Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remarks at a working meeting with heads of foreign media bureaus accredited in Russia

 15 February 2023 22:37

 , Moscow, February 15, 2023

285-15-02-2023

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Colleagues,

Sorry about the delay. Today, the State Duma held the Government Hour, during which a lot of attention was given to foreign policy issues and many questions were asked.

Thank you for accepting our invitation. It has become traditional to hold these informal meetings.

I know many of you personally. We had an opportunity to talk during the large  news conference held in January. I think we had a good dialogue then. Today we can continue in the same positive spirit.

We are open to communication with the foreign media community. Yours truly and  another member of our staff – Maria Zakharova, as well as deputy ministers, department directors and ambassadors are always open to communication and ready to put forth our views and the truth as we see it. We are always at your disposal.

At the same time, we hope that everything you hear and learn from us will be objectively reported to your audiences, namely, information about our foreign policy, the measures taken by the Russian Government domestically to neutralise the negative impact of the sanctions that are part of the total hybrid economic, cultural and humanitarian war being waged against us. Your readers who are interested in the current developments probably want to have first-hand information, in addition to what they can read about us in your home countries.

I am sure that honest journalists, just like honest diplomats, value their reputation and try to cover events objectively and comprehensively, especially when presenting their views to your and our audiences.

Russian reports and publications are based on hard facts. I hope you agree that a great deal of facts about the developments in and around Ukraine are provided in Russia. All of them are backed by proof. This information must be taken to the end users who are being swamped with speculations, fake news and materials that distort reality. Telling the truth is especially important now for you and for us, diplomats.

We try to make sure that our work with foreign journalists is as efficient, straightforward and simple as possible. We organise regular press tours all over the country to help you see how our country and its regions and people live. Most of them are open, friendly and willing to communicate. Over the past few years, we have organised some 60 press tours around our regions. This is a lot. We will continue this useful and promising project. I would like to invite you to join the next press tour, which we will announce soon.

We are not doing this to set ourselves apart from Western countries. They do not encourage practices of this kind, all while positioning themselves as beacons of democracy. In reality, what they are doing is censorship. They are cleansing their media space from alternative points of view and are fighting dissent in all its manifestations. They are trying to cancel Russian journalists and media outlets by labelling them Kremlin’s mouthpieces. The ugly situation with two major media outlets, RT and Sputnik, provides a telling example. It was not the special military operation that led to the onslaught of censorship and discrimination against them. The Élysée Palace officially denied RT and Sputnik accreditation five years ago, and it was President of France Emmanuel Macron himself who explained that the move was caused by the fact that they were not media outlets, but “agents of influence and a source of misleading propaganda.”

The hybrid war in all its manifestations, including its military, economic, cultural and media components, started long before the current events. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg admitted this when he said yesterday, with childlike innocence, that they started getting ready for war back in 2014, that is when they enabled neo-Nazis and Russophobes, those who staged a government coup to come to power. The first thing they did was declare war on everything Russian and announced a campaign to expel Russians from Crimea. He said that it was then that our NATO colleagues started to get ready for a war against Russia.

Talking about RT and Sputnik, they were listed as foreign agents in the United States – it was the United States that initiated this move. Once again, it happened five years before the special military operation begun. This was also part of the information warfare, which in turn is an integral part of the ongoing hybrid war.

A week ago, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, said in public and without any qualms that banning certain Russian media from working in Europe amounted to defending the freedom of expression. What do you think about that? I am convinced that we know the principles of free journalism rather well, and we know what RT and Sputnik are doing. If you see any blatant violations of the freedom of speech in what they do, we would be interested in hearing examples from you during today’s meeting.

We believe that this demonstrates extreme intolerance towards the plurality of opinions, which is one of the core tenets of classic liberalism, even if you side with the neoliberals when fighting for the truth. In legal terms, the effort to cancel Russian-language media is a blatant violation of the obligations all the Western countries assumed within the OSCE to ensure media freedom and equal access to information in all OSCE countries. This principle covers access to information when its sources are located both inside and outside of the country in question.

Let me add an interesting fact. France, the very country that expelled RT and Sputnik from the Élysée Palace by declaring that they were Russian propaganda mouthpieces, was the main force behind the adoption of this commitment regarding access to information back in 1990. The OSCE enacted this obligation to provide unrestricted access to information sources in 1990, when the Soviet Union was about to disappear. At the time, the West believed that the “end of history” has come, and that the United States, the European Union and NATO would be the only ones to define the rules governing humanity, including what information people receive. This is why they were proactive in imposing this decision within the OSCE on the USSR in order to remove all barriers to accessing information. However, when Russia emerged from the period of turbulence and created media outlets with genuine independence and a commitment to impartiality, our Western partners and primarily France thought that this was inconvenient for them. They had a hard time swallowing this truth, proving along the way that misleading audiences has become a norm for Western governments, while viewing any information questioning the official government line as an inconvenience. The Soviet leadership acted in much the same way in its time by seeking to shield itself from Western news agencies and allowing only loyal Communist media outlets to operate in our media space. We are witnessing the same Orwellian trends today in the way the Western governments seek to keep the media in check.

Just look at the way the West reacted to the detailed and evidence-based findings by Seymour Hersh in the wake of the Nord Stream explosions. Imagine something like that was ascribed to Russia in relation to the Canada-US oil pipeline. You wouldn't have much else to write about then, because all you would be forced to do is cover that incident. What we have here is a sensation backed by facts. We have long assumed that the facts existed. Hersh is a serious journalist who does not take back the things he says or the results of his investigation. On the contrary, he confirms them every day and calls out the people he mentioned in his investigation. The reaction? None.

As you may recall, it took just two days to expel 150 Russian diplomats from Europe and the United States after British Prime Minister Theresa May said that it was “highly likely” the Skripal family had been poisoned by the Russians. No one even thought about verifying this statement. It was enough just to say it. England forced the continental Europeans to expel Russian diplomats. Back then, I asked our colleagues in the EU, many of whom were uncomfortable about it, whether London had produced any evidence other than Theresa May's “highly likely” statement on the grounds that hardly anyone else had any motive. They were embarrassed to admit that no one from London had provided them with any evidence. All London said was banish them now, and we will provide evidence later. After a while, I spoke with the same people from the EU and asked them whether they had been provided with any evidence after all. They cast down their eyes and said no. This is how propaganda works when the Anglo-Saxons need it.

Is Seymour Hersh's evidence less convincing than the babbling that we heard in connection with Salisbury or Navalny, whose medical examination results have remained off-limits to us thus far? They are not even talking about “highly likely” in that case. We're told they have medical test results that prove he had been poisoned. But they will not let us have them, because that Russian citizen does not want us to have them. Later, they told us that this information was submitted to the OPCW and was now owned by it. We reached out to the OPCW citing the Germans and asked the OPCW to share this information with us. We were told that, indeed, the Germans had given them the test results, but they cannot disclose them in full. They released a meaningless extract from the tests which didn’t make things any clearer. This is a mockery of common sense and freedom of speech.

Taking a question about whether there will be an investigation into Seymour Hersh's reports about the causes and the people behind the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 explosions posed by one of your colleagues today, the UN Secretary-General’s spokesperson said they didn’t have the authority to engage in investigations. Take a look at the materials dating back three to four months, when we pointed out that the UN Secretary-General does not have the authority to conduct an investigation at the request of one or two countries. It was after yet another chemical incident in Syria or somewhere else. It is readily available online. Then Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo (who, incidentally, is a US citizen) said that they were conducting an investigation on behalf of the Security Council, the General Assembly or the UN member states. We said that member states cannot commission an investigation. This is a legal procedure and rules must be followed, and only the UN Security Council can do that. We were told that a request by member states is all that was needed.

The Russian Federation, a member country, addressed the Secretariat in connection with the article by Seymour Hersh and requested an investigation. This became a dominant issue on the agenda of international discussions. We shall see how Antonio Guterres, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, French citizen Stéphane Dujarric, and Deputy Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, US citizen Farhan Haq, will be able to formulate a logical approach following recent statements by Rosemary A. DiCarlo, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, that the Secretariat has the right to conduct investigations at the request of member countries. I am being ironic, but my irony is based on outrageous facts.

The Western attempts to privatise UN secretariats (we can see this at the OPCW and the OSCE) exceeds all diplomatic and human ethics. Specific proceedings are being forcibly altered. They are pressuring the OPCW Technical Secretariat to do what it is expressly forbidden to do by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) (they have no right to allocate guilt). All they can do is determine whether a banned chemical substance had been used or not. All other possible actions should be the subject of a consensus-based addendum to the CWC.

Several years ago, the minority of the Convention’s signatory states voted for a document allowing them to point a finger at the Syrian Arab Republic and to justify an outright and brazen simulation staged by the White Helmets. Their laughable evidence (they extracted boys without masks from basements, hosed them down and said they were saving children from a chemical attack) was seen as sufficient legal grounds for an investigation and for passing a verdict.

Seymour Hersh lists specific facts and dates when the White House and other divisions of the US administration reviewed this matter. His written revelations coincide with the actual events recorded at pipelines. The UN is saying that it does not have the authority to investigate. All countries through whose economic zones Nord Stream pipelines pass have been completely silent for the past six months.

Since September 2022, Sweden and Denmark have failed to reply to official letters from the Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail Mishustin, who politely suggested appointing a contact with whom it would be possible to negotiate because the incident happened in Swedish and Danish territorial waters and in their exclusive economic zone. Moreover, a Russian company owns the pipelines. I am sure you are guided by journalist ethics: you feel obliged to respond when someone contacts you, even if your response will be negative. Since September 2022, the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation has been expecting a reply from fully independent and sovereign states. Russian ambassadors remind the prime ministers of these countries approximately once a month that the Russian side had contacted them. They could at least have replied that they had received the request but that they are very busy. They haven’t even done that. I believe that this rude behaviour shows a complete failure to conceal the responsibility of the US-led collective West for this act of sabotage and for organising this terrorist attack.

Seymour Hersh has identified the goal. The main goal was to prevent Germany from feeling comfortable in the energy sphere and from receiving gas via these two pipelines, which were financed by companies in Russia, Germany, Austria and Italy. They have spit in the face of many European companies, just like the US did when its National Security Agency tapped the phones of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, as was the case awhile back. This is an undisputed fact, which everyone has recognised. The chancellor of Germany did not behave like the leader of a major EU country but like the head of the government in an occupied state.

The same is happening now on a larger scale. Germany has not simply been humiliated; it has been put in its place as a satellite of the United States, which decides if Belin can ensure its economic development and satisfy its citizens’ social needs by using gas transported via pipelines that Germany itself has co-financed. They have been told to forget about the money, which has been done away with. US President Joe Biden said in January 2022 that there would be no Nord Stream. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said so, too. Former UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss expressed her joy in the social media immediately after the terrorist attack. My former Polish colleague, Radoslaw Sikorski, tweeted, “Thank you, USA.” Less than a month ago, Victoria Nuland said, in the US Congress, that she, like the senators, was gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 was a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea. Isn’t this a clear admission, an acknowledgement of guilt?

The funny part is that none of the Western media are writing about this. Seymour Hersh is trying to make the truth known in the social media and on some internet channels, but the mainstream media are keeping silent, as far as I know. It is a sentence passed by the collective West and the United States on themselves with regard to their “rules.” They tell the world to forget about international law and the UN, which is allegedly made up of autocrats, while they create a “democratic system” where they will invite those they want, to live according to the “rules” on which the world order must be based.

These current events are a vivid example of the “rules” invented by those who do not care about the serious problems they are creating for many countries, including the US’s closest allies. They say that Russia is creating a food and energy security crises. I have no doubt whatsoever about your professionalism. You know the facts as provided by the WHO, UNDP and UNFAO about the beginning of the food crises. When the Covid pandemic hit the world, the collective West, acting in the best colonial traditions, started buying up foods for a rainy day and printed trillions of dollars and euros for that purpose.

Poor countries did not get anything then, just like today. New statistics were released today: the poorest African countries received about 10 percent, and half went to the European Union. They are building up their food reserves. Some of it will probably go to third world countries, but they would have to pay for it. Many of the things resulting from what we refer to as the West’s “rules” are quite perplexing. It took them quite some time to get there. The pipeline explosions resolved the German gas issue once and for all. They are now trying to find a final solution to the Russian issue. By the same token, they wanted to resolve the German issue so that Berlin never tries assuming an independent role in the foreseeable future.

There is a wide body of research on European history concluding that Europe had more calm stability when Russia and Germany had normal relations and engaged in joint projects in economics, logistics and even military affairs. However, those who wanted to rule this continent from overseas or from the other side of the English Channel (which was even more relevant for many historical periods), could not live in peace. They wanted to prevent Germany from emerging as the leading European force propelled into this position partially with reliable energy supplies it bought from Russia at affordable, competitive prices which allowed the German economy to achieve higher growth rates.

Today, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, and High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell keep saying that the West has weathered the Russian sanctions well. What sanctions? The West banned us from selling oil and gas. They did leave some loopholes out of pity for themselves and to the extent the Americans allowed the Western countries in Europe to do it. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that they had “won.”

Here is my message for the independent media. I have not seen any assessment, at least approximately, of the extent to which Europe has had to pay a higher price to cover its energy needs. Just count the numbers. You will not find information in any statistical report or document from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development or any other institute on how much Europe spent for oil and gas imports a year ago, or this year, and how much it will spend next year. All we see is posturing with reports claiming that they replaced Russian oil and gas and everything will be fine. But at what cost for the German, French (to a lesser extent), Austrian or other economies whose energy sources are mainly oil and gas based?

After all, no one is preventing you from carrying out a journalist investigation, right? You can take Antonio Guterres’ place and try to get to the bottom of Seymour Hersh’s revelations. You do not have Stefane Dujarric by your side, who coincidentally is a French national, to decide whether the UN has the authority to carry out an investigation. I think a journalist investigation would be quite appropriate. Seymour Hersh is a respected journalist. Someone said Ned Price disparaged an investigation by a Pulitzer Prize winner by saying that they do not respond to utter and complete nonsense. This demonstrates all the respect the US Department of State spokesperson has for those with whom he works. Since not all of you report to Ned Price, you might give this investigation a try.

 https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1854408/