🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at the General Meeting of the Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO (December 22, 2023)

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💬 The outgoing year was not an easy one for #UNESCO. As we know, after the beginning of the special military operation, the collective West began to intensify its efforts to politicise the organisation, and reduce its agenda to Ukraine.

Their notorious double standards are reflected in regular anti-Russia resolutions on Crimea and Ukraine. The West is pushing through these resolutions by twisting the arms of the developing nations.

These resolutions go beyond UNESCO’s mandate. It has no competence in this area.

❗️ Attempts to defame Russia for “destroying Ukraine’s cultural heritage" without citing any evidence are in the same category. Such evidence simply does not exist. Nor does UNESCO have any right to attribute guilt. <...>

At the same time, we still haven’t heard any statement condemning the act of terror at the Moscow Kremlin, a world heritage site. Nor has UNESCO Secretary-General Audrey Azoulay from France denounced the murder of Russian journalists although this is her direct mandate.

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But the attempts to “cancel” Russia in UNESCO did not achieve the desired effect. As President Vladimir Putin noted at the St Petersburg Cultural Forum last November, in UNESCO we are conducting very serious projects that generate widespread interest in the world.

I will emphasise again that we are not closing ourselves off from anyone.

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Overall, we have accumulated a wealth of positive experience to build upon. Frankly, a mutually beneficial professional dialogue in UNESCO is still possible despite the blatantly unlawful actions of its Secretariat’s senior officials.

Good morning, India! 🌅 शुभ प्रभात, भारत!

📸 Can you guess the location?

The correct answer will be posted in the comment section later today!

🇺🇳 The UN General Assembly adopted a Russian-drafted resolution on combating the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism, racial discrimination and xenophobia.

For the second year in a row, the adoption of this instrumental document has been accompanied by overt political posturing by Western countries and their attempts to settle scores with Russia against the backdrop of the continuing Ukraine crisis.

This time around, the West and, in particular, the EU countries abandoned any attempts to justify their refusal to support the resolution by clumsy references to freedom of assembly and speech. They spoke out against international efforts to fight the aggressive manifestations of racism and xenophobia.

The position adopted by Germany, Italy and Japan is a matter of special concern, since the fact that they have been encouraging dangerous trends of this kind leads us to question where the Western democracy is headed considering the dark pages in the history of these three countries in the 20th century.

☝️ Nevertheless, the outcome of this vote was a clear demonstration of the unwavering and tangible support by the international community for Russia’s initiatives as submitted to the UN General Assembly every year.

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