🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks and answers to media questions following a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine and an open debate on “The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question,” (New York, January 24, 2024)

Key talking points:

• Terrorist attack by the Kiev regime on Il-76 plane
• Middle East
• Prospects of the Palestinian-Israeli settlement
• Ukraine
• Double standards of Western media
• Russia-US relations
• Nuclear security
• Korean Peninsula

💬 Sergey Lavrov: I am compelled to begin by stating yet another fact of the Kiev regime’s use of terrorist methods.

A terrorist attack was perpetrated on January 24, at 11:15 am Moscow time, resulting in the downing of a Russian Il-76 cargo plane in the Belgorod Region. The aircraft was en route from the Moscow Region to Belgorod, carrying 65 prisoners from the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Three Russian officers and a crew of six people accompanied them. All of them died. The Ukrainian prisoners of war were being taken to the Belgorod Region for a prisoner exchange agreed between Moscow and Kiev.

Instead, Ukraine targeted this aircraft from the Kharkov Region using surface-to-air missiles, causing a fatal strike. <...>

#US #MiddleEast

As for the present crisis, everyone seems to have a similar understanding of the consequences of US policy in the region. None of the reckless attempts Washington has engaged in over the last few decades to defend its “core security interests” ten thousand miles across the Atlantic led to a situation where people’s lives improved in a country that the US attacked.

#US #Santions

They should not assume that just because they are strong, because they have the dollar, they can use it to “strangle” others: disconnect them from the SWIFT system or deny them access to the IMF and World Bank loans at whim. The US actually invented the system and made the world accept it.

Read in full

❗️ On January 24, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with the permanent representatives of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) nations at the UN.

They exchanged views on the unprecedented escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Sergey Lavrov told the OIC delegates about the main results of his participation in the recent UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East and described in detail Russia’s view of the current turbulent problems in the region.

The meeting confirmed the similarities of the positions held by Russia and the Muslim world on the problems in the Middle East, including the conflict in the Gaza Strip. The participants emphasised the need to immediately declare a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians and settle the issue through political and diplomatic channels in accordance with UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, and also the Arab Peace Initiative and the Madrid Principles, including the two-state formula.

<...>

In the context of the humanitarian crisis on Palestinian lands and the high risk of the entire Middle East sinking into a bigger war, Sergey Lavrov emphasised the importance of consolidating the positions of the external players on Palestinian-Israeli problems. This would make it possible to stabilise the situation and create conditions for new negotiations.

In this context, it is vital to ensure Palestinian national unity under the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and prevent the administrative and geographical fragmentation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The participants noted the importance of creating an effective collective mediation mechanism with a leading role played by the Middle East countries.

The Russian initiative to hold consultations in Moscow with the region’s countries and the international players who are interested in an honest dialogue is designed to develop constructive multilateral cooperation on the Palestinian-Israeli issue.

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks and answers to media questions following a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine and an open debate on “The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question,” (New York, January 24, 2024)

Key talking points:

• Terrorist attack by the Kiev regime on Il-76 plane
• Middle East
• Prospects of the Palestinian-Israeli settlement
• Ukraine
• Double standards of Western media
• Russia-US relations
• Nuclear security
• Korean Peninsula

💬 Sergey Lavrov: I am compelled to begin by stating yet another fact of the Kiev regime’s use of terrorist methods.

A terrorist attack was perpetrated on January 24, at 11:15 am Moscow time, resulting in the downing of a Russian Il-76 cargo plane in the Belgorod Region. The aircraft was en route from the Moscow Region to Belgorod, carrying 65 prisoners from the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Three Russian officers and a crew of six people accompanied them. All of them died. The Ukrainian prisoners of war were being taken to the Belgorod Region for a prisoner exchange agreed between Moscow and Kiev.

Instead, Ukraine targeted this aircraft from the Kharkov Region using surface-to-air missiles, causing a fatal strike. <...>

#US #MiddleEast

As for the present crisis, everyone seems to have a similar understanding of the consequences of US policy in the region. None of the reckless attempts Washington has engaged in over the last few decades to defend its “core security interests” ten thousand miles across the Atlantic led to a situation where people’s lives improved in a country that the US attacked.

#US #Santions

They should not assume that just because they are strong, because they have the dollar, they can use it to “strangle” others: disconnect them from the SWIFT system or deny them access to the IMF and World Bank loans at whim. The US actually invented the system and made the world accept it.

Read in full

🔴 #LIVE: The UN Security Council holds a meeting to discuss the crash of the Il-76 plane.

🔗 https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1b/k1bfmfqsfl

🔗 https://twitter.com/RussiaUN/status/1750633632119603477

🗓 On January 27, RUSSIA EXPO International Exhibition and Forum hosts the Energy Day.

The event has gathered experts and visionaries who are at the helm of the development of Russia's energy complex, masterminds behind the achievements of our nation in the industry, as well as people who generate ideas that contribute to the socio-economic development of our country.

☝️ The plenary session "Russia's Fuel and Energy Complex: new opportunities for development" will provide an opportunity for the industry's leaders to share with the audience the results of their respective companies' work and their overall input in the development of our country's fuel and energy complex, outlining priorities and opportunities for the future.

The business programme also includes expert panels which will discuss issues related to the power industry of our country as a driving force of economic growth, as well new strategies for the development of oil and gas sector.

👉 RUSSIA EXPO International Exhibition and Forum website

🕯 The Siege of Leningrad was one of the darkest moments in human history.

According to recent statistics, at least 1,093,842 people died during the blockade. In 2022, the Saint Petersburg City Court has recognised the Siege of Leningrad as an act of genocide against the Soviet people committed by the Nazi Germany and its accomplices.

Despite the odds the people faced the hardships with unparalleled bravery, with numerous examples of self-sacrifice and will to live.

One of them — Tanya Savicheva who lost all her family during the Siege, writing a diary about her terrible ordeal. Her image and pages from the diary became one the most tragic symbols of those difficult times.

As thousands of people died of starvation during the Nazi blockade, baker Daniel Kutinen worked around the clock to feed the citizens of Leningrad and died of starvation at his workplace.

In May 1942, the local Dynamo and the Leningrad Metal Plant workers played a football match in the Nazi-besieged Leningrad, which became a symbol of the resilience of the city defenders and showed that nothing can break the will of the Soviet people.

In August 1942, Soviet composer Dmitry Shostakovich’s legendary masterpiece Symphony №7 premiered in Leningrad during the most dire times of the Nazi siege, strengthening the spirit of the people of Leningrad.

✊ The city lived on and did not succumb to the pressure, bombings and starvation.

The Siege was lifted on January 27, 1944, during the Leningrad-Novgorod Offensive of the Red Army.

#Victory79 #NoStatuteOfLimitation

🗓 On January 27, 1944, the 872-day siege of Leningrad was finally lifted, marking the end of one of the most tragic episodes of the Great Patriotic War which claimed the lives of over a million Leningraders.
 
The blockade began on September 8, 1941, when Nazi troops isolated the city from the rest of the country by land. From the north, it was cut off from the main forces by Finnish troops allied with the Nazi Germany. In addition to the Finns, soldiers from Belgium, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands & Norway took part in the offensive, as well as volunteers from Austria, Latvia, Poland, France & Czechoslovakia.
 
Despite the cold, hunger & horrors of war, the Leningraders selflessly defended their city from total destruction during these 872 days and even in these dire circumstances continued producing goods & various machinery to supply the war effort against the Nazis. The incredible resilience and bravery of Leningrad residents shattered all the plans and ambitions of the Nazi invaders.
 
⚔️ A year after the breakthrough, Soviet Army managed to finally lift the siege of the city on January 27, 1944. After the success of the Iskra Operation, the situation in the city improved dramatically, but the threat remained. At the end of 1943, the Leningrad-Novgorod Strategic Offensive Operation was planned, during which Soviet soldiers liberated the Leningrad, Novgorod and part of the Kalinin (now Tver) regions, and pushed back the enemy to the borders of Estonia and Latvia.

🎖 The courage & heroism of Leningrad defenders were highly appreciated by the Motherland. Many units & formations were awarded the honourable title of “Guards”, orders & the honorary title of “Leningrad”. On the Leningrad, Volkhov & Karelian fronts, 486 people were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, including eight people who received it twice. 350,000+ servicemen on the Leningrad front alone received orders & medals.

#WeRemember and pay tribute to the heroes who stopped the Nazi plague that crippled Europe and threatened humankind.

📽RT Documentary "Ukraine's Arms Barons. Who is behind the ongoing weapons trafficking in Ukraine?"

🇺🇦Ukraine has been known as a major hub for the global weapons black market since the USSR collapsed. With NATO injecting billions into Ukraine's defence, arms intended for the Ukrainian forces are inexplicably finding their way into other conflict zones: the rockets that fall on Israel from Gaza, while Mexican cartels boast of NATO-grade firearms and advanced weaponry.

❓How does this weaponry make its way out of Ukraine?
❓Who's pulling the strings behind the scenes?
❓How is the whole trafficking operation orchestrated?

WATCH in FULL👉 https://rtd.rt.com/films/ukraines-arms-barons/

#Think4Yourself

✍️ President Vladimir Putin sent greetings to participants and guests of the event held to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 79th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau (Oswiecim) concentration camp by the Red Army.

✉️ In January 1945, Red Army soldiers liberated the Oswiecim concentration camp. The world was aghast at the horrific new evidence of the Holocaust atrocities and the tragic fate of millions of Jews, Roma, Russians and members of other ethnic groups, who had been killed for their culture, language and origins.

We will never forget the enormous pain and suffering caused by the Second World War, the irreparable price our forefathers paid for the freedom and independence of our Fatherland and for victory over Nazism and its hideous ideology, and the legal, moral and ethical verdict passed on those who were found guilty of heinous crimes against humanity.

Remembering these lessons and safeguarding the memory of the tragedy of war is a position of principle for our state, our society and the multinational people of Russia as a whole.

❗️ This memory is sacred to us.

This is why we place so much value on an active civil stance and the dedicated efforts of all those who are working to protect historical truth, establish the names of soldiers, learn what became of innocent civilians, the biographies of concentration camp inmates and the victims of Nazi butchers.

A large contribution to these considerable and much needed efforts is being made by the Russian Jewish community and, of course, by your traditional memorial events held on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

🤝 I hope that this meeting will contribute to the further consolidation of our society around the values of humanism, consensus and civil peace.

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/73321

🕯 January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. #OTD in 1945, soldiers of the Red Army of the First Ukrainian Front liberated prisoners of one of the most horrible concentration camps – Auschwitz (Oswiecim) – in the course of the Vistula-Oder Offensive.

The infamous death factory was established in 1940 near the city of Oswiecim, Poland, which was renamed Auschwitz after the Nazi occupation. It was one of the Third Reich’s biggest concentration camps at about 500 hectares.

Initially, Polish political prisoners were kept in the camp. Later, European Jews, Roma and Soviet POWs were sent there as well. According to various estimates, 75 to 90 percent of its inmates were instantly killed or were subjected to inhuman experiments by camp doctors. All others received registration numbers and were used as slave labour.

Auschwitz II with crematoriums and gas chambers was built in 1941 in the village of Brzezinka (Birkenau in German) just three kilometres from the first camp. In 1942, after the “final solution to the Jewish question” adopted at the Wannsee Conference, this camp was turned into the centre for the annihilation of the European Jews.

In 1944, when the Red Army started the liberation of Europe, the leadership of the death camp rushed to destroy its infrastructure and send inmates westward. About 7,500 people remained in Auschwitz. The Nazis had planned to murder them in a few days.

The Red Army approached Oswiecim after three days of fighting on its outskirts, on the night of January 27, 1945. The prisoners wept with joy on seeing the Soviet liberators. Part of the camp was immediately turned into a recovery hospital.

✍️ Excerpts from memoirs by Colonel Vasily Petrenko, whose 107th division was the first to enter Auschwitz: “It was a horrible sight – bellies swollen from hunger, vacant wandering eyes, arms like ropes, thin legs, huge heads making the rest of the body look unnatural as if sewn on. The kids were silent and showed only the numbers tattooed on their arms.”

✍️ From memoirs of camp inmate L.F. Derevyanko: “When we rushed to the yard, we didn’t see any guards. Soon, Soviet soldiers came in. They took us in their arms and wept together with us. They washed us, cut our hair and dressed us in soft warm clothes. They kept us in quarantine for some time, treated us and fed us well.”

▪️In total, at least 1.3 million people passed through Auschwitz during its existence, about 1.1 million of them were exterminated.

In the past few years, the memory of this great deed of the Soviet soldiers that liberated the camp’s inmates has been systematically destroyed in a number of European countries. It reached the point where the exposition donated by the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War was closed in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum in 2022. To preserve the memory of the horrors of Nazism, the Victory Museum has launched the online project Auschwitz – The Truth: https://victorymuseum.ru/playbill/events/multimediynaya-ekspozitsiya-osventsim-pravda-/.

❗️ The accomplishment of the Soviet soldiers that liberated Europe from the Nazi scourge can never be erased.

❗️ The tragedy of the Holocaust must never be repeated.