⚡️ Joint Statement of the First Ministerial Conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum (Sirius Federal Territory, Russian Federation, November 10, 2024)

✍️ We, the Foreign Ministers of the Russian Federation and African States recognised by the United Nations (UN), Leadership of the African Union Commission and of executive bodies of the leading African integration organisations, as well as their representatives, gathered on 10 November 2024 in the Russian Federation, Sirius Federal Territory, to participate in the First Ministerial Conference of the #RussiaAfrica Partnership Forum.

We are pleased to note the strategic level of Russia-Africa cooperation, and positively assess the pace of the implementation of the agreements reached during the first (Sochi, 23-24 October 2019) and second (Saint Petersburg, 27-28 July 2023) Russia-Africa Summits and articulated in the final documents thereof, including the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum Action Plan 2023-2026.

We reconfirm our intention to continue strategic-level engagement in order to achieve a world order that would ensure international peace and security for all, equal opportunities for the development of all States, preservation of their cultural and civilizational uniqueness regardless of differences in political, economic and social structures, geographical location, demographic, resource and military potentials.

We welcome the adoption by heads of delegations participating in the First Ministerial Conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership of joint statements on:

• measures to create a fair, transparent and equitable system of International Information Security;
• strengthening cooperation in the fight against terrorism;
• current issues of exploration and use of Outer Space for peaceful purposes.

We reconfirm the shared responsibility of the Russian Federation and African States for supporting the creation of a just and stable world order based on the principles of sovereign equality of States, non-interference in their internal affairs, respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and the right of all peoples to self-determination as provided for, inter alia, by UN General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960, as well as the need to preserve national identity and national resources, cultural and civilizational diversity and to protect traditional values.

👉 Political Cooperation

We consider the development of constructive partnership with the African Union and the leading African integration organisations as a foreign policy priority of the Russian Federation and African States.

👉 Security Cooperation

We confirm the importance of the principle of "African Solutions to African Problems" in conflict resolution.

👉 Trade and Economic Cooperation

We express our readiness to continue joint efforts to strengthen the voice and representation of the African continent in the global economic governance architecture.

👉 Education, Health, Culture, Sports, Youth Policy and Media Cooperation

We welcome the dynamic cooperation between the Russian Federation and African States in the field of culture.

👉 Environmental and Climate Cooperation

We advocate for stepping up efforts to consolidate approaches to international environmental and climate issues within the specialised UN fora to prevent the politicisation of work in these areas.

***

The Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and African States recognised by the United Nations, Leadership of the African Union Commission and the executive bodies of the leading African integration organisations, as well as their representatives, who participated in the First Ministerial Conference of the Russia‑Africa Partnership Forum express their commitment to further working together in order to expand cooperation and ensure the success of the third Russia-Africa Summit to be held in 2026.

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🎙 Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at the International Symposium 'Inventing the Future' (Moscow, November 4, 2024)

Key talking points:

• The global balance of power is undergoing transformative changes, driven by the objective trends in the world economy where the influence of the states of the Global South and the Global East, and indeed the World Majority, is growing.

• The economic resurgence enables an increasing number of non-Western nations to consistently bolster their sovereignty and to pursue a nationally oriented agenda in both foreign and domestic policy.

• Following the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, Washington and its allies, as part of the hybrid war they are waging, have launched an aggressive sanctions campaign against Russia. In the past decade, more than 21,000 sanctions have been imposed on our country across various domains, including economy, finance, trade, investment, media, culture, sport, and broadly, people-to-people contacts. These neo-colonial practices of the West primarily impact the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

• The adverse effect of this campaign against the undesired is that the West is undermining itself. <...> Western capitals have conveniently forgotten principles such as fair competition, the inviolability of property, the presumption of innocence, among others.

• When economic pressure fails to sway truly sovereign nations, the West, led by the United States, resorts to threats, blackmail, and even the use of force.

• It is sad to state that the ruling elites in many European countries evidently see no future for themselves in a multipolar world and are looking instead to the overseas hegemon to save them.

• The West is never satisfied with what they have. The war they started against Russia in Europe wasn’t enough.

• NATO now plans to conduct “defensive” operations in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait which lie thousands of miles away from its shores. Any right-minded observer knows that this path will lead nowhere.

• The obsession [of the West] with controlling absolutely everything has led to a rash of tragedies in the Middle East.

• This year, yet another independent UN member — Yemen — came under an aggression of the West [Anglo-Saxons]. The Syrian Arab Republic is still reeling from the shock of American interference. The United States has effectively blocked all multilateral mechanisms aimed at promoting the Palestinian-Israeli settlement.

• The serious challenges facing the world call for a united effort based on equality, rather than submission to those who seek global dominance.

• Establishing direct contacts and horizontal ties among all regional integration entities and with #BRICS which already includes the key countries that are regional leaders, is a significant step towards multipolarity.

• Another area of focus is the de-dollarisation of the international financial and economic system. I wish to remind you that the share of national currencies in Russia's transactions with the #SCO and #EAEU countries has surpassed 90%, and with the BRICS nations, we are approaching 65%. This figure continues to grow.

🇺🇳 People often ask: what will multipolarity rely on in terms of international legal foundation? There’s no need to look for new principles; they are all there in the UN Charter 👉 #UNCharterIsOurRules.

The problem is that our Western partners have never fully respected these principles.

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🗓 On November 9-10, Sochi hosted the First Ministerial Conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum at Sirius University.

Instituted by a decision of the Second Russia-Africa Summit in St Petersburg in July 2023, this new dialogue format is called on to become a certain coordinating mechanism for implementing objectives set by the heads of state and government.

Along with heads of foreign ministries and executive structures of integration associations, the event brought together sectoral ministers as well as representatives of parliamentary, public, academic and business circles of Russia and African countries, with over 1,500 people attended the event.

🌐 Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov chaired a plenary session, the conference’s high-priority event that involved 54 heads of official delegations from African states and regional integration associations. At the beginning of the plenary session, they read out greetings from the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and Chair of the African Union – President of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani.

The Ministers coordinated their positions on key issues of the international agenda as well as the Russian-African agenda, prioritising the implementation of the Action Plan of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum for 2023-2026. Also, they specified and coordinated long-term guidelines for expanding mutual collaboration still further.

📄 Four joint statements formalised common approaches towards addressing global problems and expanding cooperation with a focus on quality preparations for the Third Russia-Africa Summit:

👉 political statement,
👉 on international information security,
👉 on counter-terrorism measures,
👉 on peaceful use of outer space.

The conference’s packed business programme, including 20 panel sessions and specialised events, provided an additional impetus for diverse mutually beneficial cooperation. Experts and high-ranking guests discussed various high-priority issues in great detail, including food security and collaboration in the agro-industrial sector, training specialists for the real economy, geological prospecting, digitalisation, and cooperation in education, healthcare and youth policy. Representatives of the Eurasian Economic Commission and various African associations discussed mutual integration issues.

Elaborating on the provisions of the Declaration of the Second Russia-Africa Summit, the sides held specialised meetings on international information security, counter-terrorism efforts, and the prevention of an arms race in outer space. Representatives of Russian and African media outlets took part in an event on measures to combat the manifestations of neo-colonialism. 

🤝 Sergey Lavrov met separately with a majority of African delegations on the sidelines of the conference.

✍️ The Officials signed an extensive package of memorandums and agreements between Russia and a number of African states.

#RussiaAfrica

🇷🇺🇸🇦📞 President of Russia Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud.

The Parties expressed satisfaction with the current level of the friendly and mutually beneficial ties between Russia and Saudi Arabia, and reaffirmed their commitment to continue the consistent expansion of political, trade, economic and humanitarian links.

They stressed the importance of continuing close coordination within OPEC Plus and stated the effectiveness and timeliness of the steps being taken in this format to ensure balance on the global energy market.

The President and the Prime Minister discussed the complicated situation in the zone of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and noted that the principled approaches of Russia and Saudi Arabia with regard to the Middle East settlement are essentially identical.

The Parties also shared their opinions on the successful #BRICS summit in Kazan and agreed to maintain contact.

#RussiaSaudiArabia

🎙 Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with Marina Kim for the New World project (Moscow, November 14, 2024)

Key talking points:

#InternationalAffairs

• Our main task now is to achieve all the goals formulated by President Vladimir Putin. You are aware of the West’s expectations. They are speculating about stopping the hostilities at a certain line and coordinating a truce, so that 10 years from now they will decide who Crimea and Donbass belong to. This is coffee cup reading. I won’t engage in it. We have our tasks, and we will fulfil them.

• Our job is to assert and promote Russia’s interests in keeping with its Constitution as well as the objectives defined by President Vladimir Putin. This goes beyond Ukraine and applies to Russia’s Foreign Policy Concept in general.

#USA

• Washington can’t allow Russia to prove that it is a strong player and undermine the West’s reputation. They don’t care about Ukraine. They only care about their reputation. They decided that Ukraine should have a government they like and didn’t expect anyone to protest. Russia? It’s a big country but it must be brought down a peg. That is what this is about rather than the future of the Ukrainian people. They don’t care about people.

• Sanctions have been imposed on over half of the world’s countries, even if they are not as drastic as those that have been adopted against Russia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran and Venezuela. The real reason behind the West’s current rage is that China is rapidly and confidently surging ahead of the United States.

• We can see through what the Americans want. Sitting somewhere overseas, they believe that they are beyond the reach, while leaving it to Europe to overcome the challenges they face in terms of encouraging and arming Ukraine to fight Russia, as well as footing the bill for the Middle East tragedy.

#Eurasia4You

• God gave us one continent, and we share it. This continent possesses immense and, in fact, the biggest natural resources, while several millennia-old civilisations inhabit it. Failing to benefit from these competitive advantages would be a mistake. This is what the idea of building a Greater Eurasian Partnership is all about, and the EAEU, SCO and ASEAN have already taken the first steps in this direction. We are establishing ties and promoting dialogue. If we succeed in fulfilling the plans we have, the Greater Eurasian Partnership will offer a solid foundation and serve as an economic and transport backbone for what President Vladimir Putin called a new Eurasian security architecture.

• There is a clear understanding that the Eurasian security architecture, just like the Greater Eurasian Partnership, must be open to all countries and continents, including Eurasia’s western part, even if so far the latter has been trying, as if by inertia, to ensure its interests within a Euro-Atlantic security concept instead of opting for the Eurasian framework, which would be natural and reasonable, considering the geography factor. This is their way of saying that they do not intend to do anything without the United States.

#BRICS

🌐 BRICS is about the new world order that is based on the main principle of the UN Charter – the sovereign equality of states.

• BRICS has no intention of dividing the world. It wants to bring together countries that desire closer relations so that they can live on the land they got from God and their ancestors just as they used to, as great civilisations.

#Africa

🌍 Decolonisation has taken place, in a broad sense. But being able to actually manage one’s freedom and resources is a different story. This is where neo-colonialism comes to the fore.

• The First Ministerial Conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum in Sochi, and the Russia-Africa Summit in St Petersburg in 2023 clearly put into perspective the trends that could be called Africa’s second awakening.

🇷🇺🇩🇪📞 President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Olaf Scholz, held for the first time since December 2022 at the initiative of the German side.

The Leaders had an in-depth and frank exchange of views on the situation in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin reiterated that the current crisis was a direct result of NATO's long-standing aggressive policy aimed at creating a staging ground against Russia on Ukrainian soil, while showing disregard for Russia's security concerns and trampling on the rights of Russian-speaking residents of Ukraine.

Speaking on the prospects for reaching a political and diplomatic settlement of the conflict, the President of Russia pointed out that the Russian side had never rejected and was still open to resuming the talks broken off by the Kiev regime.

Russia's proposals are well known and have been outlined, in particular, in the President’s speech at the Foreign Ministry in June. Any possible agreements must address:

• security concerns of the Russian Federation,
• rest on the new territorial realities,
• most importantly, eliminate the original causes of the conflict.

The discussion also touched on the state of affairs in relations between Russia and Germany. Vladimir Putin noted their unprecedented decline in all areas, caused by the unfriendly policy pursued by the German authorities.

It was emphasised that Russia had always honoured its commitments under various treaties and contracts in the energy sector and was still willing to promote mutually beneficial cooperation, if the German side showed interest in it.

Recent escalations in the Middle East were also addressed. Vladimir Putin informed Olaf Scholz on the efforts made by Russia to deescalate and seek peaceful solutions for the regional crisis.

The leaders agreed that following their telephone conversation, their aides would keep in touch.

⚡️ Comment by Russia's Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on the murder of Narodnaya Gazeta Editor-in-Chief Yulia Kuznetsova (November 18, 2024)

▪️On November 17, Narodnaya Gazeta Editor-in-Chief Yulia Kuznetsova died in the line of duty in the village of Bolshoye Soldatskoye, the Kursk Region, as a result of a targeted UAV attack launched by armed militants of the Kiev regime.

Ukrainian Nazis dropped drone-carried munitions on a vehicle loaded with the newspaper’s archives. The ensuing blast also injured an e-typesetting operator of the newspaper and an accompanying police officer.

We express our sincere condolences to Ms Kuznetsova’s family and friends. She died while performing her professional duty. We wish her wounded colleagues a rapid recovery and convalescence.

❗️ This cold-blooded murder is yet another example of the ugly and pathologically criminal nature of the Zelensky regime, which is ready to use bloody terrorist methods against civilians, civil services, and media personnel. Moreover, the Ukrainian Nazis have launched a real hunt for journalists covering frontline events. This year alone, they delivered targeted strikes that killed war correspondents Semyon Yeryomin, Valery Kozhin, and Nikita Tsitsagi, and heavily wounded Alexei Ivliyev and Yevgeny Poddubny.

🤐 This series of cruel murders and attempts on the lives of Russian journalists is a direct consequence of the connivance tactics adopted by the Western patrons of the Nazi clique in Kiev and the deliberate hushing-up of these crimes by the relevant international organisations and human rights groups.

Yet another eloquent example of this politically biased and profoundly immoral approach is the recently published draft report for 2022-2023 on media security and the impunity problem by UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay, a report that ignores the official Russian data on journalist deaths during that period. <...>

Likewise, this hall of shame includes cynical statements by representatives of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). They claim that the lack of response to numerous crimes against Russian journalists from the High Commissioner and various special procedures under the UN Human Rights Council is due to Russia failing to provide access for them to confirm this data. <...>

☝️ Currently, Russia’s competent authorities are carrying out an investigation to identify and bring to account, as prescribed by law, all Ukrainian militants implicated in Yulia Kuznetsova’s murder, which is classified as a terrorist attack.

We emphasise once again: all those guilty of murdering the Russian journalist will face well-deserved and unavoidable punishment.

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🎙 Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s response to a media question about alleged permission to Kiev to launch missile strikes deep into Russia

❓ Question: Western media are spreading reports that Joe Biden has allegedly given Kiev permission to launch strikes deep into Russian territory with American ATACMS missiles, and France and Great Britain to launch their SCALP and STORM SHADOW missiles. How could you comment on this?

💬 Maria Zakharova: It is yet unclear if these reports are based on official sources. One thing is clear: considering the Kiev regime’s defeats, its Western curators are betting on the maximum escalation of the hybrid war unleashed against Russia, trying to achieve an illusory goal: to inflict a strategic defeat on Moscow.

However, no wonder weapon that Zelensky and his henchmen pray to get is capable to affect the course of the special military operation.

President Vladimir Putin clearly stated on October 25 what “permitting” to use of NATO high-precision long-range weapons actually means. He stressed that Ukraine cannot execute such strikes on its own without using space satellites and flight assignments provided by NATO military personnel.

Kiev’s use of long-range missiles to attack our territory would mean a direct involvement of the United States and its satellites in military operations against Russia, as well as a radical change in the essence and nature of the conflict.

❗️ Russia’s response would then be adequate and significant.

🇷🇺🇨🇳 On November 18, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Foreign Minister of China Wang Yi had a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

The Parties praised the progress made in the political dialogue and practical cooperation between Russia and China, especially against the background of the persisting turbulence in the world system.

They also focused on the process of implementing the agreements reached at the highest level, including during the BRICS Summit in Kazan, and on planning further contacts in various formats.

The Ministers underscored the importance of strengthening foreign policy coordination between Moscow and Beijing at international venues, such as the UN and its Security Council, #BRICS, the #SCO, #G20, and others.

They also had an in-depth exchange of views on a wide range of global and regional issues.

🤝 As always, the meeting was held in a trust-based and constructive atmosphere, which is a hallmark of the Russia-China strategic partnership.

***

🎙 Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remarks at a meeting with Foreign Minister of China Wang Yi on the sidelines of the G20 Summit.

📍 Rio de Janeiro, November 18, 2024

💬 As stated by our Leaders, we are at an unprecedented stage in the development of our comprehensive partnership and strategic collaboration. This is confirmed by the regular contacts between President of Russia Vladimir Putin and President of China Xi Jinping.

After their meeting in Kazan, they specified the targets set for all our ministries, agencies and organisations. All of this certainly meets the interests of our countries and facilitates the growth of national economies and the wellbeing of our citizens. The model of equitable and mutually beneficial cooperation between the two great powers is attractive to other like-minded states, as evidenced by the activities of BRICS. I would like to thank our Chinese friends once again for their assistance during the Russian chairmanship of the Group.

We have no doubt that we will continue to act as successfully and in unison at all other venues, including the SCO, where China is performing the functions of Chairman, as well as the #G20, APEC, the UN, and its Security Council. The latter is of special importance in light of the 80th anniversary of the United Nations. Its creation was one of the most significant outcomes of World War II.

We attach great importance to the celebrations of the 80th Anniversary of Victory on both the Western and Eastern fronts in the context of attempts to revise the outcomes of World War II and the emergence of neo-Nazi hotbeds in Europe. This event goes far beyond [ordinary] military memorial undertakings. We will use the anniversary to protect peace on the planet and consolidate healthy forces based on respect for the sovereign equality of states and mutual benefit.

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#RussiaChina