🎙 Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s answer to a media question, Moscow, April 1, 2025 (Moscow, April 1, 2025)

❓ I have a question about strikes on energy infrastructure. We keep hearing mixed messages coming from Kiev. One day they are ready to sit down and talk, and next thing you know they keep attacking our facilities. Could you provide an update on where things stand with regard to the moratorium? Is it being observed, if so, to what extent, and is it still in force for us and the other party?

💬 Sergey Lavrov: At the very beginning of today’s meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation and before taking up the main issue of combatting terrorist threats, President Vladimir Putin asked Defence Minister Andrey Belousov and me to provide an update on the status of our relations with the United States on the Ukrainian dossier.

Andrey Belousov spoke precisely about the moratorium that was agreed upon at the suggestion of President Trump on March 18 during the telephone call between the President of Russia and the President of the United States.

❗️ The moratorium is not being observed. All this time, the energy facilities of the Russian Federation have been coming under attacks with occasional short breaks of one to two days between them.

Defence Minister Belousov listed the facilities targeted by Ukrainian drones over the period under review, including last night.

My update went along the same lines. The Russian army is observing the moratorium that President Putin ordered to strictly comply with on March 18 during a telephone conversation with President Trump.

Remember, President Putin said seven drones were on their way to attack targets in Ukraine as they were having this telephone conversation. The drones were destroyed by our air defence forces and a jet fighter on duty that was up in the air at the time. Since then, we have been 100 percent compliant with that agreement with President Trump.

We passed the list of violations cited by Defence Minister Andrey Belousov at the Security Council meeting to US National Security Adviser Michael Waltz. I forwarded this list to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and our representatives at the UN and the OSCE for them to use these concrete facts in their work and let everyone know the real worth of the words uttered by the current Ukrainian authorities, if “this” can even be called authorities.

In addition to this topic, President Putin asked me to provide an update on other areas of work with the Americans, including matters that were discussed on March 24 in Riyadh, when experts from Russia and the United States met to discuss the revivification, resumption, and resuscitation of the grain Black Sea Initiative. During the talks in Riyadh, we highly appreciated - President Putin supported this assessment - the United States’ willingness to help eliminate obstacles created by illegal unilateral sanctions imposed on Russian grain and fertiliser exports. They created tensions on global markets and difficulties for the developing countries, which faced limited access to food and fertiliser.

We supported the US willingness to act in that regard which was laid out on paper after the March 24 meeting, and added specific proposals on how this could be done in practice.

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The third topic of our interaction with the Americans is about eliminating “irritants” that seriously impede the work of our Embassy in Washington D.C. and the US Embassy in Moscow. Clearly, we did not initiate these obstacles. The Obama Administration did quite a lot in that regard. We only responded under the diplomatic law of reciprocity, which no one has torn up yet.

There was a meeting in Istanbul. Preparations are underway to hold a second one. There are contacts by phone and videoconference calls. I’d rather not make any predictions, but we can see signs of progress and our US partners’ willingness to lift these obstacles to normal work of diplomats in our respective capitals that are absolutely unacceptable from the point of view of diplomatic practice.

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🗂Russia’s Defence Ministry has been releasing content from its Central Archives on a dedicated website (in Russian) to celebrate the heroicfeats accomplished by the Soviet heroes during the fight against the Nazis & their cronies during the Great Patriotic War & World War II.

This valuable archive data includes award lists, registration cards, photos and personal files illustrating how these heroes served and performed in combat.

The heroes in the project include people of various ethnic backgrounds and coming from all Soviet republics, including the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Estonia.

❗️These archive materials used to be classified. The initiative to bring them into public domain today is designed to protect the historical truth, fight efforts to falsify and distort history, while celebrating the heroic feats accomplished by the Soviet people during the Great Patriotic War.

О российско-сингапурских консультациях

4 апреля заместитель Министра иностранных дел Российской Федерации А.Ю.Руденко провел консультации по вопросам двусторонней и международной повестки дня с постоянным секретарем Министерства иностранных дел Республики Сингапур А.Чуа.

Проведен обстоятельный обмен мнениями о состоянии и перспективах российско-сингапурских отношений. С российской стороны вновь указано на контрпродуктивность введенных властями Сингапура в марте 2022 года антироссийских санкций, которые остаются препятствием для полномасштабной реализации внушительного потенциала сотрудничества в областях, представляющих взаимный интерес, в том числе в торгово-экономической и гуманитарной.

Внимание было также уделено ключевым вопросам многосторонней кооперации в Азиатско-Тихоокеанском регионе, совместного противодействия стоящим перед ним вызовам и угрозам. Отмечена особая роль Ассоциации государств Юго-Восточной Азии как системообразующей организации в интеграционных процессах в АТР. В этом контексте стороны высказались за дальнейшее продвижение разноплановых связей по линии диалогового партнерства Россия-АСЕАН.

Были подробно изложены подходы России к развитию ситуации вокруг Украины, обстановки на Корейском полуострове.

#GreatPatrioticWar

🛩 On 6 April 1966, Soviet pilots Boris Kapustin and Yury Yanov performed a heroic feat in the skies above West Berlin — they refused to eject from their falling aircraft, instead steering it away from residential areas. They perished but saved the lives of many on the ground.

Both engines of their Yak-28 fighter-bomber, equipped with experimental top-secret technology, failed mid-flight. The aircraft was en-route (returning) from the Sverdlovsk Aviation Plant, and the cause of the malfunction was later determined to be clogged fuel tubes — paper stickers had not been removed during assembly.

Beneath the stricken aircraft lay a densely populated city. Kapustin, the flight commander, manoeuvred to avoid residential neighbourhoods. He offered navigator Yanov the chance to eject, but Yanov remained on board, fearing that his departure might compromise the aircraft’s aerodynamics and lead to total loss of control.

They fought to the last moment to protect civilians, ultimately directing the falling aircraft into Lake Stößensee. The Yak-28 sank, and the crew perished without leaving their combat post.

🕊 On 8 April 1966, a funeral ceremony was held to transfer the remains of the Soviet pilots to representatives of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. Delegations from cities across both East and West Germany came to pay their respects. Throughout the day, Germans arrived to honour the Soviet heroes.

🌟 Kapustin and Yanov were posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Banner by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on 10 May 1966.

🙏 A memorial plaque was installed at the crash site. In Eberswalde and seven other German cities, grateful residents erected commemorative signs. On 30 March 2001, a memorial was unveiled at the aviation museum at Finow Airfield.

Their sacrifice and eternal bravery continue to live on in the hearts of those who remember to this day.

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement at the opening ceremony of a TASS photo exhibition, “Their Immortal Heroism,” (Moscow, April 8, 2025)

💬Sergey Lavrov: We are delighted to open a photo exhibition, #TheirImmortalHeroism, at the Foreign Ministry today. It includes archival photographs, official statements and reports by TASS correspondents made in the past few months of the Great Patriotic War.

I would like to begin by expressing gratitude to the TASS management and staff for their contribution to preparing this unique exposition. It opens a series of events dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War and organised for the diplomatic corps accredited in our country.

☝️ When speaking about the Great Victory, we recall the combat heroism of Soviet soldiers, who have saved the world from the Nazi plague. The “information army” greatly contributed to the common efforts to defeat the enemy. The courageous TASS correspondents risked their lives every day to create a chronicle of the 1,418 days of that war. To this day, their photographs and reports remain a vital source of reliable information about those events.

TASS played a special role in exposing Nazi propaganda. The Agency’s materials revealed the criminal nature of Nazism and its deadly threat to humanity. Thanks to the journalists’ work, the world learned about the courageous defenders of Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad and about the atrocities the invaders committed in the occupied Soviet territories. TASS photographs were included in the verdict of the Nuremberg Trials.

The TASS Windows war-time posters made an invaluable contribution to Victory. They showed that art and satire can be a lethal weapon in capable hands. These posters have become widely popular not only in our country but also beyond it, where they could be acquired by subscription and included in the exhibitions held in Washington, Johannesburg, London, Beijing, Istanbul, Stockholm and Tehran.

❗️This TASS legacy is especially important today when more and more attempts are being made in the West to rewrite history and overhaul the political, international legal and moral results of the Great Victory in the Second World War. Our country’s role in defeating the enemy is being deliberately played down. The monstrous crimes committed by the Nazis and their accomplices and collaborators are being justified. The very principle of outlawing the man-hating Nazi ideology is being undermined. I would like to remind you that it is one of the fundamentals principles of the post-war world order, known as the Yalta-Potsdam world order, alongside the primacy of international law and the central role of the UN, and primarily its Security Council, in balancing the interests of states.

👉 In this situation, TASS remains a reliable keeper of historical truth. The archival materials collected during the war are an effective weapon in the battle against the falsification of history.

A relevant example is a letter, which you can see at the exhibition, from the head of Poland’s Provisional Government to the Soviet leadership, dated February 16, 1945, with assurances of eternal friendship between Polish, Russian and all other Soviet peoples. Equally eloquent are the photographs made in the liberated European cities, showing people welcome Soviet soldiers with joy and present them with flowers. The EU prefers to forget about these documents and is trying to eradicate this memory, but facts cannot be erased from history.

🕊Keeping the truth about the war is our common responsibility to those who have given their lives for peace and freedom. I believe that this exhibition can be shown not only in Russia but also beyond it, also based on the possibilities of the embassies and Russia Houses, wherever they exist.

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On April 8–9, the IV Eurasian Meeting of Russian Women Compatriots was held in Doha, Qatar, under the auspices of the Russian Government Commission on Compatriots Living Abroad.

The forum brought together 60 delegates—active members of Russian-speaking communities abroad—from around 50 countries.

During the discussions, participants thoroughly examined the prospects for consolidating the compatriot women's movement and the further development of all areas of their activities. Concrete steps were outlined to protect historical memory and promote Russian spiritual and moral values, language, and culture.

Chairperson of the Russian culture club in Singapore Oksana Melnik represented Singapore.

🇷🇺🇺🇸 April 10 marked a round of Russian-American expert consultations in Istanbul, aimed at normalising the operations of the diplomatic missions of both nations and addressing accumulated bilateral “irritants.”

The delegations, led by Russian Ambassador to the United States Alexander Darchiev and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Sonata Coulter, exchanged diplomatic notes to formalise agreed commitments. These commitments are designed to facilitate unimpeded banking and financial services for Russian and American diplomatic missions, in addition to ensuring the fulfilment of the Russian Federation’s contributions to the budgets of the UN and other international organisations.

In the context of the issue raised by the Russian side regarding the return of six diplomatic real estate properties confiscated by the United States authorities and lawfully owned by the Russian Federation, the parties agreed to develop a roadmap. Ambassador Alexander Darchiev emphasised the importance of urgent practical measures in this regard, including immediate access for Russian representatives to inspect these premises and assess incurred damages.

Discussions also continued on easing visa processing and travel regulations for diplomatic staff within the host countries. The Russian Ambassador pressed for accelerated progress in resolving pivotal issues to bolster mutual trust and expand bilateral business and social ties, such as resuming direct air flights.

Following the consultations, the parties resolved to promptly refine the proposals tabled. The objective remains to achieve mutually acceptable solutions ahead of the next round, the timing of which is currently under coordination.

#RussiaUS

🚀 On April 12, 1961, at 9.07 am Moscow Time, the Vostok spacecraft with Yury Gagarin aboard made its historic lift-off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. This first manned space mission in the history of humankind heralded the beginning of the Space Age.

Yury #Gagarin was only 27 years old then. He had experienced various hardships earlier in life, spending his childhood years in his home town in Nazi-occupied territory during the Great Patriotic War. After the war, he joined the Saratov air club, for many years he trained hard to become a professional pilot. Gagarin eventually joined the first Soviet cosmonaut squad.

On that memorable April morning, he was preparing to take off into the unknown where no human being had ever been before. A photographer took images of the cosmonaut’s face before the flight. Gagarin showed absolutely no fear, flashing his famous smile and concentrating on his responsible assignment.

🧑‍🚀 Yury Gagarin spent 108 minutes in outer space, orbited the Earth and successfully landed near the village of Smelovka in the Saratov Region.

While in orbit, he maintained radio contact with Earth, conducted observations through a porthole, controlled the operation of the spacecraft’s systems and made a few experiments.

📰 The media widely announced Yury Gagarin’s mission 55 minutes after the Vostok rocket lifted off. It became the most quoted news story worldwide. Instantly, a Soviet pilot & cosmonaut became the most famous person on Earth.

Two days later, the residents of the Soviet capital took to the streets, carrying flowers and posters that welcomed Gagarin who had arrived in Moscow. In late April, the first man in space went on a global tour to share his impressions with people all over the world.

🌐 In the next two years following this history-making event, Yury Gagarin visited over 30 countries where he was given a hero’s welcome. His tour was unofficially named the Peace Mission. Despite his immense popularity, Gagarin remained his own usual self and continued to engage in what he liked most – aviation and cosmonautics – for the rest of his life.

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s answers to the media questions during his remarks at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum (Antalya, April 12, 2025)

Key points:

• More and more countries want to determine their life themselves, to have fair treatment, to have fair competition in economy, trade, in other areas, just in line with the principles of globalization, which were promoted by our Western friends, especially by the United States, for so many decades.

• What we observe is fragmentation of the world economy. This is the time of uncertainty, I would say. Nobody knows how the situation with world trade and investment is going to end.

• The United States recognize that other countries also have their national interests, and those interests would never coincide fully, maybe even half of these interests would not be similar. But when the interests, especially the interests of big countries, coincide, it is essential for them to find ways to materialize them into mutually beneficial economic, logistical, and other projects, while when these interests contradict each other, it is the responsibility and duty of countries, especially if we speak about big powers, not to allow these differences to degenerate into confrontation, especially the hot confrontation.

• I will repeat again what I said then, and I repeated this publicly also, when we speak about eliminating root causes of any conflict, including Ukrainian conflict. This is the only way to resolve the problem and to establish long-lasting peace - remove root causes.

• If Ukrainian nazi regime, I cannot describe it otherwise, enjoys the cover from the European Union, which as I just mentioned, never dropped a word about the situation with human rights in Ukraine, then this is not our problem. We listen to those people who voted at the referendum to join Russia to restore all their rights which belong to them by international law and by history, by justice.

• The European Union is not happy. And instead of doing something about this situation for the sake of their citizens Brussels people threatened to stop importing any grain from Russia. They're very specific leaders. They say that Kaja Kallas, Annalena Baerbock, they were saying yes, when criticized by the people who saying, “We live worse than before”. Yes, we understand, but our electorate should suffer for the sake of Ukraine, while at the same time thousands and thousands of Ukrainians living there in European luxury, buying very expensive vehicles. But this is what the European elite calls European values, which they defend in the person of Zelensky regime.

• I gave to our colleagues from Türkiye, to Minister Hakan Fidan, what we give to Americans, to UN, to OSCE, the list of facts, listing the attacks by Ukraine during the last three weeks against Russian energy infrastructure.
• We understand that Zelensky hates all Russians, so he gives orders. Either he gives orders, and they are not taken, or he is lying, that he is giving these orders. It's a tragedy. It's a tragedy.
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#RussiaHelps

⚡️ Russia’s EMERCOM has sent another large package of humanitarian aid to Myanmar.

🛬 An Il-76 aircraft of the Emergencies Ministry delivered more than 30 tonnes of essential supplies, including canned goods, grains, sugar, and medical equipment.

🎙 Address of Federation Council of Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation to parliaments of foreign countries and peoples of the world on unacceptability of distorting the history of the Second World War and rehabilitating Nazism

💬 May 9, 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of historic victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War. The war unleashed by Nazi Germany and its satellites claimed the lives of 27 million Soviet citizens. Millions of people became prisoners of Nazi death camps, lost their homes, and were deported for forced labour to Germany and other countries under its control.

The Great Victory was achieved through the unwavering determination and bravery of the Soviet people and their strong resolve to defeat Nazism which presented a threat to humanity. The Allies of the Soviet Union made an important contribution to defeating the Third Reich.

The International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg Tribunal) brought before court and handed down sentences to the main war criminals of the European Axis countries. It held the Nazi regime leaders accountable for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, among others. The facts of banishment and extermination of the Soviet civilian population by Nazis and their accomplices, which was established in the verdict handed down by the Nuremberg Tribunal, must be regarded as genocide of the peoples of the Soviet Union.

Thanks to victory of the Soviet Union and its allies over Nazism, proper conditions for forming a modern system of international relations were created, and the United Nations Organisation (UN) was established.

The international law principles recognised by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and expressed in the verdict passed by the Nuremberg Tribunal were confirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 95(I) of December 11, 1946.

The Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation supports the annual adoption by the UN General Assembly of the resolution titled «Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance», as well as Resolution 79/272 of March 4, 2025 titled «Eightieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War», co-sponsored by 54 countries.

The Russian Federation senators express their concern about the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to include non-aligned European countries, the militarisation of the European Union, and the support it accords to the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine. Europe was the starting point of both world wars. For this reason, it bears a unique responsibility to humanity in preventing another global conflict.

☝️ Denying the Soviet Union’s decisive role in Victory of the Anti-hitlerite Coalition over the Nazi Germany and its satellites, glorifying Nazi criminals and their accomplices, and demolishing and desecrating monuments to Soviet liberator soldiers are all immoral and blasphemous acts.

The Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation calls on the parliaments of foreign countries and the peoples of the world to counter any attempts to falsify history, to rehabilitate or glorify Nazism, fascism, or militarism, to condemn the encouragement of the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine and the incitement of another world war, and to demand that those who dishonour the memory of the liberator soldiers and those who fought against Nazism be brought to justice.

❗️Only our joint efforts can protect the truth about the Second World War, counter the rise of neo-Nazism, and avert the recurrence of brutal crimes against humanity.

🎙 Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with Kommersant newspaper (Moscow, April 14, 2025)

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#RussiaUSA

• Restoring our dialogue with President of the United States Donald Trump is a natural step. Importantly, both Sides are willing to move in this direction despite the many challenges and the divergence of our national interests on several, if not most of the international matters. We need to hold meetings and treat each other as well-educated and polite people by listening and hearing each other.

• The sincere desire to transition to normality shown by President Donald Trump is met with resistance after recent political upheavals that have rocked the Washington-based elites. They are preparing some moves behind the scenes, using their lobbies and the media. Their aim is to prevent President Donald Trump from mending relations with Russia and putting them back on track as they should be between two great powers and between all countries, for that matter.

#NATO #Ukraine
• International humanitarian law explicitly prohibits placement of military facilities and weapons in or around civilian sites.

• Since the onset of the [Ukrainian] crisis, there have been countless instances of artillery and air defence systems deployed in [Ukrainian] city quarters next to kindergartens. The internet was full of videos showing Ukrainian women yelling at the military telling them to leave retail outlets and playgrounds, but they keep doing so to this day.

• We have verified information about who was inside the building that was struck in Sumy. It was yet another gathering of Ukrainian military commanders alongside their Western counterparts operating under the guise of mercenaries, or someone else.

• NATO military personnel are there and are directly in charge of the operations. Everyone is aware of that. Even The New York Times has reported that U.S. military staff have played a central role in orchestrating attacks on Russia from the outset. Without their involvement, the vast majority of long-range missile strikes would never have happened.

• President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that the decision by the Joe Biden administration to drag Ukraine into NATO was a major mistake. Among other things, it served as a trigger, or one of the triggers, in terms of what is happening today in Ukraine. President Trump has recognised in public several times that he viewed this as one of the root causes.

#UkraineCrisis

• Speaking at the Russia's Foreign Ministry on June 14, 2024, President Vladimir Putin laid out a clear framework for a lasting, reliable and just settlement [of the Ukraine crisis] which would primarily focus on fulfilling the interests of the people and ensuring that human rights are respected <...> as per the UN Charter.

• For us the future of the people is what matters most, and saying the territorial integrity of Ukraine cannot be violated means letting Russians, the Russian-speaking people who escaped from the Nazi regime end up at the mercy of these beasts.

• All peacekeeping “arrangements” painted by “macrons” and “starmers” seek to preserve at least a small piece of land as home to the blatantly Nazi and Russophobic regime designed to be used for preparing another war against Russia. This poses a major challenge for the West’s reputation and credibility.

🇷🇺🇺🇸📞 On April 17, 2025, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio had a telephone conversation.

Secretary Rubio, who is currently in Paris, informed the Russian side about the recent engagements that he and US President’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff had in the French capital. These discussions involved representatives from Ukraine, France, and several other European nations. It was underscored that these contacts were in alignment with the framework of ongoing consultations between Washington and Moscow, including the recent dialogue between President of Russia Vladimir Putin and Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg.

Sergey Lavrov reaffirmed Moscow’s readiness to continue collaborative efforts with American counterparts to comprehensively address the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis.

The Foreign Minister and Secretary of State concurred on the necessity to maintain prompt communication channels, particularly in light of forthcoming meetings scheduled by American and European officials with Ukrainian representatives next week.

#RussiaUSA