Dear ladies and gentlemen,
We had useful, meaningful talks with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland, Mr. Z.Rau, who arrived in Russia as the OSCE Chairman-in-Office.
We agreed that there are a lot of problems in the OSCE area that require urgent and necessarily collective solutions. Trust between the participating States is at an all-time low. Confrontational approaches and aggressive rhetoric have now flooded our common space. Unfortunately, they obviously dominate the spirit of cooperation, the culture of mutually respectful dialogue that has always been inherent in the OSCE since its creation. We all want to restore it.
For his part, he stressed that in the current difficult conditions, the performance of presidential functions is of particular importance. It’s a big responsibility. Mr. Minister presented Poland’s priorities at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council on January 13 this year and spoke about the importance of a proactive, positive approach, search for solutions, rejection of mutual accusations. I welcome this attitude. We confirmed this today. I am sure that the chairmanship should contribute to the formation of a unifying agenda and the achievement of compromises. To do this, it is important to remain within the mandate of the Chairman, adhere to status-neutral approaches, as they say, avoid non-consensual formulations – what is called fulfilling the role of an “honest broker”. Mr. Chairman confirmed this attitude today.
We proceed from the fact that one of the main challenges facing the OSCE is to achieve a common understanding of the principle of indivisibility of this very security, fundamental to the entire architecture of European security. He demands to avoid any actions that will strengthen someone’s security to the detriment of the security of any other country. All this has been enshrined in many OSCE documents since 1994, when the Code of Conduct in the Military-Political Sphere was adopted. Then the Charter of European Security was approved at the highest level in Istanbul in 1999. In December 2010 At the OSCE summit in Astana, this principle was explicitly confirmed in a detailed form. Now we are talking about making sure that we fulfill it. It’s not like our Western colleagues are trying to imagine that every country has the right to choose its own alliances, and they try not to remember that they can’t do this to the detriment of the security of others.
In order to clarify the approaches of our colleagues, whose leaders signed these documents, I sent a message to the foreign ministers of the respective countries in Europe asking them to clarify how they themselves understand the set of these obligations, which are called the principle of indivisibility of security. I hope that such answers will be received in essence. At least Z asked .Rau won’t forget to do it.
In the context of the search for ways to overcome the growing tensions in the Euro-Atlantic region, the initiative of the Polish chairmanship was discussed, which proposed to start an informal “Resumed dialogue on Euro-security” in the OSCE. We consider this proposal interesting because it shows an understanding of the existing problems and a desire to do something to remove these problems from the agenda. He recalled that the main thing at this stage is our dialogue with the United States and the North Atlantic Alliance, where we discuss long-term legal guarantees of security, as they are formulated in the well-known draft agreements that we have submitted to Washington and Brussels. In the absence of progress on the American and NATO track, the conversation in Vienna will be obviously fruitless. Everyone understands this. Moreover, this will be another discussion format in addition to the OSCE Security Forum, as well as to the “structured dialogue”, which was created five years ago (December 2016). We risk (I shared my doubts with Mr. Minister and his delegation) to get a situation where all this dialogue will spread into “small streams”, we will only imitate activity, and the essence of the problem will remain unresolved. Another consideration that also needs to be taken into account: unlike NATO and the United States, the OSCE does not have an international legal personality, despite the many years of initiatives that Russia and its allies have put forward, including the draft OSCE charter. Western colleagues categorically do not want to make the OSCE a clear and structured Organization. It is important for them to have it in such a flexible, vague, indistinct form, because such a structure is easier to manipulate.
Nevertheless, the OSCE retains a significant unifying potential. The subject of a broad dialogue should be the topic of improving the effectiveness of the OSCE as a whole: correcting geographical and thematic distortions, finding the right sustainable balance between the three “baskets” (military-political, economic and environmental, humanitarian). We expect that during the Polish presidency we will be able to talk honestly on these topics with all participating countries.
We are ready for the closest cooperation with the Chairmanship, including in other areas. I am referring to the fight against transnational threats, overcoming the socio-economic consequences of coronavirus infection, protecting traditional values and the rights of national minorities, fighting attempts to falsify history and glorify Nazism. All these topics are on the negotiating table. We consider it fundamentally important not to weaken attention to discussions on how to prevent negative manifestations in our common region.
We talked about the role of the OSCE in the settlement of various conflicts in the European space. For obvious reasons, special attention was paid to the Ukrainian crisis. We have confirmed that there is no alternative to the full and consistent implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures. We hope that the current Chairmanship, including through its Special Representative in Ukraine and in the Contact Group, will facilitate movement in this direction as soon as possible and as responsibly as possible, because the main thing here is to ensure a direct dialogue between Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk. It is also necessary to ensure the impartiality of monitoring the situation by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission. We expect from its leadership constructive working interaction with the authorities of Donetsk and Lugansk, as required by the mandate of this Mission, approved by the OSCE Permanent Council. According to this mandate, the Mission should not ignore violations of human rights and freedom of the media throughout Ukraine, which, unfortunately, we do not often observe in the reports that the Mission distributes. It is also necessary not to ignore the “flashy” facts that speak about the rampant aggressive nationalism, neo-Nazism and numerous facts of discrimination against the Russian-speaking population.
So the tasks before the OSCE and the current Chairmanship are very ambitious. I would like to wish Mr. Z.Rau and his entire “team” of successful work.
Question: Today or tomorrow, the United States is waiting for Russia’s “attack” on Ukraine. Meanwhile, just an hour ago, the Russian Defense Ministry announced the return of the units participating in the exercises to their permanent locations. Changed your mind about “attacking”? Or were they not going to?
Sergey Lavrov: The exercises that Russia is conducting, I emphasize, on its territory and in accordance with its own plans, begin, are being carried out and are being completed as planned. This has been discussed many times with regard to exercises in the west of the country, in the Far East, or joint Russian-Belarusian exercises, which are also developing and being carried out strictly in accordance with a pre-agreed schedule. This is done regardless of who thinks what, who is hysterical about it and how, who is deploying real information terrorism and how. I’m not afraid of that word.
In short, the caravan is coming.
Question: The United States and NATO are already offering Russia to discuss some of the de-escalation, confidence-building, and arms control measures that Moscow has proposed since 2014, including in the Russia-NATO Council. They didn’t want to talk about it then. Now Russia is demanding more (for example, for NATO to return to the positions of 1997). What does this mean: is it no longer interesting to talk about what happened before, or is there a chance that this will be discussed?
S.V. Lavrov: The rapidity with which NATO has changed its position suggests that not everything in this bloc is lost. They can admit the obvious when they are seriously “pressed”.
It is not necessary to “walk” in 2014. In 2019, after the Americans destroyed the INF Treaty, Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed in his messages to all European leaders that we announced a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of such ground-based missiles. He said that the moratorium will be observed with respect to these regions until similar American-made systems appear there. President Vladimir Putin also put forward the idea of declaring a mutual moratorium between Russia and NATO members on the deployment of such missiles in Europe. For this purpose, he proposed to agree on a mechanism for verifying the actions of Russia and the North Atlantic Alliance. They didn’t even want to listen to us. No one answered, except French President E. Macron. But he only said that the idea was “not bad.” Like, it’s a pity that the other NATO members don’t want to discuss it.
Soon after, the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces once again sent a series of concrete proposals to reduce military risks. They included the coordination of the distance to which the exercises should be withdrawn from the Russia-NATO contact line. As an illustration of what we had in mind and a gesture of goodwill, we moved the main phase of the Zapad 2020 exercise to the Nizhny Novgorod region. This was also not appreciated. We didn’t get any reaction. As well as they did not receive a reaction to the proposals to agree on the maximum permissible distance of approach of combat aircraft and ships. It would seem that what is more practical than this kind of commitment? They proposed to agree on the use of transponders in military aviation, primarily in the area over the Baltic. We proceeded from the fact that NATO members constantly verbally declare and urge us to take confidence-building measures to reduce military danger. But all that I have said has been ignored for many years.
Now that we have received the responses of NATO and the United States, almost all ideas in one form or another, including the need to limit and not deploy medium-range and shorter-range ground-based missiles, are reproduced there as an initiative of our partners. I’m talking about this in detail, because some of our “well-wishers” are beginning to react maliciously. They read what the Americans and NATO said. In their opinion, this means only one thing – supposedly we will now conduct a conversation on the terms dictated by US President J.Biden. I leave aside the “goals” pursued by such “analysts”. I can only say that in the end, the West responded when it realized that we were seriously talking about the need for radical changes in the field of European security. He responded positively to those initiatives that he had rejected for a long time.
About whether it means “the end of the story.” No. Yesterday I reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He stressed that our proposals, which he approved, will be finalized in the near future and transferred to American and NATO partners. They proceed from preserving the integrity of the Russian position. The things that we are listing now are important as practical steps for de-escalation (this is a fashionable term). These steps will be effective if a solid legal foundation is put under them. First of all, with regard to the interpretation of the principle of indivisibility of security. Our Western colleagues shamelessly distort it, interpret it exclusively as freedom of choice of military alliances. This, to put it mildly, is not true. It is enough to read the documents of the Istanbul and Astana Summits of 1999 and 2010 and the OSCE Code of Conduct concerning the Military-Political Aspects of Security of 1994. The Code explicitly says that when choosing alliances, one should not infringe on the security interests of any other country.
We will continue our dialogue to clarify the position of the West on how capable NATO members are in terms of filling the principle of indivisibility of security with real content. We will conduct expert consultations to coordinate approaches on specific issues, whether they are medium- and shorter-range missiles or measures to reduce military risks. I think that thanks to the efforts in all these areas, a good package result can be developed in a complex.
Question (addressed to Z.Rau): Russia has criticized the decision of a number of countries to withdraw their observers from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (SMM), including because it is being done at an important moment – when the whole world hopes for truthful information from this region. Don’t you think the decision of these states is strange and illogical?
S.V. Lavrov (adds after Z.Rau): This is an important question. We discussed it today. I hope that the reasons that prompted individual OSCE participants to withdraw their observers from this Mission are solely related to factors such as coronavirus infection or rest. Knowing that the countries in question are actually at the forefront of the “information terrorist campaign”, it involuntarily comes to mind that they may have some hidden thoughts.
I would not like to repeat the sad experience of the OSCE in 1999. Then the head of the OSCE mission in the Serbian province of Kosovo U.Volker, an American citizen, inflated the absolutely false topic of allegedly killing civilians in the village of Rachak. Then it was proved that in fact these civilians were armed militants and died in battle. The European Union subsequently clearly established this. U. Volker then publicly stated that there was an act of genocide. He single-handedly announced that he was withdrawing the OSCE mission from Kosovo. In fact, it was used as a trigger for NATO’s aggression against the former Yugoslavia. He did not ask for any “post-soviet”. Although the deployment of the OSCE mission, as well as the “curtailment”, is the prerogative of the Permanent Council.
I hope that the approach that Mr. Minister has just outlined will be implemented in practice.
Question (translated from Polish): Why, in your opinion, did the states that were formed after the collapse of the USSR, such as Ukraine and Georgia, instead of maintaining relations with Russia, choose integration with the West (EU and NATO), even at the cost of war with Russia? I am asking this because of the Russian military intervention in Georgia, as well as the presence of Russian troops in Belarus and the persecution of such associations as Memorial in Russia. Maybe it would be more effective to choose a dialogue with Poland, which was proposed within the framework of the Polish OSCE chairmanship? I would like to ask if Russia is ready for this in the context of the sanctions already promised by the West, which could hit the Russian economy?
Sergey Lavrov: The main reason is that the authorities of these countries showed inconsistency and did it in conditions when they wanted to establish (and eventually established) external control over them in every possible way. The only goal is to tear them away from Russia, to take them into the sphere of influence of NATO. It also directly contradicts the principle of indivisibility of security, because the rejection of spheres of influence is one of its components. In 2008, when “spells” were pronounced at the NATO summit in Bucharest that Georgia and Ukraine would be in NATO, M. Saakashvili simply “blew his head off”, he lost his mind. A couple of weeks before he gave the order to attack the peaceful city of Tskhinval and the position of Russian peacekeepers, US Secretary of State K. Rice visited him.
At one time there was such a representative of the United States to NATO, I. Daalder. He bluntly called the biggest mistake of the North Atlantic Alliance the decision that proclaimed the prospect of admitting Georgia and Ukraine to NATO membership. Russian peacekeepers were attacked during a period when neither the country’s President nor the Prime Minister were in Moscow. Georgia seriously wanted to seize the whole of South Ossetia and then carry out there what it had long wanted to do. Even Z.K.Gamsakhurdia proclaimed the need, as he put it, for Ossetians and Abkhazians to go home. In order to prevent this act of genocide in full compliance with international law, in response to the attack on Russian peacekeepers who were on the territory of Georgia in accordance with the mandate approved by the OSCE with the consent of Tbilisi, we sent troops there. It was a declaration of war. International law does not give any other interpretation here. In order to protect these peoples later in their quest to ensure their independence, when they held the relevant referendums and asked for recognition, we recognized them. Yes, military bases were placed there at their request, so that Georgians would not even think of committing such crimes.
As for Ukraine, there was no lack of “good will” there either. Western colleagues, including, first of all, EU members, behaved extremely arrogantly. This laid the foundation for the processes that eventually “exploded” on the Maidan in February 2014. Let me remind you that the whole of 2013 Ukraine was negotiating with the EU, preparing an Association Agreement, which was to be signed in early December 2013. When the Russian side found out about this, we simply told our Ukrainian colleagues that if the elements of a free trade zone are laid down in this agreement, then we have a free trade zone with Ukraine within the framework of the Commonwealth of Independent States for a long time. We need to make sure that the regimes of these free trade zones will not contradict each other, because, for example, we did not have any duties with Ukraine, but we did with Europe. During the negotiations on joining the WTO, we bargained for ourselves quite serious protection in many positions. If suddenly Ukraine removes barriers from the EU (and we have no barriers with Ukraine either), then goods from Europe would flood in contrary to the agreements that we reached upon joining the WTO. We honestly warned them. We also warned your superiors in the EU, I mean Poland, as a member of this association. Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with the President of the European Commission, J.M. Barroso, and proposed to create a trilateral group: Russia, Ukraine and the EU in order to avoid any “overlaps” in the purely commercial sphere. J.M. Barroso, in his usual arrogant manner, said that the EU will not discuss with Russia how it builds relations with Ukraine, because Russia does not discuss with the EU how it builds its relations with the People’s Republic of China.
It was the EU that “egged on” the Maidan in every possible way, which began with the fact that a “team” was mobilized, condemning the decision of President Viktor Yanukovych to postpone the signing of an agreement with the EU before the topic of possible contradictions between trade regimes was clarified. That’s all. Some Europeans took advantage of this. European foreign ministers, in particular Belgium, have stated before and about the fact that Ukrainians should decide with whom they are: with Russia or with Europe. Such a mentality that sows those “seeds” that you mentioned.
Why do some representatives of certain countries want to be friends not with Russia, but with NATO? Because these representatives are moving in this direction not independently, but at the behest of puppeteers who are interested in splitting Europe, and not in ensuring the principles of the OSCE. When the Maidan led to bloodshed, then Poland in the person of R.Sikorsky, Germany in the person of F.-V.Steinmeier and France, represented by Foreign Minister L. Fabius, held talks in Kiev and persuaded the opposition and President Viktor Yanukovych to sign a peace agreement. We guaranteed this peace agreement with our signatures. On these signatures, the “Kiev junta”, which came to power literally a day later, violating all its obligations, by and large “did not care”. When the President of Germany F.-V.Steinmeier said in his speech after his re-election as president that he calls on Russia to “remove the noose” from Ukraine’s neck, then this is incorrect from the point of view of the epistemology of this whole conflict. The conflict could have been stopped immediately if Europe, first of all the three countries that guaranteed the agreement between Viktor Yanukovych and the opposition, would have called it to order and forced it to fulfill what they signed up for.
Russian Russian demands were the first instinct of those who came to power when this coup took place: to abolish the status that is laid down in Ukrainian laws for the Russian language, to expel Russians from the Crimea. These calls were accompanied by the sending of armed gangs to storm the Supreme Council of Crimea. All this is in the history books. I understand that you need to “sell” today’s news: aren’t you very sad that everyone is running away from you into the arms of NATO and the EU? This is such a simple approach that will allow you to gather readers who are greedy for all sorts of sensations of this kind and for Russophobia, which is flourishing, including in Poland, to my great regret. We said today that we are interested in having normal relations with Poland, especially since contacts at the level of civil society, artists, and culture have never stopped to the satisfaction of both sides.
When all this happened, the Crimeans, in order to protect themselves from outright neo-Nazis, who are still marching through Kiev with torches with the flags of Bandera, Petlyura, Shukhevych, and at the same time receive the support of their official leadership – the President of Ukraine. When the Crimeans refused to obey these bandits who seized power unconstitutionally and held their referendum, that’s only when Europe stirred up and began to say: why did Russia “take Crimea into its composition”? Why was Europe completely silent and not worried about the coup d’etat? Apparently, because those capitals, including the three countries whose ministers signed the agreement torn up by the putschists, also probably had a desire to take the side of people who declared that they were for the West and not for Russia, despite the fact that an unconstitutional coup d’etat took place, blood was shed. That’s all. This is, as they say, a two-way street. There are people everywhere who are ready to speculate about the geopolitical intentions of the West, and these plans, unfortunately, are aimed at separation, and not at fulfilling the fundamental principles of the OSCE.
Question: Recently, the Ambassador of Ukraine in London said that his country could refuse potential membership in NATO if it prevented war. Soon, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that these were “not serious” statements. Is there an opinion in the Ukrainian establishment that it would be worth giving up? Would it help in de-escalating the current situation?
Sergey Lavrov: I can only say that there are reasonable people there. I am convinced that if this had happened, many would have breathed a sigh of relief, including in Europe. Those who honestly approach the signatures under the OSCE documents, and do not try to hide behind them in order to secretly pursue a policy of splitting Europe and drawing new dividing lines. There are many politicians and political scientists in Ukraine who share such assessments. They don’t hesitate to express them.
Specifically about the UK. After the Ambassador of Ukraine said this, it is clear how they reacted in Kiev, where now the power does not belong to the people who need to be taken care of. If we talk about peace, then the Ukrainian people need it first of all, and there the politicians, who have long lost their independence, play the “musical instruments” that the West transmits to them. In London, Deputy Defense Minister J. Hippy said that if Ukraine had made such a decision, the UK would have supported it. I think this idea will gradually make its way. I would like to emphasize that it points the way that many people want, including in Europe.
Question: You said that the Russian draft response to the US and NATO documents on security guarantees is ready. When are you going to hand it over? Will it be published for the media and the public?
Sergey Lavrov: Protocol and technical things must be observed now. It will be published soon.
We have nothing to be ashamed of.
Question (translated from Polish): How do you assess the possibility of a war breaking out? Can you confirm that there will be no Russian invasion of Ukraine?
Sergey Lavrov: Everything has already been said many times. I have already commented earlier on the speculation that the Russian-Belarusian exercises were started to attack Ukraine from the north, to capture Kiev. All these “paranoid scenarios” have been published many times, and, unfortunately, by reputable media. Apparently, the hype and the need experienced by the conductors and scriptwriters of all these actions also dominated the media.
After all, what is the position of the West now? Demands that Russia stop its exercises, withdraw its troops. Russia, as planned, is carrying out its plans. The time has come to partially complete these exercises, the troops are beginning to return to their permanent bases. I assure you, if the West has not yet said, it will definitely say: You see, we just clicked on them, like J.Biden “tsked” – they were immediately scared and fulfilled our requirements. This is the “air trade”. Our Western colleagues have been very successful in this. We need to “learn” such tricks that they throw out.
I would like to emphasize once again: we will do what we need to do on our territory, what we consider necessary for our security. We reject the attempt of our Western colleagues to interpret the principles of OSCE commitments on the indivisibility of security in such a way that, allegedly, they know better how to ensure Russia’s security. It is necessary to end this arrogance and Russophobia.
When NATO expanded once again, the Baltic republics joined it, they asked our Western colleagues why this was being done if there were no threats anymore. They declared publicly that we are no longer opponents, that we are building some kind of “common future” there transparently, fighting terrorism together and much more. They answered us: you see, there were phobias left after the Soviet period, these phobias need to be calmed down, we will accept them into NATO and they will immediately calm down and be your good neighbors. We were also told about Poland when Poland joined NATO. But everything happened exactly the opposite. The abilities of Western puppeteers are well known to us. Unfortunately, they directly contradict what is written in the fundamental documents of the OSCE.
Question: Does it bother you that the West and Russia speak completely different languages? Are we not destined to agree, even when a perfect transaction occurs?
Sergey Lavrov: I feel that you are a fan of R. Kipling – “The West is the West, the East is the East, and they will never come together.” The OSCE professes a different philosophy. I hope that this philosophy will take practical shape.
