🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks during the 9th Ministerial Meeting of Russia and Central Asia (Moscow, April 17, 2026)

💬 Sergey Lavrov: I am pleased to welcome you to Moscow. We began our joint work yesterday at the CIS Foreign Ministers Council, and today we are holding the ninth meeting of Foreign Ministers of Russia and Central Asia. This in itself underscores the relevance of this six-party dialogue mechanism. In our view, it is developing successfully and dynamically, to the benefit of all participants.

In October 2025, the Second Russia – Central Asia Summit was held in the welcoming city of Dushanbe. During the summit, our leaders approved a Joint Action Plan for 2025-2027 and put forward a number of important initiatives. Our task now is to translate these decisions into concrete steps. The Action Plan serves as a framework document, outlining the key areas of our cooperation: trade, economic and investment ties, transport, energy, healthcare, environmental protection, security, cultural and humanitarian engagement, and migration.

Specific projects and initiatives are currently being developed within the six-party working groups established by the relevant agencies of Russia and your countries. As we noted today during the #CIS meeting, our relations are grounded in equality, mutual respect, and careful consideration of each other’s interests. They truly deserve the highest recognition as an example of a modern and forward-looking model of international partnership.

Our leaders maintain close and regular communication, both bilaterally and within integration frameworks such as the #CIS, the #EAEU, the #CSTO, and the #SCO. Active contacts are also sustained among heads of government, deputy prime ministers, and the leadership of parliaments, ministries, and agencies.

Despite the current geopolitical turbulence – which we examined in detail during today’s CIS meetings – we have succeeded in maintaining a consistently high level of trade turnover. In 2025, it continued to grow, approaching the $50 billion mark.

As I have already noted, cultural and humanitarian cooperation continues to develop. Through our joint efforts, and at the initiative of President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the International Organisation of the Russian Language was established. The Russian language remains a key means of communication not only between Russia and the Central Asian states, but also among the peoples of the broader post-Soviet space. Our approaches to international issues are closely aligned and, in most cases, coincide.

We greatly appreciate that, despite unprecedented external pressure, the Central Asian countries remain committed to their allied obligations, thereby contributing to the dynamic development of our friendly and mutually beneficial relations, both bilaterally and within multilateral frameworks, including the Russia – Central Asia mechanism.

I hope that today we will be able to make a tangible contribution to the implementation of the decisions adopted at the second Russia – Central Asia Summit in Dushanbe.

🇷🇺🇮🇷📞 On April 20, Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Lavrov and Foreign Minister of Iran Abbas Araghchi had a telephone conversation.

Abbas Araghchi informed Sergey Lavrov of Iran’s position regarding the US violations of the ceasefire, including the illegal naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the seizure of an Iranian container ship.

☝️ The Russian Side once again stressed the need to preserve the truce, which must be upheld within the parameters originally agreed and announced by the Pakistani mediators. The importance of continuing diplomatic efforts aimed at preventing the situation from spiralling out of control and averting a renewed armed confrontation was also underscored.

Russia reaffirmed its readiness to facilitate mutually acceptable arrangements between Iran and the Arab States of the Persian Gulf.

The Iranian Side confirmed its readiness to do everything in its power to ensure the unimpeded passage of Russian vessels and cargo through the waterway.

#RussiaIran

🇷🇺Ambassador Oleg Stepanov's Comment (April 20, 2026)

"Russia and the Arctic: What Alexander Stubb Leaves Out in His ‘The Globe and Mail’ Interview"

I have read President Stubb’s recent interview in ‘The Globe and Mail’ with interest. His comments on Arctic affairs, however, risk giving readers a picture that is at best incomplete and at worst misleading. Here is why.

For decades, the Arctic stood out as a rare zone of low tension. Even at the height of the Cold War, Arctic nations managed to separate military rivalry from practical cooperation in areas such as environmental protection, science, navigation, and maritime safety. The clearest expression of this approach became the Arctic Council, where the eight polar States – Russia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the United States – worked side by side on shared priorities: ecology, climate monitoring, search and rescue, the protection of Indigenous communities, and scientific research. Neighbouring countries felt at ease in an atmosphere defined by predictability and good-neighbourliness. That institutional memory has not vanished. For Russia, nothing fundamental has changed in its Arctic approach.

Russia’s military presence in the polar latitudes has always been proportionate to the tasks of safeguarding national security, protecting borders, and ensuring freedom of navigation in northern waters. It is a defensive posture and has undergone no conceptual shift.

On nuclear weapons, Mr. Stubb appears to undercut his own argument. While raising the issue of Russia’s arsenal as a source of concern for northern countries, he also acknowledges that Russian warheads are not aimed at Helsinki, Stockholm, or Oslo. In other words, he recognizes Finland itself facing no such threat in this context.

As for the United States, it is worth recalling the Moscow Declaration of January 14, 1994, under which Russia and the United States agreed to cease targeting their strategic nuclear missiles at one another. A similar joint statement was adopted by Moscow and London on February 15, 1994. Russia’s leadership remains firmly committed to the principle that nuclear war must never be fought: there can be no winners, and it must never be unleashed.

Let’s put it straight. Today, the only genuine risk to the Arctic seems to come from short-sighted political calls to militarize national economies in general, and the Arctic dimension of international politics in particular. Exploiting personal phobias and constructing images of Russia – or any other country – as an enemy will not help such political figures strengthen the security of their states. Politicking risks creating a new arc of tension where none previously existed. Moreover, portraying the ‘Russian threat’ as acute enough to justify ever-increasing defence budgets has already begun to place a growing burden on taxpayers in the Arctic nations of the West, whose quality of life has not been improving in recent years even without this added strain.

❗️To summarize: Russia views the Arctic as a region of peace, stability, and sustainable development. We remain ready to engage with our neighbours and to work for the common good – provided that such willingness is mutual. Ultimately, responsibility for any deterioration of the Arctic environment will lie with those who intentionally choose confrontation over dialogue.

I believe this message from the Russian side distinguished Canadian readers of ‘The Globe and Mail’ deserve to hear.

🎙 Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement at a meeting of the Council of the #CSTO Parliamentary Assembly (Moscow, April 20, 2026)

💬 On January 1, 2026, Russia assumed the chairmanship of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation. Our tenure proceeds under the motto, Collective Security in a Multipolar World: Common Goal, Shared Responsibility.

In collaboration with our allies within the CSTO, we are intensifying efforts to uphold shared approaches to resolving international security issues. Much has already been articulated on this subject today. The foundational documents of the Organisation – and I wish to underscore this with particular emphasis – enshrine the principles of peaceful coexistence among states, the primacy of political and diplomatic methods of resolution, and adherence to the norms of international law, with the United Nations playing a central role.

I consider it of fundamental importance that, in the current period, as the West resorts more frequently and extensively to illegitimate use of force, neocolonial methods of diktat, and outright plunder, the CSTO countries are neither altering nor revising the aforementioned goals of their activities. We will not deviate from the universal norms of international law. On the contrary, we will counter attempts to undermine them and oppose efforts to impose lawlessness in global affairs, whilst upholding the universal norms of international law, above all the sovereign equality of states, as enshrined in the UN Charter. <...>

The Collective Security Treaty Organisation has established itself as an authoritative association of allied states whose activities are not directed against anyone, contain no aggressive aspirations, and are built exclusively in the interests of maintaining regional stability and the well-being of its member countries. <...>

Russia maintains continuity in advancing the principal vectors of our collaboration within the CSTO. We continue our work to implement the initiatives of the preceding chairmanship – that of the Kyrgyz Republic.

Our goal is to preserve the truth concerning our common struggle to liberate the world from Nazism and to perpetuate the heroic feat of the Soviet people, who defended the independence of their native land and liberated Europe and the world from the brown plague. <...>

We are continuing our course towards expanding our Organisation’s contacts with the Eurasian countries. Security in this geopolitical area and close interaction with integration associations within our shared space matters a lot to us.

Anyone who has been closely following recent developments is aware that threats in Eurasia are significantly up which requires us to make additional efforts. <...>

We must work with our closest neighbours and partners from the #CIS and the #SCO. The SCO has a substantial programme aimed at strengthening stability and security. Recently, the secretaries-general of the CSTO, the CIS, and the SCO approved a roadmap that provides for, among other things, holding joint conferences on security issues in Central Asia and Afghanistan in Moscow. <...>

We attach great importance to strengthening the Organisation’s military component. The programme of our chairmanship which was presented by President Putin places emphasis on increasing the combat potential of the CSTO’s collective forces and equipping them with modern and interoperable weapons and military equipment. <...>

We will pay special attention to the Organisation’s peacekeeping forces, including refining the regulatory framework governing CSTO participation in UN peacekeeping operations. <...>

We are likewise focusing on strengthening cooperation in international information security.

We intend to expand the toolset for jointly countering international terrorism and extremism, combatting terrorism financing, money laundering, drug trafficking, transnational organised crime, and illegal migration.

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Russia's EMERCOM:

🇷🇺🇱🇧 On April 21, a special Il-76 flight operated by Russia’s EMERCOM delivered humanitarian aid to the people of Lebanon affected by the military conflict.

27 tonnes of relief supplies, including mobile power stations, food, tents, blankets, mattresses and pillows, was delivered to Beirut on the instructions of President of Russia Vladimir Putin and EMERCOM Head Alexander Kurenkov.

The humanitarian cargo was transferred to authorised representatives of the Lebanese Government.

#RussiaLebanon #RussiaHelps