare of the Principles of the Geneva Convention of August 22, 1864.

However, Russia's idea on the true reduction of armaments and constraining military budgets failed to be enshrined in the form written guarantees. Issues of vital importance for the whole of Europe were reflected in the conference proceedings only in the form of declarations and “desiderata.” A mere 15 years later, #WWI would begin to re-carve the political map of Europe beyond recognition.

❗️And yet, the conference was not held in vain. It became an important step towards containing a global arms race and laid down the foundation, formed the bedrock of international law.

🇷🇺🇺🇳 Permament Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN:

🎙Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at UNSC briefing on deliveries of weapons and military equipment to Ukraine and their consequences (18 May 2023)

Read in full

💬 Western states insist that they do not take part in the conflict, but rather “help Ukraine defend itself”. But in reality, it is the exact opposite. The West is fighting a proxy-war on Russia in Ukraine.

<...>

Deliveries of ever more powerful weapons systems to Kiev, combined with data sharing and the training of Ukrainian soldiers on their territories make these states not only parties to the armed conflict with Russia under the 1907 Hague Conventions on the rights and obligations of neutral powers in naval and land warfare, but also accomplices to the war crimes of the Ukrainian armed forces and nationalist battalions.

<...>

❗️ The goals of the collective West are obvious to all, Western politicians do not conceal them. And this is not the principles of morality and highest humanistic values, far from that. By using Ukraine as a testing site, they want to drag out this conflict, “until the last Ukrainian”, hoping to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia. This is based on an obvious desire to impose their will and their so-called rules on everyone.

<...>

Attacks of the Kiev regime against civilian infrastructure and peaceful population of the Donbas happen daily.

<...>

☝️ The West knew exactly who they were bringing to power after the coup d'état in 2014 and who they had carefully nurtured before that in the interests of transforming Ukraine into an "anti-Russia”. <...> Western countries not only failed to prevent it, but as their leaders admit today, they sabotaged the implementation of the Minsk Agreements in order to keep using the Kiev authorities in their own interests.

❗️ On renewing the Black Sea Initiative

Read in full

• In connection with expiration of the 60-day deadline for renewing the Black Sea Initiative to export Ukrainian grain on May 18 and in response to requests primarily from our Turkish partners as a party to the agreement, we confirmed the renewal of the agreement for another two months through July 17 without any changes.

• Our principled assessments of the implementation of the interrelated Istanbul agreements have remain unchanged, and so far only the Black Sea Initiative has been implemented with the exception of ammonia exports.

• There’s no measurable progress under the Russia-UN Memorandum.

• There are obvious issues with the declared humanitarian component of the deal where Ukrainian grain is being exported through this sea corridor mostly to high and above-average income countries, including “well-stocked” European markets.

• Countries that need it most have received hardly anything, 722,000 tonnes (or 2.5 percent) of the total amount of 30 million tonnes that had been moved from Ukrainian ports over nine months.

• The export of Russian products, even donations of fertilisers to the neediest countries, continues to be blocked by various aspects of the illegal and unilateral sanctions.

• There is no progress either in resuming ammonia shipments mentioned in both Istanbul documents.

• Given the circumstances, we are compelled to issue a reminder that there are five systemically important issues that must be resolved as part of implementing the Russia-UN Memorandum and which have seen no progress whatsoever so far:
- reconnecting Rosselkhozbank to the SWIFT system
- supplying spare parts
- unblocking transport logistics and insurance
- reestablishing the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline
- unfreezing the Russian companies’ assets

• There can be no talk of expanding the Black Sea Initiative in principle without these requirements first being met. The agreement will be terminated after July 17.

🇷🇺🇦🇿 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remarks at talks with Foreign Minister of the Republic of Azerbaijan Jeyhun Bayramov

📍 Moscow, May 19, 2023

💬 Sergey Lavrov: We are delighted to meet with you again. Today we will hold a trilateral meeting with our Armenian colleague, which was scheduled to take place in late 2022.

Your visit to Moscow is a good opportunity to review our bilateral relations, especially in light of the upcoming contacts between the leaders of Russia and Azerbaijan.

I would like to reaffirm our resolve to implement the agreements reached by President Vladimir Putin and President Ilham Aliyev.

🤝 The North-South international transport corridor is an interesting recent project. Our leaders discussed it at the bilateral level and jointly with many other interested countries. We hope that further work on this project and in other areas will be coordinated at the next meeting.

I would like to note that the main events for the 100th birth anniversary of Heydar Aliyev, an outstanding statesman of the Soviet Union and Azerbaijan, began in Moscow on May 15, 2023. He was a unifying figure for our countries. We are grateful for your embassy’s close cooperation in organising these events.

📈 Our trade is growing, our investments are yielding results, and our companies have forward-looking plans. We will exchange views on all these issues. We will talk about the best way to prepare for a trilateral meeting with our Armenian colleague, which is scheduled for this afternoon.

#RussiaAzerbaijan

#Reminder for Global Affairs Canada

After the people of Crimea unanimously decided to reunite with 🇷🇺Russia, Crimean Tatars were among the top beneficiaries gaining full spectre of rights and freedoms, including language, religion and traditions-related - all that the Kiev regime had deprived them of for decades.

💬Russia's Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev:

The terrorist acts committed in Russia, including the murder of [journalist and philosopher] Daria Dugina, [journalist] Vladlen Tatarsky, the explosion of [writer and politician] Zakhar Prilepin's car, the explosion of the Crimean bridge, as well as the explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipeline and others, were planned and carried out under the coordination of US intelligence agencies.

The terrorist attacks carried out in Russia have been accompanied by an information campaign prepared in advance in Washington and London.