🎙 FM Sergey Lavrov’s remarks and answers to questions during the Government Hour in the Federation Council of the Russian Federation (December 13, 2023)

Key talking points:

• The world situation has not become any easier since our last meeting in December 2021. Many of the unfortunate things that are happening today are rooted in the irrepressible striving of Washington and a small group of its associates to impose their vision of everything on the rest of the world.

• They are no longer able to contain new global centres of growth and development in their customary straightforward and rude manner. The balance of power is rapidly shifting and not in favour of our Western colleagues.

• It pains our ill-wishers to realise that their bet on a sanctions blitzkrieg on the Russian economy has completely failed. Those who unleashed a hybrid war against us refuse to admit their mistakes and are trying to use other illegal tools to “exhaust” Russia, nurturing the dream of eliminating our country as an independent geopolitical entity.

• The policy of isolating Russia has failed. Numerous contacts between President Putin and his foreign counterparts have shown that our responsible policy based on the UN Charter principles enjoys broad support among the majority of countries around the world.

• We are not accommodating concepts and schemes put forward by other countries. We independently shape our foreign policy and remain guided by our own priorities while adhering to internationally recognised norms of international law and given the interests of our partners who are willing to work with us based on mutual respect and consideration of mutual interests.

• The Western part of the Eurasian continent is sinking deeper into a political, socio-economic and ideological crisis against the backdrop of the positive trends that reflect the objective process of the formation of a genuinely polycentric, fair world order.

• Further cohesion in the multiethnic and multifaith Russian World is also on our agenda.

📄 Read in full

⚡️ Joint Statement In Support of the Efforts to Strengthen the United Nations Secretary-General's Mechanism for Investigation of the Alleged Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons (Geneva, 13 December, 2023)

🇻🇪🇧🇫🇪🇷🇮🇷🇰🇬🇨🇳🇧🇾🇰🇿🇲🇱🇳🇮🇲🇲🇹🇯🇬🇶🇷🇺🇸🇾🇨🇫

📃 We, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Kyrgyz Republic, the People's Republic of China, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Republic of Mali, the Republic of Nicaragua, the Republic of Tajikistan, the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, the Russian Federation, the State of Eritrea, the Syrian Arab Republic, reaffirm our dedication to protecting humanity from chemical and biological warfare, recognize the common interest of all humankind in excluding completely the possibility of the use of chemical, bacteriological (biological) and toxin weapons.

We underline that the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction (BWC), the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (CWC) and the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare (Geneva Protocol) are essential for international peace and security.

🇺🇳 We note efforts by the UN Secretary-General and UN Secretariat, as well as national initiatives to provide relevant training to experts that could support the Secretary-General's Mechanism for Investigation of Alleged Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons (UNSGM).

👉 We are convinced that there is need for intensifying efforts of the international community with support of the UN Secretariat to strengthen the expert and technical capabilities of the UNSGM.

Read in full

🗓 On December 15, Russia marks the Remembrance Day of Journalists Killed in the Line of Duty.

This memorial day was established in 1991 by the Union of Journalists of Russia.

On this day we pay tribute to the memory of selfless reporters, photographers and cameramen who perished in the line of duty, including in danger zones and hot spots.

💬 Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova:

Few professions entail as many risks to life and well-being as journalism; some reporters never return from their missions. That's why we deeply appreciate the honest and selfless work of journalists and frontline reporters, TV anchors, cameramen, and photographers who willingly immerse themselves in the midst of events to provide their audience with accurate and timely information, offering a full and unbiased picture of what is happening. Often this dedication comes at the ultimate cost – their lives.

This year, it saddens our hearts to re-iterate that Russian journalism has once again suffered irreplaceable losses. Alongside their families, friends & colleagues, we mourn the loss of Vladlen Tatarsky (Maxim Fomin), Rostislav Zhuravlev, and Boris Maksudov, who fell victim to the criminal Kiev regime, its militants and terrorists.

Many others have faced death – they have been targeted or come under fire when the Armed Forces of Ukraine attacked the civilian population and infrastructure with drones and other means.

❗️The Nazi regime in Kiev views Russian frontline reporters as high-priority targets, hunting them down because their reports expose the true brutal nature of the entrenched neo-Nazism and its violent crimes, debunking the myths propagated by Ukrainian and Western propaganda.

I want to extend my sincerest gratitude to all members of the media community who courageously follow their calling, putting themselves at risk day after day to carry out their work faithfully.

🙏🏻 Thank you. You are true heroes.

(from the Maria Zakharova's weekly briefing on foreign policy issues, December 12, 2023)

🇷🇺🇺🇳 Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN:

🎙 Statement by First Deputy Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy at UNSC open debate "Addressing the threat posed by diversion, illicit trafficking and misuse of small arms and light weapons and their ammunition to peace and security"

Read in full

💬 The situation in the world clearly demonstrates the importance of controlling transfers of conventional arms and military products, including small arms and light weapons (SALW). Risks of proliferation, illicit trafficking, and falling of SALW into the hands of terrorists and criminals grow almost daily.

Small arms and light weapons remain one of the widest used weapons in regional and localized conflicts. They surpass any other category of weapons in terms of the number of human casualties resulting from their use in combat.

<...>

The Russian Federation has consistently devoted considerable attention to issues of control over the supply of military goods, including with regard to SALW. We keep strengthening national legislation in this area and are ready to share relevant expertise.

<...>

❗️ Western countries continue to supply arms to Ukraine despite the fact that its leadership is simply unable to control the incoming shipments and arsenals.

<...>

👉 Russia has every opportunity to give a worthy response to any supplied weapons being used against us. However, we trust that the overwhelming majority of member states realize who bears the main responsibility for violating international agreements in this area.

🎙 Statement by Konstantin Vorontsov, Head of the Delegation of the Russian Federation, Deputy Director of the Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, at the Meeting of the States Parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (Geneva, 13 December 2023)

💬 In the context of fulfilment of obligations under the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), the emergence of facts pertaining to the implementation of a military biological programme in Ukraine with support of the Pentagon and affiliated entities, including private companies, warrants closer attention.

❗️ The analysis of available documents indicates the development of bioweapon components in close proximity to Russian borders.

US reporting, provided annually as part of the BTWC's confidence-building measures, which were developed by States Parties "to prevent or reduce the occurrence of ambiguity, doubt and suspicion", continues to lack information on programmes and projects outside national territory and their funding.

The current situation confirms the need for consolidated efforts by the international community to strengthen the BTWC regime.

☝️ We are convinced of the need for the international community to intensify its efforts to strengthen the expert and technical capacity of the UN Secretary General's Mechanism for Investigation of Alleged Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons (SGM).

***

🇷🇺 The Russian delegation is ready for the closest cooperation with the Ecuadorian Chairmanship and all delegations to achieve concrete practical results. Russia calls for all the interested parties to get together for a creative work for the sake of strengthening the international security in the interests of ensuring arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation.

Read in full

🎙 Russian President Vladimir Putin’s answer to a question from the Moscow.Kremlin.Putin TV programme (December 17, 2023)

❓ Could you have been described as naive in the 2000s?

💬 Vladimir Putin: Yes, there was some naivety <…> I had the naïve idea that the whole world, and above all, the so called “civilised” world realised what had happened to Russia, that it had become a different country, that there was no longer any ideological confrontation, which meant that there were no grounds for confrontation.

If there were any negative elements in the Western nations’ policies towards Russia (among other things, their support for separatism and terrorism in Russia was apparent, I saw it as director of the Federal Security Service), I gullibly believed that this was just inertia in thinking and action: they were used to fighting the Soviet Union and kept on doing it.

<…>

Meanwhile, the reality was (I got a 100 percent confirmation of this later) that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they thought that “we just need to be patient – and we will make Russia collapse, too.”

Such a big country by European standards, with the world’s largest territory and a fairly large population … “is generally redundant.” It would be better, as Brzezinski suggested, to split it into five parts and subjugate them separately, and to use their resources, but proceeding from the premise that all of them will lack weight on their own, they will not have their own voice or the ability to defend their national interests the way the Russian state is doing now.

It was only later that I realised that.