“Colonial habits have not disappeared anywhere”: Lavrov in an interview with RT Arabic - about the mentality of the West, the Arab East and Ukraine

• Lavrov on the position of the Arab countries on Ukraine

— How do you assess the position of the Arab countries on the Ukrainian crisis?

All Arab countries take a responsible position.

They prove that they rely solely on their national interests and are not ready to sacrifice these national interests for the sake of anyone's geopolitical opportunistic adventures.

We have a very respectful relationship.

We respect the interests, the fundamental interests of the Arab countries in connection with the threats to their security.

And they reciprocate with us, they understand the threats to the security of the Russian Federation that the West has been creating right on our borders for decades, trying to use Ukraine to contain Russia, to inflict serious damage on us.

- Are you sure that the position of the Arab states is strong, to follow their own national interests first of all, despite the pressure of the "Anglo-Saxon club"?

- The impudence of the Anglo-Saxon alliance knows no limits, we are convinced of this every day.

Instead of following its obligations under the UN Charter and respecting, as it is written there, the sovereign equality of states, refusing to interfere in their internal affairs, the West on a daily basis through its ambassadors, through its emissaries to every capital without exception - not only the Arab world, but also in other regions - sends ultimatums, blackmails rudely.

Including blackmailing on the basis of certain subjective situations and directly threatening his interlocutors ... that they will regret and be punished if they do not join the sanctions against Russia.

This is blatant disrespect for sovereign states.

And the reaction that we see from the Arab countries, and from practically all other states of Asia, Africa, Latin America, shows that these countries do not want to sacrifice their national dignity, if you like, and run around like servants to complete tasks " senior comrades.

The situation once again shows that the colonial thinking and colonial habits of our Western colleagues have not disappeared anywhere.

And that both the United States in its style and Europe in its historical style still think in colonial categories - when they have the right to dictate to everyone else.

It's bad, it's sad.

This goes against the historical process, which objectively lies in the fact that a multipolar world is now being formed.

It has several centers of economic growth, financial power, and political influence.

China, India - everyone already understands that these are, of course, the fastest growing economies and influential countries.

Of course, Brazil and other Latin American countries.

In Africa, the potential of its colossal, richest natural resources was held back by the colonialists and held back by the period of neo-colonialism that has not yet ended.

Therefore, Africa is also now raising its voice.

And I have no doubts that one of the pillars, one of the centers of the multipolar world that is now being formed, objectively is the Arab East.

About American biolabs in Ukraine

— The issue of the US development of biological weapons in Ukraine, according to the data presented by Russia, obtained during the NWO in Ukraine, practically did not cause any concern either in the UN Security Council or in the Western information space.

What will Russia do with the obtained evidence?

“This is a direct violation of the biological convention, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.

Within the framework of this convention, for many years, with the support of all other countries except the United States, we have been advocating the creation of a transparent universal verification mechanism that will allow all states to make sure that none of the participants in the convention violates its obligations.

This initiative has been categorically blocked by the United States since 2001, for more than 20 years.

Which (we now understand why they take such a position) in parallel all these years ... created military biological laboratories around the world.

This is done by a division of the Pentagon - the Threat Reduction Agency.

And in developing a network of such military biological laboratories, the Pentagon pays special attention to the post-Soviet space and Eurasia as a whole.

If you look at the available data on where such laboratories have been created and are being created, this is primarily along the perimeter of the Russian Federation and closer to the People's Republic of China.

The experiments that are being carried out in these laboratories - we initially suspected that they were not entirely peaceful and not quite so innocent.

In Mariupol, which was liberated as part of a military operation by the Russian armed forces, along with the militia of the Donetsk and Lugansk (People's Republics. -

), laboratories were discovered that the Americans hastily left, tried to destroy documents, samples, but not all of them managed to destroy .

And the available samples of pathogens that were preserved there, the available documents clearly showed the military orientation of the experiments that were carried out there.

From the same documents it is clear that there are more than a dozen such laboratories in Ukraine.

And we will strive to ensure that all this information that we presented to the UN Security Council is, first of all, taken seriously.

And you noted that the vast majority of developing countries have this attitude towards it.

And secondly, that this information form the basis of specific actions to be taken under the Biological Weapons Convention.

And these actions require explanations from the United States of what they were doing there.

On the position of the West in relation to the events in Ukraine

— Turkey and Italy offer mediation in the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis.

What can you say about the announced initiatives?

Is Russia ready to continue the negotiation process with Ukraine?

- As for Turkey and Italy.

Turkey does not have a plan, at least no one gave it to us.

But President Erdogan regularly emphasizes that Turkey is ready to provide its platform, as it did in Istanbul on March 29.

And in fact it was such a very useful contact.

Because, let me remind you once again, for the first time, in response to our numerous requests, the Ukrainians there presented their vision of a peace treaty on paper.

Which we adopted and translated it into legal language.

Then I explained to you.

Therefore, President Erdogan stands only for peace.

And I'm ready to help in every possible way.

But you see, Zelensky said that he does not need intermediaries.

Well, it's his business.

He has seven Fridays in a week.

Then he needs all the countries of the "seven".

Now there has been information that former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, at the request of the Ukrainians, is creating some kind of group that will prepare guarantees for Ukraine in the context of a peaceful settlement.

But let me remind you that the original concept, which the Ukrainians themselves promoted, was that there would be a single treaty that would contain Ukraine's obligations not to join blocs, non-possession of nuclear weapons, guarantees of a neutral status, and at the same time guarantor countries in the same treaty provide Ukraine with certain guarantees with full regard for the security interests of Ukraine, the Russian Federation, and other countries in the region.

Now, as I said, Kyiv is pulling away from this concept.

And if this Fogh Rasmussen was called in to make certain guarantees in a narrow circle of Western sponsors of the Ukrainian regime, and then try to present this to the Russian Federation, this is a dead end.

Are these unofficial documents?

- We are now dealing with this, but it has already been promoted as some kind of breakthrough step.

The same applies to the Italian initiative.

Mr. Luigi Di Maio has been so active in the media space and is promoting the Italian four-point initiative.

We just read about it.

We have read that this is an initiative that can bring peace to the long-awaited.

Which can not only suit Russia and Ukraine, but also provide almost a new Helsinki process, new agreements on European security.

That it is already shared by the G7 countries, the UN Secretary General.

I don't know if it's true or not, to whom he showed it.

Nobody gave us anything.

We can only focus on those speculations, those descriptions of this initiative that appear in the media.

But what we are reading, if this is so, well, of course, it causes a feeling of regret about the understanding by the authors of this initiative of what is happening and about their knowledge of the subject, their knowledge of the history of this issue.

At least the fact that, as I understand from the description of your colleagues, it is about the fact that Crimea and Donbass should be part of Ukraine with broad autonomy granted to them.

Serious politicians who want to achieve results and are not engaged in self-advertising in front of their electorate cannot offer such things.

The Donbass could have returned to Ukraine a long time ago if the Ukrainian regimes, both the Poroshenko and Zelensky regimes, complied with the Minsk agreements and granted a special status to these people who refused to accept the anti-state coup.

There was a status... Russian language, first of all.

And instead of granting this status, the Russian language was banned throughout Ukraine.

Instead of unblocking economic ties, Poroshenko announced a blockade of these territories.

Transport.

To receive social benefits, the elderly had to overcome many kilometers.

This Italian initiative also says that, in addition to reconciliation between Russia and Ukraine, as the media report, it is necessary to launch a process, a new Helsinki process, to ensure the security of everyone and everything.

Our colleagues in Rome came to their senses a bit late.

Because the Helsinki process gave the world, gave our region, the Euro-Atlantic, a number of very important achievements.

Including declarations signed at the highest political level.

At the summits of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

In particular, in Istanbul in 1999, in Astana in 2010.

Declaration on the indivisibility of security.

That security can only be equal and indivisible.

And then there was such a detailed formula.

This assumes that each country, yes, has the right to choose its alliances.

But no country can choose to form alliances or otherwise strengthen its security if this would be detrimental to the security of any other country.

And the third component of this formula is that no country, no organization in the OSCE area will claim to dominate security issues.

Any person with even the slightest knowledge of the situation in Europe understands that the key components of this obligation are flagrantly violated by Western countries that strengthen security, as they see it, in flagrant violation of Russia's rights to its own security, and who claim that only NATO can order the music. in this region, and no one else.

And all these years we have been saying: our dear colleagues, this will all end badly.

Because you are simply ignoring our legitimate interests.

You ignore and even rudely tell us "no" when we ask that our legitimate interests be taken into account.

Not anywhere, for some tens of thousands of kilometers, but right on the borders of the Russian Federation.

And just compare this arrogance, this sense of superiority, this colonial mentality, when "everything is allowed to me, and you will do what I tell you."

It is manifested not only in the way they treat our interests.

When they need... Remember, in 1999, suddenly the United States decided that Yugoslavia posed a threat to their security.

Ten thousand kilometers from the coast of America.

Bombed just at the moment.

They used an American who headed the OSCE mission, such was Walker, who loudly declared genocide the discovery of several corpses in the village of Rachik.

As it turned out later, these corpses were not civilians, but militants.

They were dressed in civilian clothes and scattered.

Just like it was done on April 23 this year in the city of Bucha near Kyiv.

The same scheme.

It works whether it convinces someone or not.

They didn't need to convince anyone.

They bombed Yugoslavia.

They created an independent Kosovo in violation of all the principles of the OSCE.

And they said, “This is how it will be.”

By the way, in Crimea after the referendum they said: “No, self-determination of Kosovo is right, but self-determination of Crimea is wrong.”

This is all done with a blue eye, as we say, no one even blushes with shame.

Although this is a disgrace for Western diplomacy, which has even lost the ability to somehow elegantly dissect the explanation for completely irresponsible adventures.

In 2003, the United States decided that another country 10,000 kilometers away posed a threat to them.

— Iraq.

“They showed me this vial of tooth powder, I think.

Poor Colin Powell later lamented that intelligence set him up.

And Tony Blair a few years later said: yes, we made a mistake, but what can we do.

Of course, nothing can be done.

Because they bombed the country, under a million civilians were killed.

Until now, the integrity of Iraq has not yet been finally strengthened, there are enough problems there.

And including the problems of terrorism.

Which didn't exist before.

Yes, there were authoritarian regimes, both in Iraq and Libya.

But there were no terrorists there.

There were no constant hostilities, no constant military provocations.

Libya is another example.

Also, already in 2011, the Americans... Well, the Americans then... Obama said: we will lead from behind Europe.

France, the most democratic country in the Old World - equality, fraternity, freedom - led the NATO operation to destroy the regime, and eventually destroyed the country.

Which is very difficult to collect now.

And again, the French are trying, showing some initiatives, convening conferences, announcing the dates of elections.

Everything is wasted.

Because first it was necessary to think about what would happen to Libya after the West ensured its security there.

Also on russian.rt.com "The situation remains very fragile": what is happening in Libya ten years after the start of the political crisis

I’m just citing this as an example, not to say: “Here, you can, but we can’t?”

This is a simplification.

I'm just illustrating the mentality of our Western states.

They believe that their security is the whole world and they should command the whole world.

Now look at NATO.

When NATO crawled up to our borders, they only said to us in response to our remarks: "Don't be afraid, NATO is a defensive alliance, and it does not threaten your security."

Firstly, this is also such a diplomatic impudence.

We ourselves must decide what is in the interests of our security.

Just like any other country.

And secondly, a defensive alliance - indeed, it was a defensive alliance, the North Atlantic Alliance, when it had someone to defend itself from.

When was the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.

There was the Berlin Wall.

It separated the west of Europe from the east of Europe.

The line of defense was clear to everyone.

When neither the Warsaw Pact nor the Soviet Union was gone, any elementary literate lieutenant would say that there was no longer a line of defense.

You just need to live normally - common values, common European space.

We have repeatedly signed all sorts of beautiful slogans: from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Lisbon to Vladivostok, now we are all brothers and sisters.

But they still retained their military essence, and continued to move the line of defense.

Close to our borders.

What this led to, we have just discussed with you in detail.