🗓 Established on December 19, 1961, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian agency in its field, with a mission to fight hunger around the globe.

WFP focuses on delivering emergency assistance and facilitating recovery and development projects, while also undertaking special operations.

🇺🇳 The international community committed itself to eradicating hunger, achieving food security and improving nutrition by 2030.

🤝 Russia acts as one of the WFP’s key and largest donors, supporting its operations in many countries worldwide. Russia’s voluntary contributions to the WFP have exceeded $450 million. Russia and WFP have been consistent in their efforts to expand their ties in humanitarian affairs in hotspots, also by working on international humanitarian logistics and supporting WFP’s development projects.

🚚 Russia has also made a meaningful contribution to reinforcing the WFP’s logistics capabilities and upgrading its lorry fleet with Russian KAMAZ trucks. WFP received ~300 vehicles to carry out humanitarian shipments in hotspots across Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

As part of the WFP, Russia initiated the Debt-For-Development Initiative in Mozambique. The Governments agreed to convert Mozambique’s debt to Russia into funding to support the National School Feeding Programme. The largest innovative project of its kind, it was later replicated in other countries, including Madagascar and Tanzania.

School nutrition programmes are viewed as an effective format for delivering Russian aid through WFP. The biggest initiatives of this kind were carried out in Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. There are also programmes for Nicaragua, Cuba, Syria and Jordan underway.

🇷🇺🤝🇺🇳 Russia appreciates the high level of interaction achieved with WFP and we hope to continue our constructive and mutually beneficial cooperation. We will continue providing humanitarian food assistance to the countries which need it the most.

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with Channel One’s Bolshaya Igra (Great Game) political talk show (Moscow, December 18, 2023)

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Key talking points:

▫️ We are well aware of the fact (as we made it clear many years ago) that all of this is not about Ukraine but about containing Russia. Kiev was used as a tool to pose permanent military threats to the Russian Federation and to eradicate our influence to the extent of destroying Russian traditions, language, culture, and even ethnic Russians physically.

▫️ Every day we hear assertions (repeated by several Western countries) that the Americans are not taking part in the hostilities but are only “supporting” Ukraine, which is waging a “just” war for its sovereignty, territorial integrity and European values. There are many facts, including on video, about mercenaries from Poland and other European states. Some are even from the Middle East where the Americans still have the Al-Tanf military base in Syria, where ISIS commandos feel at ease. Some of them have been seen in Ukraine.

▫️ The new version of Russia’s Foreign Policy Concept uses a novel term describing Russia as a state and a civilisation at one and the same time. This involves much responsibility. The concept states the objective fact that Russia is a civilisation in its own right

▫️ We have no territorial disputes with NATO countries. In general, we no longer have any territorial disputes with anyone. Territorial disputes even with Japan have been settled. They understand this perfectly well.

▫️ Again, to put this in perspective: Europe, and the US are leaving no stone unturned in the Middle East as they urge the Lebanese, Iranians, Iraqis, and Syrians to do their best to prevent the war in Gaza from spreading to contiguous territories. Perhaps, they should act with the same amount of zeal to prevent this from happening in Ukraine.

🎙 Comment by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on the defence cooperation agreement between Finland and the US

💬 The government of Finland has recently approved the signing of a defence cooperation agreement with the US. The document will come into force after its ratification by the country’s parliament.

📄 The agreement regulates:

• the quantities involved;
• issues related to transporting and deploying US troops;
• their use of military bases;
• storing weapons on the Finnish territory.

❗️ It is worth noting that the agreement’s provisions do not contain any restrictions on the types of weapons, including nuclear weapons, to be used to implement the treaty, and also de facto place the American military contingent in Finland beyond the reach of the Finnish legal system.

In this regard, on December 19, the Finnish Ambassador in Moscow was summoned to the Foreign Ministry and notified that the Russian Party will not leave unanswered the boosting of NATO military capabilities on our border that threatens the Russian Federation’s security and will take necessary measures to counteract the aggressive decisions of Finland and its NATO allies.

The responsibility for turning a zone of neighbourliness in the region into a zone of possible confrontation will fall entirely on the current Finnish authorities.

❗️ Foreign Ministry statement on response to the EU’s twelfth package of anti-Russia sanctions

On December 18, the EU countries passed yet another sanctions package, the twelfth.

In response to these unfriendly, illegitimate actions, which undermine the international legal prerogatives of the UNSC, Russia has substantially expanded the list of representatives of European institutions and EU member countries who are banned from coming to the territory of our state in accordance with Federal Law No. 114-FZ of August 15, 1996 On the Procedure for Entry to and Exit from the Russian Federation.

The list includes representatives of law enforcement agencies and commercial entities in the EU countries, citizens of the EU member states responsible for rendering military aid to the neo-Nazi Kiev regime (supplies of arms, combat hardware and uniforms, Ukrainian military personnel training, raising funds for the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the provision of intelligence data, communications services and logistics, etc.); representatives of European structures involved in persecuting Russian officials for “illegal arrests and expelling people from Ukrainian territories,” engaged in creating a tribunal as regards Russian leadership and the collection of relevant materials; advocating the confiscation of Russian state assets or use of profits from them in the interests of Ukraine, supporting the introduction of sanctions against Russia and trying to undermine Russia’s relations with other states; as well as persons involved in distributing disinformation about Russia.

Restrictions have also been extended to the participants of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which voted on October 13 for a resolution that calls for undisguised interference in the domestic affairs of our country and is aimed at discrediting the presidential election of Russia in 2024.

☝️ We reaffirm that any unfriendly actions by the Western countries will continue to receive a timely and appropriate response.

🇷🇺🇲🇦 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks at a joint news conference following talks with Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Morocco Nasser Bourita

📍Marrakech, December 20, 2023

💬 We held useful bilateral talks. We discussed the implementation of the agreements reached at the highest level between King Mohammed VI of Morocco and President of Russia Vladimir Putin, as well as the implementation of the 2002 Declaration on strategic partnership and the 2016 Statement on in-depth strategic partnership. We reaffirmed that these two documents remain as relevant as ever.

✔️ We considered how we could refine our actions to implement them more effectively and fully with regard to strengthening trade, economic and investment ties.

✔️ We talked about the significant opportunities we have for expanding our cultural, educational and humanitarian ties.

✔️ We also covered most regional issues and international affairs.

Both Sides are committed to the central role of the United Nations and the application of the principles stipulated in its Charter as an interrelated whole. We are adamant that everyone must fully respect the cultural and civilisational diversity in the modern world and every nation’s right to determine their own future.

***

☝️ We touched upon the Western Sahara settlement process. Russia is interested in progress in this area.

Read in full

#RussiaMorocco

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement during a joint news conference with Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Morocco Nasser Bourita and Assistant Secretary-General of the League of Arab States Hossam Zaki following the 6th Session of the Russian-Arab Cooperation Forum

📍 Marrakech, December 20, 2023

💬 We concur in the assessments of the 6th session of the Russia-Arab Cooperation Forum that we just heard.

We reviewed the entire range of challenges and threats faced by the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. We share the principle underlying our common approach to addressing these issues with our Arab friends: the domestic issues of the countries in the region should be resolved without outside interference through a broad-based national dialogue aimed at achieving public consensus.

🇺🇳 We all adhere to the principles of the UN Charter, such as respect for independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. We see this as a crucial condition for ensuring regional stability.

We reaffirmed our shared position in favour of achieving a sustainable ceasefire as soon as possible and providing assistance to the people of Gaza who are suffering from the severe humanitarian consequences of the blockade and the ongoing hostilities.

🤝 We agreed to interact at the UN in order to advance the above approaches.

❗️We declared we are in favour of further strengthening practical cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Arab world.

Read in full

🎙Russian MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova:

💬The UNGA adopted annual resolution on combatting the glorification of Nazism initiated by Russia.

❌ Western countries voted against it 2nd year in a row, showing their readiness to sacrifice ethics and put up with reputational damage for the sake of isolating Russia.

🎙 Briefing by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (Moscow, December 20, 2023)

🔹 FM Sergey Lavrov’s schedule
🔹 Ukrainian crisis
🔹 The UNGA’s approval of a Russian resolution on preventing the glorification of Nazism
🔹 No response from the UN Secretary-General and the UN Secretariat to the repeated Russian requests for them to obtain a list of victims of the Bucha provocation from Kiev
🔹 The outcome of the EU summit
🔹 OSCE/ODIHR releases fourth interim report on violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in Ukraine
🔹 Situation in Moldova
🔹 Anti-Russia sanctions
🔹 Completing the evacuation from the Gaza Strip

📰 Read in full
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#Ukraine

• On December 15, 2023, EU Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn told Reuters that last spring the US urged the EU to launch a long-term EUR 50 billion funding programme for Ukraine, so that the Biden administration would use it to pressure Congress into allocating additional funds for the Kiev regime.

Washington is cynically trying to shift the multibillion-dollar burden of the Ukrainian crisis it has unleashed onto the EU, forcing the Europeans to bankroll the corrupt and criminal Zelensky regime.

#Moldova

• On December 15, the pro-Western majority in the country’s parliament pushed through the draft of a new National Security Strategy, in which Russia is absolutely unfairly labelled ‘the most dangerous and constant source of threat <...> to the statehood, democracy and prosperity of Moldova.”

Conversely, Moldova’s time apart from Russia saw a dismantling of industry, degradation of agriculture, impoverishment of the population and depopulation – all of which we observe today. These are “serious threats to the state, democracy and prosperity of the country.”

And those who are responsible for severing Moldova’s ties with Russia or other countries that it benefited from, are responsible for this situation.

💬 Ukraine continues to discriminate against the Russian-speaking population!

➡️The law “on Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine on the Consideration of Expert Opinion of the Council of Europe and its Bodies on the Rights of National Minorities” (entered into force on December 10th) consolidated total discrimination of the Russian language in Ukraine on permanent basis.  Preferences for national minorities apply only to EU languages.

☝This Nazi-like practice of discrimination contradicts among others Ukraine's obligations under 1960 Convention against discrimination in education.

📢We call on UNESCO Secretariat to make a proper public assessment of Kiev's actions!

⚔️ December 24th is the Day of Military Glory in Russia, established in honour of the capture of the Ottoman fortress of Izmail by Russian troops in 1790.

This victory was the high point of the Russo-Turkish war of 1787-1791 and a true testament to Alexander Suvorov's military genius. 

This was one of several conflicts between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, this time sparked by the latter’s attempt to regain Crimea and other territories that had been acquired by Russia in the previous war. Despite a series of brilliant victories by the Russian forces, the Ottoman Empire was still reluctant to accept the peace terms proposed by the Russian Empire. 

🏰 In order to finally defeat the enemy, Russian commanders decided to capture the fortress of Izmail, the stronghold of Turkish rule on the Danube that was considered impregnable in Europe. The Russian army, consisting of 31,000 men, faced a garrison of 35,000 defenders, half of whom were Janissaries, the Sultan’s elite infantry.

✉️ Suvorov sought to avoid bloodshed and sent two messages to the fortress defenders, offering honourable terms of surrender. “Rather would the Danube stop flowing and the sky fall to the ground than Izmail surrender,” was the reply. 

Early in the morning of December 22, Russian troops launched a simultaneous assault on the fortress from three directions, disorienting the enemy. By 8 am, they had captured most of the outer fortifications and began pushing the enemy towards the centre of the city. By 4 pm, Izmail had fallen. Suvorov's disciple Mikhail Kutuzov was appointed the commandant for displaying exceptional special courage during the battle. 

☝️ The capture of Izmail had a decisive impact on the course of the war. In January 1792, the Treaty of Jassy was signed, solidifying the incorporation of Crimea into Russia. The entire Northern coast of the Black Sea, from the Dniester to the Kuban, was assigned to the Russian Empire, while Izmail itself was returned to Turkey. 

#HistoryOfRussia

💬 We draw UNESCO’s attention to ongoing cleansing of information space in the EU.

📍 On December 8th the Estonian police arrested in Tallinn the former editor of the Sputnik Media A.Hantsom for 2 months under the pretext of “maintaining ties with Russia.”

📍As part of the 12th “package” of sanctions, restrictions have been introduced against the TV channels “Tsargrad” and “Spas”, as well as the head of the directorate of radio programs “Zvezda” A.Shafran.

☝This is a violation of the rights of journalists, freedom of speech and access to information that runs counter relevant international obligations of the EU Member States.

📢 We call on the UNESCO Secretariat to make a proper public assessment of these actions!