The United States and European powers have a habit of not fulfilling their obligations, with the West essentially being an “empire of lies,” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during his address at the UN General Assembly.
“Having grown accustomed to looking down on the rest of the world, the Americans and the Europeans keep making promises and taking on obligations, including those of the written and legally binding variety, and then simply do not fulfill them. As Russian President Vladimir Putin previously said, the West is a veritable ‘empire of lies’,” Lavrov said.
The Russian foreign minister also took note of the sentiment voiced by several other speakers who addressed the UN General Assembly before him, about the world undergoing irreversible changes.
“A new world order is being born before our very eyes,” he remarked. “The outlines of the future are being created in the struggle between the global majority, that seeks a fairer distribution of global riches and a civilizational diversity, and those few who use neocolonial methods of subjugation to retain their vanishing domination.”
The inability to negotiate and refusal to accept the principles of equality have long become the West’s trademark of sorts, Lavrov added.
"A series of recent joint exercises between the United States and European NATO allies, including scenarios involving the use of nuclear weapons on the territory of Russia, has been unprecedented since the end of the Cold War," Lavrov said during his address at the UN General Assembly.
“The declared goal is to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia, and this obsession has completely blinded the eyes of irresponsible politicians who feel a sense of their own impunity, while at the same time losing an elementary sense of self-preservation,” Lavrov added.
US, Western Allies Continue to Fuel Conflicts
The United States and its Western allies continue to fuel international conflicts that divide the world.
"For Russia, it is obvious that there is no other way. However, the United States and its subordinate 'Western collective' continue to fuel conflicts that artificially divide humanity into hostile blocs and prevent the achievement of common goals. They are doing everything to prevent the formation of a truly multipolar, just world order," Lavrov said during his address at the UN General Assembly.
The head of the Russian Foreign Ministry recalled that in 2021, Russian proposals for mutual security guarantees in Europe without changing the non-bloc status of Ukraine were “arrogantly rejected.” “The West continued to systematically militarize the Russophobic Kiev regime, which was brought to power as a result of a bloody coup and was used to prepare for the outbreak of a hybrid war against our country,” the minister noted.
As Lavrov emphasized, Western leaders have never been embarrassed that NATO’s approach to the borders of the Russian Federation grossly violates the OSCE commitments taken at the highest level not to strengthen their own security at the expense of others, and also not to allow military-political dominance in Europe by any country or group countries or organizations. “The Soviet and then Russian leadership were given specific political assurances regarding the non-expansion of the NATO military bloc to the east. The corresponding records of the negotiations are in our and Western archives. They are freely available. But these assurances of Western leaders turned out to be a deception; they had no intention of fulfilling them,” the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs highlighted.
On Situation in the Balkans
The sad story of the non-fulfillment of the Minsk agreements on the Donbass republics is repeating itself with Serbia and Kosovo, Lavrov said.
"The whole world sees how the sad history of the Minsk agreements on Ukraine, which envisioned a special status for the Donbass republics and which Kiev openly sabotaged with Western support, is repeating itself in the Balkans. And now the European Union does not want to force its Kosovo proteges to implement the 2013 agreements between Belgrade and Pristina on the creation of the Community of Serbian Municipalities of Kosovo, which has special rights to its language and traditions," he stated.
"NATO providing arms and assistance to the Albanians of Kosovo in building an army of their own is a gross violation of the fundamental resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council," Lavrov remarked.
He also criticized the incessant attempts by the “Western minority” to “Ukrainize” the agenda of international discussions and thus effectively put on a back burner matters related to a number of “unresolved regional crises, many of which drag on for years and even decades.”
On Situation in the Korean Peninsula
Russia is concerned by the fact that the US and its allies are escalating the situation on the Korean Peninsula, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Saturday.
"The escalation of military hysteria by Washington and its Asian allies on the Korean Peninsula, where US strategic capabilities are accumulating, is alarming. Russian-Chinese initiatives to prioritize humanitarian and political tasks are rejected," Lavrov said during his address at the UN General Assembly.
Influence of Global South Growing
The United States and its allies should recognize the real economic and financial weight of the Global South countries, Russia's top diplomat said.
"Overall, there is an urgent need to reform the existing global governance architecture as soon as possible. It has long failed to meet the requirements of the era. The United States and its allies should abandon artificial restraints on the redistribution of voting quotas in the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and the World Bank, recognizing the real economic and financial weight of the countries of the Global South. The work of the WTO [World Trade Organization] Dispute Settlement Body should also be immediately unblocked," Lavrov said during his address at the UN General Assembly.
US and EU Destabilizing South Caucasus
The European Union and the United States are destabilizing the region of the South Caucasus, trying to enforce their mediation upon Armenia and Azerbaijan.
"Now Brussels is imposing its 'mediation services' on Azerbaijan and Armenia, bringing destabilization to the South Caucasus together with Washington," the top Russian diplomat said at the UN General Assembly.
He added that Russian peacekeepers will contribute in every possible way to the de-escalation and establishment of peaceful life in Nagorno-Karabakh.