Sergey Lavrov: “Today, the countries of the collective West, which like to speak about the ‘freedom of speech’, ‘pluralism’ and ‘democracy’, actually demonstrate a fierce intolerance of any alternative views”

Photo: MFA

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at Ambassadorial Round Table Discussion, “Ukraine crisis: Global information space,” Moscow, November 29, 2024.

“Ladies and gentlemen,

Colleagues, friends,

We believe it is crucially important to make sure that ambassadors working in the Russian Federation have a detailed understanding of our position regarding one of the most acute international crises, which broke out in the wake of the war unleashed against the Russian Federation by the West using Ukrainians as a proxy. Everyone had the chance to see it. Still, the media is being whipped up with an eye towards confusing the international public opinion. That is why I believe such meetings hold a lot of value. I hope you share my assessment.

The collective West has long been using information warfare techniques to distort information in order to get ahead with its dirty geopolitical plots. I’d like to share a historical anecdote with you. There’s a letter written by Bishop Beilby Porteus of London, in which he had the following to say about the religion for slaves toiling on the Caribbean sugar plantations, “prepare a short form of public prayer, together with select portions of scripture particularly those which relate of the slave duties toward the master.” Prayer alone was not enough. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a special Bible for the British colonies, Select Parts of the Holy Bible for the Use of the Negro Slaves in the British West-India Islands, was published, also known in the world biblical studies as The Slave Bible. They took 90 percent of the Old Testament and 50 percent of the New Testament out of it. In order to enslave the souls and minds of millions of slaves, the forefathers of today’s Western liberals censored the Holy Scriptures, and removed sections of it that could instill in the slave labourers’ minds the idea that all people are equal before God. The Slave Bibles had been published in London since the early 19th century. Little has changed since then.

The Kiev regime operates under direct control of the Anglo-Saxons and their NATO satellites, and acts in line with British colonial practices. It uses many modern-day ultra-liberal Western ideology techniques. Cancel culture is one such technique. The systematic rewriting and falsifying by Ukrainian propagandists of their own past, including blotting out entire chapters from history textbooks, is part of that approach.

The entire Western-controlled media sphere is a slave bible of sorts. In this day and age, the Anglo-Saxon public relations agencies carry out such neo-colonial practices. The Anglo-Saxons own news corporations that enjoy global reach, operate in conjunction with a ramified network of lobbyists, and conduct information campaigns to advance their owners’ self-serving  interests. Their key objective is to create an aura of mass-scale support for the neoliberal policies pursued by Washington and London, and to cut audiences off of the sources of alternative information.

As far as the international relations are concerned, the policy seeking to demonise undesirable countries and governments has been in existence for quite a while now. Just think back to the Westerners’ efforts to prime the international public opinion for the bombing of sovereign Yugoslavia in 1999. A mock attack was staged in the Kosovo village of Racak, where the OSCE representatives “suddenly” discovered several dozen dead bodies. A representative of the OSCE Mission holding a US passport claimed that the Yugoslav army had taken civilian lives.

This triggered an aggression against Yugoslavia. Back then, they bombed the television broadcasting centre, bridges and other civilian sites. Later, it transpired that the dead bodies in question were not civilians, but gunmen whose bodies were later dressed up to look like civilians.

A provocation was staged in Racak, a village in Kosovo, in 1999. In March 2022, a similar provocation was carried out in Bucha near Kiev, where BBC reporters were shown dozens of dead bodies that were accurately laid out in the central street of the town. After that, Russia was accused of killing civilians and of war crimes. We continue to demand to this day to be given a list of the names of people whose bodies were shown to the BBC reporters. I have publicly appealed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres three times, but he is looking away.

The methods of information warfare have not changed much. The Ukrainian Nazis copied the scenario of the Bucha massacre from their German predecessors. I am referring to the massacre in the East Prussian town of Nemmersdorf on October 21-24, 1944. When the Red Army had to pull back from it, Goebbels’s propaganda machinery accused them of massacring civilians there. Historians proved after the war that it was a large-scale frame-up devised by the Third Reich.

Today, the countries of the collective West, which like to speak about the freedom of speech, pluralism and democracy, actually demonstrate a fierce intolerance of any alternative views. In this context, they have predictably focused their attacks on Russian media outlets such as RT and Sputnik, which have proved in deed that they can bring objective information to their audiences and offer an unbiased analysis of the developments.

Regarding RT and Sputnik, I would like to note that many years ago their journalists had problems with getting accreditation for events held at the Elysees Palace in Paris. It happened long before the Ukrainian events, when we had mostly good working relations with our Western colleagues. When we asked President Emmanuel Macron why he could not approve accreditation for RT and Sputnik, he said that they were not media outlets but propaganda instruments. So much for the freedom of speech.

Incidentally, it was during an OSCE summit in Paris in 1990 that a special charter guaranteeing free access to information for people in all countries was adopted, including information produced in the given country and outside it. All this has been laid to rest. Back in 1990, the West believed that such liberalisation of international life would benefit it because it would draw the Soviet Union, which still existed at that time, into the Western orbit. But as soon as they saw that the world is more diverse than the neo-liberal order, which the West imposed on everyone, they started blocking aces to information that contradicted their views and positions.

Here is a recent example. Germany has recently banned the broadcasting of Russia’s Channel One and expelled its journalists. We provided a symmetrical response. Similar things happen every day.

When Zelensky’s regime openly says that it is hunting down Russian media professionals, the West remains silent or panders to it. It has been reliably proved that the Ukrainian security services were directly engaged in the premeditated murder of Russian journalists Darya Dugina, Oleg Klokov, Maxim Fomin, Rostislav Zhuravlev, Boris Maksudov and many other reporters. The “enlightened” West has not condemned these murders. The same is true about the death of Russian journalists in Donbass long before the special military operation. Everyone has heard about the scandal with the UNESCO Secretariat’s report on the journalists who have died in the line of duty. That report does not even mention the Russian reporters whose death is public knowledge. That is why we say that Director-General Audrey Azoulay is directly involved in the information war against the Russian Federation, and ultimately against the truth.

The media still serves as one of the main frontlines in the aggressive campaign the collective West has launched against Russia, as well as against other countries within the Global Majority which pursue an independent domestic and foreign policy. Ukraine has turned into yet another testing ground for deploying and testing sophisticated methods for manipulating public opinion. On top of using this country for spreading fake news, the West has been testing its weapons there and has made no secret out of its efforts.

Just two days ago, former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson resurfaced on television. In an interview, he said that Ukrainians served as proxies in the war the West is waging. This fact cannot be hidden or distorted. Washington, London, and EU capitals are all trying to sweep under the carpet the crimes perpetrated by their underlings in Ukraine and justify them. In doing so, they have been relying on their media as a powerful tool while blocking any sources of unwanted news. They have gone to great lengths to paralyse international human rights bodies. Moreover, the fact that Russian journalists have been dying at the hands of Ukrainian Nazis, as I have already mentioned, is a non-topic in the West.

Let me remind you what happened to Julian Assange. This amounted to a years-long harassment and persecution effort, and everyone could see this. There was no way they could hide this from public view. This offers a vivid example of what awaits those who seek to challenge the Western thinking, a lesson for anyone who holds dissenting views. It is quite telling that despite the fact that we do not see eye to eye with Julian Assange as an investigative journalist on many matters, it was Russia that was almost the only country to consistently speak out in his defence, while all these would-be freedom of speech advocates and human rights activists have not said a word.

Entities like UNESCO, OSCE and the Council of Europe have a mandate under their statutory documents to promote human rights, including ensuring safety for journalists. In recent years, they have demonstrated their extreme opportunism and inability to live up to their mission by remaining silent and failing to act. In fact, this way of encouraging the criminal Kiev regime leads to new casualties and human victims.

The Foreign Ministry regularly releases reports about the crimes perpetrated by the Kiev regime. I know that you can access them to inform your capitals about the facts they contain.

The situation within international organisations has been a matter of concern. The West has almost privatised their secretariats. Look at the UN Secretariat. NATO member states got to fill all the leading positions there, including Secretary-General, as well as his under-secretaries for political matters, peacebuilding, and security.

Russia has spoken out on multiple occasions in favour of ensuring fair representation for the countries of the Global Majority in all international organisations, including the UN, the IMF and the World Bank. So far, the situation has been deplorable.

But information wars, lies or fake news will not help the neo-Nazi Kiev regime. The special military operation’s goals and objectives will be achieved. President Vladimir Putin has stressed many times Russia’s unwavering commitment to peaceful, political and diplomatic means. However, achieving a lasting and sustainable settlement in the Ukraine conflict would be impossible unless we remove its root causes. These primarily include creating lasting security threats for Russia along its western borders resulting from NATO’s expansion, as well as NATO’s efforts to absorb Ukraine. There is also the system-wide effort by the Kiev regime to strip Russians and Russian speakers in its own country of their rights by enacting legislative bans on education in Russian at all levels, from primary schools to higher education. The Kiev regime has been banning Russian-language media outlets and made it impossible to hold various cultural events in Ukraine. Just like in Nazi Germany, they are throwing away books in Russian from their libraries and recycling them.

As for the root causes, I would like to draw your attention to President of China Xi Jinping’s Global Security Initiative. He presented it in February 2023 and set forth principles which apply to any conflict.

One of the main principles as per this global initiative regarding security matters is that we must focus on identifying and removing the root causes when dealing with any conflict.

I address all our friends present here. When initiatives with noble intentions and a desire to end the military confrontation surrounding Ukraine are being advanced, I urge you to fully consider the prudent requirement of the Global Security Initiative proposed by the President of the People's Republic of China.

We firmly believe that in any circumstance, actions must be guided strictly by international law. In this regard, I wish to highlight that many proposals being discussed, including those in the West, call for resolving the conflict based on international law and ensuring territorial integrity. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres supports this position as well.

However, when we speak about international law, the UN Charter and its principles do not solely refer to territorial integrity. The right of nations to self-determination is also enshrined. This very right served as the legal foundation for the decolonisation process, especially on the African continent. Just as during the colonial era, the peoples of Africa resisted living under colonisers who did not represent their interests, similarly, the current regime in Kiev does not represent the interests of a significant number of Ukrainian citizens and the territories that reunited with the Russian Federation through referendums.

This must not be overlooked. For the same UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls for adherence to the UN Charter and General Assembly resolutions, which the West has pushed through by coercing many countries to vote in support of the Ukrainian regime, thus justifying its crimes, including the state coup a decade ago. Yet, if the UN Secretary-General advocates for guidance from General Assembly resolutions, there exists one adopted by consensus: the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. This comprehensive document elaborates on the UN Charter's principles and explicitly states that territorial integrity must be respected in states whose governments uphold the right of nations to self-determination and consequently represent the entire population residing within the territory.

Who can assert that the Kiev regime represents the interests of Russian and Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine? Recall how, in the autumn of 2021, prior to the start of the special military operation, Vladimir Zelensky, in an interview regarding the Minsk agreements and the people on the opposite side of the contact line, remarked, "There are people, and there are species." On another occasion, he suggested that those in Ukraine who feel an affiliation with Russian culture should relocate to Russia for their children's and grandchildren's future. Is this the rhetoric of a president who purports to represent the entire population of Ukraine as it stood within the 1991 borders? Certainly not.

Most crucially, the UN Charter, before addressing the right of nations to self-determination, territorial integrity, and the need to respect these, requires adherence to human rights in its first article. Have any of our Western colleagues ever mentioned human rights when discussing Ukraine, while adopting numerous documents in the G7, the European Union, and other alliances? Meanwhile, the UN Charter unequivocally states that human rights must be upheld irrespective of race, gender, language, or religion.

I have already spoken about the language. The Russian language is legally prohibited, and everyone remains silent. The West, which otherwise places human rights at the forefront of its priorities, remains silent in this instance, as we say, "mute as a fish."

The right to religion has also been infringed upon by the Kiev regime. Recently, a law was enacted banning the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

When our well-intentioned friends propose initiatives to resolve the conflict based on international law and the UN Charter, we request that this encompass not just one but all principles in their entirety and interrelation. Only then will it be equitable and demonstrate to all that we seek to address the root causes of the conflict.”

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