Interview with Sergei Lavrov on
his 75th Birthday
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s
interview with Krasnaya Zvezda Media Holding Company for the film Diplomacy as
a Way of Life: I Prefer Fair Play, March 21, 2025
[Introduction and final words by
Karl Sanchez ] The number of notices Sergey Lavrov received wishing him a grand
75th Anniversary went on for webpage after webpage at the MFA’s website. I
extend my best wishes too and hope he reconsiders writing his memoirs.
The interview
published today by Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is
the full text of the partial one it published on 2 March 2025 I
reported here. It was with Krasnaya Zvezda media that’s making a film, Diplomacy
as Life. I prefer it honestly. As I reported, the first video was
23-minutes while the video of the full interview is 54-minutes; so, the total
content will be more than doubled. The one thing I’ve never seen Mr. Lavrov do
is rant whereas Western “diplomats” rant all the time—Rubio is quite the ranter
as are Waltz
and Hegseth. I’ve predicted Lavrov will retire when the SMO is completed; if he
serves until Putin retires in 2030, he’ll be 80. IMO, he deserves a few years
on his own while he remains able to enjoy them.
Question: Do you have time to stay physically active?
Sergey
Lavrov: Yes I do, on Sundays.
Question: What is it? Football?
Sergey
Lavrov: Football it is. Not as
fast-paced as it used to be, but still football.
Question: While we are at it, are you a team player?
How important is team work in what you do?
Sergey
Lavrov: “One man, no man,” President
Putin said lately. There is a novel, though, titled “One Man Alone is a Force
to Reckon With.” Sure enough, intelligence or reconnaissance operatives often
work on assignments all by themselves.
Diplomats often face situations where they have to
take risks now and are unable to run things by their higher-ups. These
situations do occur.
Question: Could you share a story? That’s an interesting
point, I never heard of that.
Sergey
Lavrov: In 1996, I was Permanent
Representative of Russia to the UN. (My US counterpart Madeleine Albright let
me smoke in her office, while smoking was flatly forbidden under New York
laws). Cubans shot down a US plane on a provocation flight from Miami that entered
Cuban airspace. The Americans urgently convened the UN Security Council. It was
3 am in Moscow. I realised that the situation called for showing some
flexibility, on the one hand, but, on the other hand, we could not let the UNSC
adopt a language that could later be used against Cuba.
I will not go into details. I don’t remember them
very clearly. But we ended up with the text that we wanted. It was adopted by
consensus. Our Cuban friends still thank me for “that night.” This is,
probably, the most outstanding example I can share with you.
Question: Back in the day when you worked at the UN -
I’m talking about 1994-1996 - did the position of our leadership sat well with
you in terms of how Russia should be represented in the international arena?
Sergey
Lavrov: On most issues, the position of
the then Russian leadership was articulated in broad strokes, so to say. The UN
Security Council mostly dealt with African issues and to a lesser extent with
Asian, Latin American and Caribbean issues.
Our leadership was primarily focused on the West,
notably G7-Russia relations. In 1994, Boris Yeltsin was invited to Naples. The
leadership focused on creating proper conditions for deepening partnership with
the West. As it turned out later - in fact, it became clear fairly quickly, but
almost all our politicians and citizens found it out later - our role in that
“partnership” was that of the “little brother.” We were assigned this role.
This, of course, was a huge mistake.
Many Western analysts are saying in their memoirs
that there was no point in expanding NATO and keeping Russia out of the
picture. However, our goal was to join the G7. Even in the 2000s, we did not
give up on the idea of expanding cooperation with the West.
Speaking of the UN, 1999 stands out in memory as
the biggest falling-out with the West when they started bombing Belgrade
without any preliminary discussions at the Security Council. This gross
violation of international law and OSCE obligations lasted 78 days.
Boris Yeltsin must be credited with categorically
denouncing this reckless stunt. That was 1999, when Igor Ivanov served as
Foreign Minister. Prior to him, but after Andrey Kozyrev, Yevgeny Primakov, our
esteemed teacher, led the Foreign Ministry.
Starting with Primakov, our foreign policy began to
change towards multipolarity. It was not designated in these terms back then,
but Yevgeny Primakov introduced it in the legitimate diplomatic lexicon and
formally advocated for promoting the interests of a multipolar world.
The UN Charter relies on many principles. The West
is now focused entirely on territorial integrity, but there is also the
principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and the principle
of respect for human rights, including linguistic and religious rights.
We keep bringing to the attention of the West the
fact that whenever any other country, Venezuela, North Korea, Iran, India, or
Saudi Arabia, you name it, gets discussed they invariably come up with human
rights-related considerations. At least, the Americans under President Biden
prioritised human rights. Human rights are not mentioned at all with regard to
Ukraine, even though Ukraine has adopted laws - it is the only country around
the globe to have adopted such laws - banning an official UN language from all
spheres of life in Ukraine.
The guardian of the UN Charter - Secretary General
Antonio Guterres - has remained silent as well. I have spoken to him on many
occasions. But this is beside the point. The UN Secretariat has been
“privatised.” To a large extent, citizens of NATO countries are in leading
positions in almost all key areas. They have no qualms about being part of the
Alliance contrary to Article 100 of the UN Charter, which requires them not to
receive instructions from any government and to maintain impartiality.
Following up on our relations with the West, in the
early 2000s, we were interested in having them. President Putin pushed hard for
Russia becoming a full-fledged G8 member.
We pursued other areas of work with the West,
primarily the OSCE. It has been in existence forever. In addition to that,
there was the Russia-NATO Council. Back when it was created and became
operational, it pursued dozens of joint projects on fighting terrorism,
cooperation in Afghanistan, and much more.
There was a unique Russia-EU format. Summits were
held twice a year, something the EU never had with any other country. There
were more than 20 different mechanisms at the level of foreign ministries and
foreign ministers, economic institutions and ministries, transport, energy, and
humanitarian affairs. There were four common spaces from Lisbon to Vladivostok.
Summits were held, one of them in Khabarovsk. People from Europe went there.
Head of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso came there, took a walk
along the embankment in Khabarovsk, and marveled at the idea that after 12
hours of flight he was still in Europe.
There was a sense that a chance to move forward was
right there. They are now telling us we have turned our backs on the West. No
one did anything like that.
Concurrently, we maintained good relations with the
People’s Republic of China, India, and Iran helping it achieve a fair deal on
Iran’s nuclear programme, and Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and
Latin America, and more. I won’t list them all. That’s when we began to act in
the spirit of continuity in terms of Primakov’s policy.
Multipolarity means you should be interested in
addressing your economic and other needs, such as security, but you never clam
up or refuse to talk to any country in the world. Listening to what someone
else has to say doesn’t put anyone under any obligation. Often enough, a simple
contact, a conversation can help identify new areas of mutually beneficial
interaction. This is fully consistent with the UN Charter. I referred to it
earlier and I never tire of doing so. There are people out there who suggest coming
up with something different for the multipolarity era.
The UN Charter is inherently suited to the era of
multipolarity. It enshrines the key phrase: “The Organization is based on the
principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.” There is no need to
invent anything further: the other principles and human rights, which I have
already addressed, are established therein.
The right of nations to self-determination formed
the cornerstone of the decolonisation process that commenced 15 years after the
UN’s creation. It was then that African peoples, having gained strength,
arrived at a clear understanding that the colonisers in London, Paris,
Brussels, Madrid, and Lisbon neither represented their interests nor the
populations of the territories they formally governed.
Incidentally, this principle was codified after
decolonisation. Long-prepared negotiations deliberated which took precedence –
territorial integrity or the right to self-determination. In 1970, a consensus
was reached, and an expansive Declaration on all principles of the UN Charter
was adopted, elucidating their interrelation. Regarding territorial integrity
and self-determination, it was unanimously affirmed at the highest level that
all must respect the territorial integrity of states upholding the principle of
self-determination. Such states, by extension, possess governments representing
the entirety of populations residing on their territory.
Just as the colonisers failed to represent their
colonies’ populations in 1960 (thus cementing this principle), so too did the
post-coup authorities in Ukraine, promptly declaring the revocation of the
Russian language’s status and label those rejecting the putsch outcomes as
terrorists. From 2019, a series of laws eradicating the Russian language in all
spheres came into force. How can one assert that this “group of putschists”
represents the interests of Donbass, Novorossiya, let alone Ukraine’s population?
Thus, the UN Charter requires no revision. It
remains contemporaneous. It must simply be respected and implemented. When
Kosovo declared independence without a referendum, this was hailed as
self-determination. Yet when Crimea conducted a transparent referendum with
hundreds of European observers, parliament members, and public figures in
attendance, it was decried as a violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
Duplicity, cynicism, hypocrisy – these are the forces we confront.
Concluding my review of that period (I reiterate,
without neglecting our policy’s eastern and southern dimensions), we were
enmeshed in a web of mechanisms with the West unparalleled in relations with
any other group of countries – NATO, the EU, the G8. These constituted the most
extensive frameworks of cooperation in our foreign policy at the time. Other
domains relied on bilateral commissions. Annual meetings with ASEAN states
endure, but no other partnerships matched such deeply structured and entrenched
governmental mechanisms. All this was abruptly sacrificed when we refused to
accept the West’s meticulously prepared Ukrainian coup d’état, aimed at
transforming the country into a military threat platform, NATO integration
vector, and more.
We were not blind. As early as 2007 in Munich,
President of Russia Vladimir Putin warned that while we are engaged with NATO,
the EU, and the G7 (as a G8 member at the time), attempts to portray us as
naïve or oblivious would not be tolerated. If equality is professed, let
cooperation reflect it. We persisted in this approach. At numerous meetings,
Vladimir Putin patiently reiterated to every Western camp partner the intent
behind his Munich address, lest any misunderstanding lingered.
Until the eleventh hour, we afforded opportunities
to avert escalation. In December 2021, we cautioned: “You are paying lip
service to the Minsk Agreements, jeopardising our security. Let us sign a
Treaty on European Security to be guaranteed without dragging anyone into
NATO.” Our overture was ignored.
In January 2022, I met then-US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken. He asserted NATO was none of our business and that the only
assurance they could offer was some limitations on the number of
intermediate-range missiles they would deploy in Ukraine. That was it. More
hypocrisy, impunity, exceptionalism and a sense of superiority. And where did
it lead?
It is hardly surprising that at a major event last
year, President Putin said that things will never return to how they were
before February 2022. He had hoped otherwise, even as he understood those hopes
were in vain. But he gave them every possible chance – urging them to come to
the table and negotiate security guarantees, including for Ukraine, in a way
that would not undermine our security. It was possible to resolve all these
issues.
Now, many politicians, former government officials,
and public figures, speaking with hindsight –akin to the Russian adage about
wisdom dawning late – claim things should have been handled differently. But
what’s done is done.
Our goals are clear, and our objectives are set −
just as they used to say in the Soviet Union.
Question: As the saying goes, “Get to work, comrades!”
Reflecting on 2022, everyone recalls your extended negotiations with Antony
Blinken. At what point did you realise that reaching an agreement was not
feasible? How was the decision made to initiate the special military operation?
There was a gap of another month between your talks with Antony Blinken.
Sergey
Lavrov: Approximately a month. I
hoped that reason and common sense would prevail. But pride prevailed.
It was not only the plans to materially draw
Ukraine into NATO, to create bases in Crimea, on the Sea of Azov – all these
plans existed. But in addition to this geopolitical plan, arrogance also played
a big role. How could this possibly be? They tell us not to do it, and we will
comply? I am not exaggerating. This is in its naked form what they were guided
by. This is sad. This is not common sense.
It is not for nothing that Donald Trump now
constantly says in relation to any conflict, considering the position of
America, that there must be common sense. What logic exists in funnelling
hundreds of billions to a failing Ukraine, whose regime lacks popular mandate?
The country is bound to lose. If Europe wishes to address this matter, common
sense in Washington suggests “step aside.” Indeed, the United States stands
prepared to assist, to finalise economic agreements, yet a substantial amount
of weaponry has already been provided. Additionally, there has been
ideologisation. Arrogance has significantly contributed to the unfortunate
circumstances that the West has encountered.
Question: Speaking about today, we remember that President of
the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin said that the ball was in their court.
For many, the talks in Riyadh came as a surprise. What groundwork did you lay
and when did it began so that these talks could take place?
Sergey
Lavrov: There was no groundwork.
The presidents had a telephone conversation at the initiative of Donald Trump,
who got the ball from President Vladimir Putin back in 2018, at the news
conference in Helsinki held after the 2018 FIFA World Cup (the ball was the
official FIFA symbol). Donald Trump caught it, gave it a spin and threw it to
the members of his delegation who were sitting in front of him.
We were all guided by the idea that, while it is
the same country, it was not Donald Trump but Joe Biden who cut off the
relations. Mr Trump understood this well and was the one to make the call,
while also sending earlier a close advisor to Russia for an in-depth
conversation. Next, during the telephone conversation, we agreed to meet in
Riyadh as he suggested. We flew there three days after the telephone
conversation, so there was no groundwork. I mean bilateral groundwork. Of
course, each team was preparing: we at the Foreign Ministry, and they at the
State Department.
It was a perfectly normal conversation between two
delegations. It is shocking that this normality was taken as a sensation. This
means that, during Joe Biden’s term, our Western partners managed to bring
world public opinion to a point where a normal conversation is perceived as
something out of the ordinary.
Our ideas on every matter in global politics will
never align. We acknowledged this in Riyadh. The Americans acknowledged this,
too. In fact, they were the ones who said this. Common sense suggests that it
is foolish not to use the points where our interests align in order to
translate them into some practical actions and obtain mutually beneficial
results. Where our interests do not align (US Secretary of State Marco Rubio
also said this), it is the duty of responsible powers to prevent this
divergence from deteriorating into confrontation. This is absolutely our
position.
By the way, this is the format in which relations
between the US and China are built. They have a lot of points they disagree on.
The Americans introduce many sanctions against China to suppress the
competitor, though not as many as against Russia. The Americans and Europeans
introduce 100 percent duties on electric cars. This is unfair competition. But
I’ll go back to the relations model. Despite all these disagreements and the
fact that the leaders of the US and China and their ministers occasionally accuse
the other side of some illegal actions, primarily in the economic sphere,
politics and security are also heard.
Please, read what Chinese ministers say about the
West’s plans in the Taiwan Strait or in the South China Sea. This is a very
blunt opposition. I understand our Chinese colleagues when the West says that
it adheres to the “one China” policy, meaning that China is united and Taiwan
is part of it. But having said this, it also adds that the status quo cannot be
changed. And what is the status quo? It is an independent Taiwan.
There is good reason that a representative of the
Chinese Defence Ministry said recently that China was speaking strongly for a
peaceful settlement but did not rule out the use of military force if they were
deceived. Something like that. Meanwhile, the dialogue between Beijing and
Washington was never discontinued. I believe that this is the model that
relations must be built between any two countries. It applies even more to
relations between Russia and the US, which, on the one hand, can find common interests
and do a lot of mutually beneficial things, and on the other hand, must ensure
that diverging interests do not escalate into conflict.
Question: Regarding the United States, considering how many
Secretaries of State have cycled through…
Sergey
Lavrov: …and female Secretaries of
State. [Lavrov says this presumably because the questioner used the masculine
form of the word in Russian.Ed]
Question: Very well, let us adhere to grammatical political
correctness.
Sergey
Lavrov: They lack the grammatical
norms we have. But is it not offensive for a woman to be referred to in the
masculine gender? In Russian, Gossekretar (Secretary of State) is inherently
masculine. In our history, merely sekretarsha (female secretary) evokes an
entirely different image. Very well, then – head of the State Department.
Question: How have you managed to engage with such fluid
interlocutors, given that the overarching trend of US policy towards us remains
consistent, despite the rotating personnel?
Sergey
Lavrov: The faces change. As we noted
during Donald Trump’s initial election, many of our politicians succumbed to
euphoria. The same phenomenon recurs today.
The United States’ objective remains constant: to
be the world’s leading power. Under Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Democrats
broadly, they pursued this through coercive hegemony, bankrolling allegiance –
as seen with NATO, Japan, and South Korea – to establish outposts infused with
NATO nuclear components.
Donald Trump is a pragmatist. His slogan – common
sense – signifies, as all observe, a shift in modus operandi. Yet, the goal
endures: “MAGA” (Make America Great Again). His new cap now proclaims,
“Promises Made, Promises Kept.” This injects a visceral, human dimension into
policy, stripping away the dehumanised bureaucratic frameworks to which we have
grown accustomed. It renders him interesting.
His team – Secretary of State Marco Rubio and
National Security Advisor Michael Waltz – are absolutely reasonable people in
every sense of the word. They talk based on the assumption that they do not
boss us and we do not boss them. It is just that two serious countries have sat
down to discuss what is wrong between them and what their predecessor has
fouled up over the past four years by destroying all without exception channels
for contact and introducing a number of sanctions, which led to the banishment
of US companies that ended up sustaining hundreds of billions of dollars in
losses.
Secretaries of State come and go. They likely muse:
“How is it that I serve a mere two years, while he remains entrenched?” – a
sentiment perhaps directed at me. My working relations with all predecessors of
Marco Rubio (or rather, Antony Blinken) were normal and professional. This held
true with Hilary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice.
Madeleine Albright assumed the Secretary of State
role prior to my ministerial tenure, yet we collaborated closely. (She passed
recently; I conveyed condolences to her family.) With John Kerry, my rapport
was exemplary – both professionally and personally. Until recently, we
exchanged text messages, as with other former colleagues. That chapter,
however, has closed.
One former colleague (not John Kerry) sent
condolences following the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack but requested
discretion in publicising the gesture. This is the extent to which Joe Biden
and the unelected Brussels-based and European bureaucracy have degraded
discourse.
The tradition of ASEAN meetings with partners (US,
China, Japan, India, Australia, Russia) persists, where foreign ministers
convened. Until recently, these were accompanied by delegations devising skits
for gala dinners – a practice suspended during COVID-19.
We consistently authored such cabaret-style skits
(kapustniki), a tradition inaugurated by Yevgeny Primakov. Three years before
my return from New York, he and Madeleine Albright staged a kapustnik
adaptation of West Side Story: he portrayed the male lead; Madeleine Albright
sang the female role. It meant something…It fostered camaraderie – perhaps
bordering on informality – yet it unified them.
However, such warm atmosphere failed to assist in
overcoming the most fundamental and deep-seated contradiction, which lay in the
fact that the constant eastward expansion of NATO was unacceptable to us.
With Condoleezza Rice, we performed a kapustnik:
our delegation was present, and she played the piano (on behalf of the
Americans). I still possess photographs of us standing together, with her
seated at the piano. There were useful, interesting, and honest conversations,
although we did not agree on everything. We impressed each other.
The same was true with Hillary Clinton. There was
none of the vitriol that we observed (I omit names) in the eyes of the leading
foreign policy members of the Biden administration.
With John Kerry, we likely set records. One of our
colleagues cited the statistics. If you count meetings and telephone
conversations, there were 60 in 2016. Incidentally, we achieved a great deal,
including averting a disaster in Syria.
In 2015, on the instructions of the then President
of the United States, Barack Obama, and President of Russia Vladimir Putin, we
agreed on Syria’s accession to the OPCW and the destruction of its stockpiles
of chemical weapons. This was accomplished. For this, the organisation was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet, a year later, the West began to assert that
the then President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, had “delivered short” in some
way, even though the entire West had voted to declare the matter closed. Such
dishonesty, the constant attempts to cheat, evoke nothing but regret, at the
very least.
Question: Apparently, it has been going on for a long
time, if not during the entire postwar period. You had a constructive dialogue
and signed joint documents with the US side during your time at the UN. They
violated what was declared in these agreements in just a matter of months. This
happened with Kosovo and with Iraq. A month before the speech of former State
Secretary Colin Powell, there was a joint document between you and a US
representative on the need to regulate the dialogue. How did you react to this?
Sergey
Lavrov: It became habitual. You are
absolutely right. Attempts continue to deceive everyone and frame their
position as the only correct one.
This happened even during the time of State
Secretary Colin Powell. We worked in close contact. I am confident that he did
not know what white powder was in the test tube he shook at the UN Security
Council saying that the then President of Iraq Saddam Hussein did not have much
time left in this world. He was framed by the CIA.
I do not want to be anti-European, but today’s
situation confirms the idea formulated by many historians. During the last 500
years (after the West took shape that has preserved until today, albeit with
some changes), all major global tragedies have either originated in Europe or
been a result of European policy. Colonisation, wars, crusaders, the Crimean
War, Napoleon, World War I, Adolf Hitler. If we look at history in retrospect,
the Americans did not play any warmonger or belligerent role.
Now, after Joe Biden’s term, people came who want
to be guided by common sense. They say directly that they want to end all wars;
they want peace. Who demands the war continue? Europe.
Prime Minister of Denmark Mette Frederiksen said
that peace was worse than war for Ukraine right now. British Prime Minister
Keir Starmer, who went after French President Emmanuel Macron to persuade US
President Donald Trump not to end this story so quickly, boasted that this year
Britain would make its largest donation of weapons to Ukraine, that is,
directly opposing Donald Trump and declaring that they would pump up the Kiev
regime with weapons. Both President Macron and Keir Starmer are running around
with some ideas, saying they were training thousands of peacekeepers and would
provide them with air cover. This is also impudent.
First, we were not asked. President Trump
understands this. He said it was too early to tell when the conflict would be
settled: “This issue can be discussed, but the parties’ agreement is required.”
He is being correct.
This plan to deploy peacekeepers in Ukraine follows
in line with inciting the Kiev regime to war with us. These people destroyed
the Minsk Agreements, which they confessed recently. Their collaborators, our
Western neighbours, never intended to fulfil them and gave weapons to bring to
power first Petr Poroshenko, then Vladimir Zelensky. They were the ones who
instigated him to make a 180-degree turn, although, perhaps, the German Foreign
Minister Annalena Baerbock would have called this as a 360-degree turn.
Vladimir Zelensky made a 180-degree turn from
someone who came to power with peaceful slogans or slogans like “leave Russian
alone; it is our common language and our common culture” (this can be found on
the internet) and, six months later, transformed into a full Nazi and, as
President of Russia Vladimir Putin rightly said, a traitor to the Jewish
people.
Just as they brought him to power with weapons,
pushing him forward, they now want to prop him up with their weapons, but in
the form of peacekeeping units. This means that the root causes will not be
eradicated.
When we ask these “thinkers” what hypothetically
would happen to the part they will take under control, they answer that nothing
– Ukraine will remain there. I asked one “comrade”: will the Russian language
be banned there? He said nothing. They cannot utter a word of condemnation
about what has happened. No other language has been subjected to such
aggression. But imagine if Switzerland were to ban French or German, or Ireland
were to ban English. The Irish there now want “some” self-determination. If the
Irish tried to ban English now, they would have shaken all the UN “pillars”
demanding Ireland’s condemnation.
Whereas here they're sort of allowed to. You say it
right to their face, and they don't say anything in response. This is just as I
am asking publicly at UN meetings, and meeting with the press (soon to be three
years already), to help us get some information on Bucha (the tragedy that was
used to impose sanctions on us). Those scenes were shown by the BBC two days
after there were no longer any of our servicemen there. We now ask only one
thing (I have already been desperate for something more): can we see a list of
those people whose dead bodies were shown on the BBC channel? I even publicly
asked UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for this at a Security Council
meeting, and more than once.
The last time was in September 2024. I was in New
York at the General Assembly session. I had a final news conference, all the
world's press was there (there were about seventy of them), and I said to them:
“Guys, you are journalists, aren't you interested professionally in finding out
what happened there?”
We have formally requested information from the UN
Office for Human Rights (they have a “mission on Ukraine” within this Office,
which was not created by consensus – no one was consulted) about the names of
those people who were shown there already dead. There is no reaction at all.
And I also shamed the journalists. Then it was
already 2.5 years after the tragedy when this BBC Bucha was shown on TV and in
social media. It was a “news explosion.” “Three days and it's gone?” I said,
“Were you told to be quiet?”
I know about a half of those journalists well
enough. They have been working there for a long time. Can't they send a
journalistic enquiry to the Ukrainians? No one is doing anything. They must
have received a “signal” and that’s all.
Question: Maybe they have sent it, but got no answer and
relaxed?
Sergey
Lavrov: May be.
Question: Paradoxically, we long presumed – perhaps since
Georgia – that Georgia was a “project” of the United States, that Ukraine was a
“project” of the United States. Yet now it seems the paradigm is shifting. You
mentioned the Old World’s vested interests. What is the reality? Are the United
States merely puppets of Europe?
Sergey
Lavrov: No. Speculation here is futile.
Georgia and Ukraine were indeed referenced at the
2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, where the Russia-NATO summit also took place.
During that meeting, President Vladimir Putin asked. “Why did you adopt the
wording stating Georgia and Ukraine would join NATO?” Angela Merkel replied
that they had “fought” for this phrase, claiming it merely indicated an
aspirational goal, not the start of accession talks. Such naivety. This
occurred in April 2008 in Bucharest. In June of that year, US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice travelled to Georgia to encourage them. What followed is
history.
The Americans were the instigators. This began
post-USSR collapse, when they assumed the post-war order rested not on great
power consensus but on Washington’s decisions. A grave miscalculation it was.
This US policy reached its climax under Democratic administrations, where ultra
neoliberals employed colour revolution tactics – including premeditated designs
for Georgia and Ukraine in 2008.
No, the United States is no “gofer.” Donald Trump
does not need it. He seeks influence where America benefits. Is this abnormal?
To my mind, it is normal.
Question: Absolutely normal. Reflecting upon 2008, one can
observe a rather interesting phenomenon. You are consistently precise in your
statements, serving as a model of diplomatic language. In 2008, if one examines
the texts of your speeches, there was a gradation. You remained, undoubtedly,
just as precise, yet your formulations towards our foreign partners (as they
were then referred to) became markedly sharper. Was this a deliberate decision
or a specific shift to their language?
Sergey
Lavrov: No. You know, we are, after all,
professionals in diplomacy. I, at least, do not make decisions (I will express
this more bluntly here). I articulate what I think not as an individual
concerned with notions of honour, pride, and conscience, but as a diplomat.
Essentially, these are not far removed from one another, because I believe we
practise moral diplomacy.
It is said that foreign policy embodies cynicism
and deceit. Perhaps, in certain instances, one must be cunning. Yes, that does
occur. However, I prefer honesty. President Vladimir Putin is unequivocally an
advocate of honest, direct diplomacy. That is how he has spoken, continues to
speak, and is prepared to converse with everyone, including Western countries,
which now accuse him of all manner of mortal sins. The Macrons and Scholzes of
this world included.
Question: In this context, do the Russian and Chinese
diplomatic schools align? Or, in terms of dialogue, are we closer to the West?
Sergey
Lavrov: It is not my place to
comment on the Chinese or Western diplomatic schools.
The Chinese diplomatic school has never even
entertained the notion of refusing to engage in dialogue with any country, much
less a neighbour, and closing the door on relations. Yet our neighbour in the
form of the West (Europe) has done precisely that. This is not diplomacy.
Our diplomacy has always been guided by our
interests, which are delineated in the Foreign Policy Concept: ensuring the
most favourable external conditions to guarantee the country’s security,
opportunities for its socio-economic development, and the enhancement of its
citizens’ well-being.
It may appear to be a banal assertion, but such is
the reality. If we understand that a country or bloc, such as NATO or the
European Union, poses threats to us, we must undertake all measures to deflect
those threats. As we endeavoured to do for many years following the coup in
Ukraine in 2014. Until February 2022, we endeavoured precisely that: to deflect
the threat through diplomatic means. They refused to acknowledge our legitimate
interests. Thus, diplomacy is dialogue and the capacity to listen.
Question: I understand, they are probably sending signals to
you, but notwithstanding… throughout your diplomatic career, have you ever felt
that you were losing control of the situation?
Sergey
Lavrov: Perhaps when the Americans and
their European satellites commenced bombing Belgrade in 1999. However, we were
prepared for it, as they did not conceal their intentions to proceed without
any recourse to the UN Security Council. This was not a loss of control. We did
not control that situation anyway. It was a planned operation. Just as when
they bombed Iraq under false pretences (as they subsequently admitted). Like
water off a duck’s back.
Therefore, it is better not to set unattainable
objectives. And in such scenarios, when one has done everything possible to
avert aggression (as was the case in Iraq and Serbia). Nevertheless, we later
somewhat “recouped” when they (the Europeans) themselves approached the
Security Council and said: it has been 72 days of war in Yugoslavia – assist
us. We then aided in drafting a peace treaty, and once it was drafted, they
calmed down, and the war concluded.
Currently, the peace agreements provided for in
that 1999 resolution, including the recognition that Kosovo is Serbia, that
Serbs in Kosovo have the right to establish law enforcement structures and
police, are non-functional, nothing is transpiring. It has been 26 years. They
are attempting to compel them to simply “swallow” the humiliation and recognise
Kosovo’s independence. Why? Because the West declared it in 2008, thus “obey.”
Diplomacy mirrors life: complex, yet we must endure
and labour on.”
Lavrov has many more stories to tell, an hour isn’t anyway near
enough time—days are required. But I’d like him to be less diplomatic in
telling his stories. Once you’ve read him enough you can sense when he’s
frustrated and would probably like to erupt. I wonder what he really thinks of
UN Sec General Guterres and others I classify as rats? I suppose the first
trick to learn is how to hide your loathing of someone you must deal with.
Being honest, moral, ethical, playing by the rules, and acting nice doesn’t
seem to be the proper way to deal with the West, at least at this
point-in-time. I can’t help but wonder if Lavrov will have the same assessment
of Trump’s foreign policy team at the end of his term as he does now. One
question that wasn’t asked: In your life, who is the one person you had the
hardest time dealing with? Another: Surely, you’ve received tokens and gifts
from people and places you’ve interacted with and visited; do you have one you
appreciate the most? Does Sergey Lavrov have any idea of his place in history,
or does he not think of such things? My guess is the latter.
https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/2004666/
Website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian
Federation
