Sergey Lavrov: “We share a common interest in further expanding the multifaceted Russia-African Union cooperation in areas of mutual interest which include security”

Photo: MFA

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement and answers to media questions at a joint news conference following consultations with Chairperson of the African Union Commission Mahmoud Ali Youssouf.

Members of the media,

Today, at the headquarters of the African Union, I held a substantive meeting and truly engaging talks with my long-time friend, Chairperson of the African Union Commission Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, to whom I am sincerely grateful for organising the discussions and for his traditionally generous hospitality. The meeting took place in a warm and trust-based atmosphere which enabled us to discuss the current state of affairs and prospects for expanding relations between our country, the African Union and its member states, including cooperation on regional and international issues.

We unambiguously reaffirmed the value of holding regular political consultations and agreed to make them an annual event. These consultations will form the foundation of the framework for Russia-African Union cooperation that we are now building. Or rather, such a framework already exists, but needs to be substantially improved and complemented by sector-specific dialogues covering all areas of practical cooperation and humanitarian engagement. This is what we will be working on.

We share a common interest in further expanding the multifaceted Russia-African Union cooperation in areas of mutual interest which include security, finance, industry, trade, education, energy, healthcare - which the Chairperson highlighted in particular - as well as humanitarian, educational, cultural and sporting contacts. In this context, we discussed the possibility of launching a sector-specific dialogue mechanism involving the ministries and institutions of Russia and the African Union.

On the international track, we expressed serious concern over the challenging developments in various parts of Africa, such as the Sahel, the Great Lakes region, the Horn of Africa, Sudan, South Sudan, and Libya. For our part, we will continue to assist our African friends in resolving crises in strict accordance with the African solutions to African problems principle. The rest of the international community - those who genuinely wish to help resolve the many crises, most of which are holdovers from the colonial era - should support Africans in implementing African approaches to addressing African problems.

We also discussed the importance of the UN Security Council resolution establishing the principle of support, including financial support through the UN, for African Union peacekeeping efforts in Somalia. This example should be followed by more such examples.

We informed our friends that tomorrow our delegation would travel to Niamey, Niger, to participate in the second full-fledged ministerial meeting between Russia and the Alliance of Sahel States (Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso). We will take into account the outcomes of today’s talks in advancing a constructive agenda at that meeting, including with a view to fostering closer contacts between the Alliance of Sahel States and the African Union.

We agreed to strengthen coordination at the UN Security Council, where the African A3 of non-permanent members serves. We share the view that Africa’s representation on the Security Council should be increased in line with the principles set out in the Ezulwini Consensus and the Sirte Declaration. This would be a step towards remedying the historical injustice faced by the African continent in the context of UN Security Council reform, which should be implemented by allocating additional seats to Africa, the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Asian countries from the Global South.

Our Western colleagues do not need more seats. They are already substantially overrepresented on the current UN Security Council.

This year, the African Union renewed the 2025 theme, Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations, for another decade. We support the efforts of our numerous African friends to achieve national sovereignty in various fields, including finance, technological development, and energy. We advocate the eradication of contemporary practices of neocolonialism. We see the achievement of this goal as an important step towards building a fairer multipolar world order.

It is no coincidence that in December 2025 the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution designating December 14 as the annual International Day Against Colonialism in All Its Forms and Manifestations. This provides a solid basis not only for broader discussions but also for practical efforts to overcome the remnants of the exploitation of African countries, where African countries endowed with immense natural resources receive only a fraction of the added value generated from those resources, while the West captures the bulk of it.

We are satisfied with the outcome of today’s talks. I would also note that we held a candid exchange of views on the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf more broadly and the situation in the Palestinian territories, where deeply troubling trends are emerging that seek to bury the two-state solution, prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and thereby flagrantly violate UN resolutions.

With regard to the Strait of Hormuz, we welcome the ongoing negotiating process. We hope it will reverse the situation with freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and bring it back to the state it was in before the United States and Israel launched aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

I would like to close by once again expressing gratitude to our African colleagues, and personally to Chairperson of the African Union Commission Mahmoud Ali Youssouf for their balanced and objective position on the Ukraine crisis and the dynamics surrounding it. At the UN, the delegations from African countries, representatives of the African Union, and the African Union Commission demonstrate an understanding of what is happening and willingness to get to the core of things rather than viewing everything exclusively through the prism of frontal Western propaganda.

We are happy with the outcomes of today’s talks. We will continue to maintain a constructive dialogue. We look forward to welcoming Chairperson of the African Union Commission Mahmoud Ali Youssouf to Moscow in late October for the third Russia-Africa Summit.

I hope next year we will hold the consultations that took place here today in Moscow. We will be pleased to see you at that meeting.

Question: Following the liberation of Konstantinovka, Western media launched a campaign to dispute the facts, attempting to portray the success of the Russian armed forces as a false claim. Given that Africa is now part of the audience of the global information space, did the Chairperson of the African Union Commission raise the issue of establishing joint mechanisms for validating information and countering disinformation, so that African states, among others, do not become hostage to false Western narratives?

Sergey Lavrov: As I said earlier today, we discussed the situation in Ukraine, though not at that level of detail.

With regard to your question about the status of Konstantinovka, I believe the best answer was our military inviting the Ukrainian side to come to Konstantinovka and collect the bodies of fallen Ukrainian servicemen. Ukraine refused, thereby once again demonstrating - as many have already observed - that it has no need for Ukrainians, whether living or dead. Most likely, they will simply be listed as missing in action. Nevertheless, such an invitation was made. Notably, upon learning of the invitation, about 20 foreign news agencies said they wanted to travel there and witness the transfer ceremony for the bodies of Ukrainian servicemen. They would have had the chance to see how things are in Konstantinovka, and who controls it. The Ukrainian authorities took that opportunity away from them.

Overall, the claim that things on the battlefield are not as Russia says they are is nothing new. It began long before the special military operation and before the West, through lies, plotted a war against the Russian Federation in yet another attempt to inflict a strategic defeat on us. This time, they plotted the aggression using the Kiev regime that they had brought to power. Every round of negotiations with representatives of Bankovaya Street ended with both the Kiev authorities and their Western patrons once again proving themselves woefully unable to reach and honour agreements.

As for joint mechanisms that would expose fake claims, there is the International Fact-Checking Network, which will mark its second anniversary later this year. More than 50 countries represented by their news agencies are its members. The network engages in exposing falsehoods through investigative journalism.

We have many questions regarding accusations made against us over the past twenty-plus years. In 2006, there was the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko at a London hospital. The proceedings were classified in such a way that the information on which the accusation that he had allegedly been poisoned by Russian intelligence services was based remained confidential. Then, in 2018, came the Skripal poisoning, in which the Russian Federation was also accused of doing that. They are alive, yet they have been hidden somewhere, and no one responds to our official inquiries for consular access to these Russian citizens. Sergey Skripal’s daughter, Yulia Skripal, who is also a Russian citizen, is nowhere to be found, either. The list could go on, including the alleged poisoning of Alexey Navalny in 2020, when permission was immediately granted for him to be transferred from Omsk to a Bundeswehr hospital. Essentially, all formal procedures were dropped. The people who accompanied Alexey Navalny to Germany took advantage of this. To this day, we have not received the test results which the Bundeswehr hospital used as a basis to say that he had allegedly been poisoned with the infamous Novichok agent.

When we asked to produce the test results, the Germans said it was impossible and that the file would instead be transferred to the OPCW which we approached only to hear them tell us that the Germans had instructed them not to let us have the documents. That’s all there was to it. End of story.

Bucha was the high point of it all. In April 2022, three days after the Russian troops had withdrawn from this suburb of Kiev - during which time the town’s mayor had appeared repeatedly on television saying that Bucha was a free town again - a BBC camera crew arrived and filmed dozens of neatly arranged bodies with their hands bound, laid out along the town’s main road. There were many disconnects which were at variance with what had actually happened in that town.

We were accused of committing atrocities which came as a convenient pretext for them to impose more sanctions on us. Yet we still cannot get an answer to a simple request where we asked them to release the names of the people whose bodies the BBC showed in its story from Bucha. I have raised this question publicly and personally with the UN Secretary-General. He avoids answering it. Our official request to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has also gone unanswered. Unofficially, we are told that this is impossible because the relatives of those people could somehow be put at risk.

What do their relatives have to do with any of that? Speaking of relatives, whenever a tragedy occurs, such as a school gets under artillery fire, the victims’ families immediately come together, demand justice and call for the culprits to be identified. But in this case, no one has ever seen anyone from the surviving families. I have never heard of any. No one has ever mentioned that the people whose bodies the BBC showed in Bucha had relatives. They have neither names nor relatives.

This, too, would be an entirely appropriate subject for a journalistic investigation. I’ve tried to prompt such an investigation during my news conferences in New York - certainly at the last three sessions of the UN General Assembly - with correspondents accredited to the United Nations. I know most of them. Around 50 reporters are usually in attendance. Each time I remind them that they often launch investigations over matters of far less importance.

Not long ago, considerable resources were spent to investigate the crews of Russian vessels or ships transporting Russian oil and other cargoes. I believe Germany or Denmark proudly reported that they had uncovered a wealth of information. Don’t they really want to know whose names were used to stage a massive provocation, which helped derail the signing of the Istanbul agreement, the draft of which had been presented by the Ukrainian side? Bucha also had a role to play in that.

I continually appeal - without saying I’m shaming them - to those foreign correspondents accredited to the UN. At the time, Bucha caused an enormous stir at the UN. Everyone was saying that Russia had allegedly tortured dozens of civilians to death. I asked them whether they as professional journalists are not interested in finding out what answers they would get if they submitted formal media inquiries to the relevant authorities, such as the Ukrainian authorities, the BBC and many others? What I got in response was a deafening silence.

I apologise for inadvertently giving a plug for the International Fact-Checking Network, but we will certainly send our African friends information about how it operates, its objectives and examples of the investigations it has conducted. I hope this will stir interest.

Question: Today, the NATO summit is opening in Ankara. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the Alliance members should invest more generously in the manufacturing capacity. Just a few minutes ago he also said that American military equipment, including Abrams tanks, would be produced in Europe. Where could that lead to? What’s your take on the fact that Zelensky was invited to Ankara? Reportedly, he will have a meeting with US President Donald Trump.

Sergey Lavrov: Mark Rutte has developed a style that is apparently intended to showcase his talents in satire and irony, which he expresses - always in a condescending manner - with regard to the Russian Federation and others. I’m not sure, though, if Kvartal 95 comedy show would have hired him. However, former head of Kvartal 95 has abandoned satire and comedy and is now playing a deeply tragic character. I believe tragedy is far more appropriate in the present circumstances to prepare public opinion for what is happening and how it will end.

The expansion of military production and investment in industrial capacity is driven by two factors. The first is the desire to continue supplying the Zelensky regime for as long as possible so that, as many representatives of the European political echelon have openly stated, Ukraine does Europe’s work of exhausting Russia.

The second is that, without such steps, it is impossible to conceal the increasingly desperate state of the European economy, including the German economy. Social programmes have been impacted, benefits are being cut, and civilian industry is relocating from Europe to the United States, which offers much better terms for doing business. Given the circumstances, pumping budget funds into weapons production through administrative means is one way of keeping the economy afloat.

How will this end? It will come to an end sooner or later. If they wish to militarise themselves to the hilt, it will simply end in them losing their own race for superiority.

We have commented on Germany leading the charge before. Germany is nostalgic for the days when it united Europe under Nazi banners. It has now found a new standard-bearer in Zelensky. I would not rule out the possibility that someone may eventually want to take that banner away from him and begin fighting Russia toe to toe. For the time being, however, they continue to claim that they are not at war with us. That is a disingenuous statement. They are providing the Kiev regime with direct military support, including weapons, intelligence and satellite data, as well as the missile guidance kits and programming required for lethal weapons used to strike Russian civilians and civilian infrastructure. All of this is carried out - as has long been acknowledged - with the direct involvement of European and American military personnel.

President Vladimir Putin made it manifestly clear that, unlike some of our dialogue partners, we honour agreements. He noted that in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 16, 2025, we were presented with compromise proposals and, after careful consideration - not immediately, but eventually - we accepted them. Any other interpretations of what was or was not agreed there are, in my view, inappropriate. We were told in Alaska that Zelensky would follow the recommendations provided by the United States. We will have to wait and see what comes out of the NATO summit in Ankara.

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