Lavrov: ‘We will get out of the crisis with rejuvenated psychology’
Russia wants to see Ukraine demilitarised and friendly
Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov met with Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmitro Kuleba in Turkey. The parties discussed humanitarian corridors and the possibility of a meeting between the two leaders of state, Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky, but, according to the Russian diplomat, ceasefire was not discussed.
Lavrov drew attention to that Russia had not attacked Ukraine:
“As for your question about whether we plan to attack other countries — we do not plan to attack other countries. We have not attacked Ukraine either. In Ukraine, we just... we've explained it many times. This creates a situation that creates direct threats to the security of the Russian Federation," the diplomat stated.
Lavrov recalled that Kyiv was preparing an attack on the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics for March 2022. Recently, the Ministry of Defence of Russia reported that the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation found secret documents of the command of the National Guard of Ukraine, which confirm this.
“Despite many years of our reminders, exhortations, appeals, suggestions, no one listened to us. President [of Russia Vladimir] Putin has repeatedly commented in great detail on this topic. And the new facts that are now being revealed in the liberated territories, in particular in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, indicate that an attack on these people's republics had been planned. It was planned carefully, it was already planned for this month," said the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.
According to the diplomat, Russia wants to see Ukraine demilitarised, friendly and without a ban on the Russian language. He did not comment on the course of the special operation, recalling that all data on it is provided by the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation. The assessment is also given by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is the supreme commander-in-chief, who “has repeatedly stressed that, in general, the special operation is going according to plan”.
As for the meeting of the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, Lavrov reminded that Putin has never refused contacts. He drew attention to that Moscow is always ready for meetings, “if we can achieve some added value and we can solve the problem”.
“We just want these contacts to be organised not for contacts themselves, but to record some specific agreements," Lavrov said.
Absolutely frenzied reaction of the West
Lavrov also spoke about the reaction of the West to Russia's special operation in Ukraine. He called it frenzied.
“Now the reaction of the West to our actions is so completely frenzied, I would say, forgive me for a rude word, it shows that there is really a life-and-death battle for Russia's right to be on the political map of the world with full respect for its legitimate interests," Lavrov believes.
The West reacts with anti-Russian sanctions and rejection or talks about a potential rejection of Russian oil, gas and other energy resources. The US, for example, have completely abandoned them.
“If they stop buying oil and gas, our Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who oversees the energy sector, told us in detail that we will not persuade them to buy our oil and gas. They want to replace it with something? Your choice! We will have markets for sales, and they already exist," Lavrov commented on the mood of Western countries.
Let us remind that Novak said that Russia was ready for the rejection of other states from Russian oil and gas. According to him, our country knows where to redirect these volumes, but warned that “the rejection of Russian oil will lead to disastrous consequences for the world market. The surge in prices will be unpredictable — more than $300 per barrel, if not more.”
“We will get out of the crisis with rejuvenated psychology”
As for the sanctions, through which Western countries show their disapproval of the Russian special operation, Russia is not afraid of them. Lavrov is confident that the country will cope with it, as it has happened before “throughout our history”.
“We will get out of the crisis with rejuvenated psychology. We will have no illusions that the West believes its own spells when talking about its values and we will have no illusions that the West will betray at any moment, betray anybody, betray its own values: have you ever seen private property to be tarnished on cue?” thinks the head of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He added that the state’s authorities would make every effort “to no longer depend on the West in those areas of our lives that have decisive meaning for our people.”
“We are really concerned the Pentagon created several tens of military and biological laboratories”
Lavrov also touched on the USA’s biological activity in Ukraine in his speech. Moscow has already sent an official request to Washington and is waiting for a reply from the American authorities:
“We are really concerned about the information that the Pentagon created several tens of military and biological laboratories on the Ukrainian territory within its programme on the creation of such military and biological laboratories worldwide, violating a dedicated convention banning biological, toxin weapons. And we have sent an official request asking to explain this, we will demand an answer,” the head of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed.
Lavrov believes that the weapon created in Ukrainian laboratories was obviously not intended to use for peaceful purposes. He considers that a biological weapon was created there.
“I don’t have the data on if they have already used their weapon, but there is almost no doubt that these weren’t absolutely peaceful experiments but experiments aimed to create a biological weapon, moreover, an ethnically oriented weapon so to speak,” he claimed.
According to the latest information of the Russian Ministry of Defence, there were done experiments on bats’ coronavirus samples in the biological laboratories in Ukraine. Also, an analysis of documents Russia possesses demonstrated that the American side planned to work on pathogens of birds, bats and reptiles in Ukraine in 2022 with a further transition to the examination of the possibility of infecting them with African swine fever and anthrax.
Lavrov doesn’t want to believe the possibility of a nuclear war
Lavrov touched on the nuclear war again. Earlier, he had repeatedly said if a third world war broke out, it would certainly be nuclear. However, he doesn’t want to believe its possibility.
“I don’t want to believe and I don’t believe it. I am drawing your attention to the fact that first of all NATO members have raised the nuclear topic in the context of the events unfolding in Ukraine in the last few years and that have aggravated in the last months and weeks to this discourse,” claimed the Russian minister of foreign affairs.
Talks have been both easy and difficult
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba decided not to hold a press conference after the talks and just confined himself to make several statements.
“They [the talks] have been easy and difficult. They have been easy because Minister Lavrov followed traditional narratives on Ukraine. They have been difficult because I have done my best to find a diplomatic solution to the humanitarian tragedy unfolding on the battlefield,” RIA Novosti cites him. As Kuleba has said, he is there for these talks with two tasks:
“The first one is to organise a humanitarian corridor from and to Mariupol. This is the most difficult city now from a perspective of the humanitarian situation. And the second one is to agree on at least a 24-hour ceasefire to solve all problems.”
When it comes to the first issue, the foreign ministers agreed to continue trying to look for solutions to humanitarian problems on the ground. As for the second one, as Ukraine’s foreign minister said, they didn’t manage to make progress.
Also, Kuleba claimed that Kyiv didn’t intend to meet the requirements made by Russia though it was ready for diplomatic solutions. The diplomat said that Lavrov offered to hold trilateral consultations with experts from the IAEA, Russia and Ukraine on nuclear security.
Russia’s special operation in Ukraine started on 24 February. It was preceded by Moscow’s recognition of the independence of the DPR and LPR. Realnoe Vremya is staying tuned for the events. Read all the details in a special report of the online newspaper.