🇷🇺🇧🇮 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks and answers to media questions at a joint news conference following talks with Minister of Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperation of the Republic of Burundi Albert Shingiro

📍 Sochi, March 23, 2023

✅ We have coordinated the practical moves needed to boost our trade and economic cooperation and cultural ties. We discussed promising areas such as the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

✅ One of our priorities is healthcare, including in the context of dealing with the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and preparing for the possibility of outbreaks of other infectious diseases. Head of the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor) Anna Popova has recently visited Burundi, where a cutting-edge biolaboratory with Russian equipment was opened at the National Centre for Public Health.

✅ We reaffirmed the convergence of positions on most current issues across the international agenda. We noted our Burundian partners’ decision to support Russia’s initiatives at the 77th session of the UN General Assembly. We appreciate their balanced stance at the UN during consideration of the situation in Ukraine.

#NordStream

💬 I think the first portion of Mr. Hersh’s findings caused quite a shock among the Western countries.

With regard to the national investigations conducted by the Swedes, Danes and Germans. <...> I think these countries would be okay with what we in Russia describe as putting it to bed and leaving everyone none the wiser. We do not expect these investigations to be transparent or the general public ever becoming aware of their results.

We submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council asking the UN Secretary-General to conduct an impartial, objective and transparent investigation with broad participation of international experts. China is supportive of this approach. The Americans’ reaction was nervous. I would even say their behaviour looks like panic.

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#RussiaBurundi #RussiaAfrica

🇷🇺🇧🇮 On March 23, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperation of the Republic of Burundi Albert Shingiro, who was in Russia on a working visit, held talks in Sochi.

The Foreign Ministers discussed in detail the current issues of further strengthening the traditionally friendly Russian-Burundian relations. They confirmed the willingness of Moscow and Gitega to deepen their political dialogue, build up mutually beneficial cooperation in trade, the economy, humanitarian sphere and other fields. They also reviewed prospects for the implementation of joint projects, particularly in peaceful nuclear energy, healthcare and education.

🤝 The Parties held a thorough and confidential exchange of views on issues on the international and African agenda that are of mutual interest with a focus on the settlement of regional conflicts, in particular the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic. The Ministers reaffirmed their interest in strengthening foreign policy coordination at the UN and other international venues.

Particular attention was paid to the development of Russian-African interaction in the context of preparations for the second #RussiaAfrica Summit in Saint Petersburg in July 2023.

#RussiaBurundi

#Opinion by Maria Zakharova

💬 “Canada will continue to stand with Ukraine <…> we will continue to support Ukrainians as they fight for their land, their sovereignty, their language, their territory, their future, their right to choose what their future will look like,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during an event to mark the opening of a new tire plant, standing against the backdrop of endless racks of tires in the province of Nova Scotia.

Dance, dance, everybody dance now.

First, why the tires? Was this a reference to the coup d'état and the Maidan power in Kiev? To cruel provocateurs and burning tires on Kiev’s Maidan (Independence Square)?

Second, where did the Ukrainians fighting ‘for their language’ part come from?! But of course, Trudeau was framed because a liberal leader like him couldn’t have known that whoever wrote his speech had copied that cliché from some manual. We’ll be happy to enlighten him: the Russian language has been banned in Ukraine, not vice versa. Russian is now being edited out of informal communication, business, educational, cultural, and media processes in that country.

The Ukrainian language, like every other language spoken in Russia, enjoys respect in our country and, accordingly, in the liberated territories. In Russia, there are media outlets in Ukrainian; this language is studied at schools and universities, it is spoken at home and on the streets, by anyone who wants to use it in daily life. After nine years, in the Russian Crimea, Ukrainian enjoys all the privileges of a language spoken by a group of Russian population, the same way as the Crimean Tatar and other languages.

But the people who were being executed by Poroshenko and Zelensky for many years – the residents of Donbass – did fight for their language, when the pro-American authorities in Kiev tried to forcibly Ukrainianise them as well as the people of Crimea.

The Russian language was never given official status in Ukraine, even though the majority of the population have been speaking Russian as their native tongue.

The utmost absurdity is that Trudeau himself lives in a bilingual country. He, of all people, must know what this language discrimination by fascist methods might lead to. But he doesn’t seem to understand, or does not want to understand anything, leaving it to Chrystia Freeland, a member of his team and the granddaughter of a Nazi underdog, to write speeches for him.

Third, Trudeau should rather get busy lobbying for decent places for Arabic and Chinese among the official languages in Canada. And the share of Russian is constantly growing too, for that matter.

https://yangx.top/MariaVladimirovnaZakharova/5080

🗓️ On March 26, 1956 the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research was established in Dubna

⚛️ World-famous scientific center, a unique example of the successful integration of fundamental theoretical experimental research with the development and application of the latest technologies and university education

Vladimir Putin gave an interview to journalist Pavel Zarubin of the Rossiya 1 TV channel. Main points:

🔸Moscow and Minsk agreed to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus without violating international obligations. On July 1, the construction of a storage facility for them will be completed there.

🔸Russia has something in response to the depleted uranium shells; it has hundreds of thousands of such munitions, but it is not using them yet.

🔸The West supplies weapons to Ukraine covertly, but the Russian military is trying to destroy them in the process of delivery; of course there is such a goal.

🔸The Russian military-industrial complex is developing at a very fast pace, which many did not expect. The domestic industry will produce three times more ammunition than Western countries supply to Ukraine; the total number of Russian army tanks will be three times higher than the number of tanks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

🔸The main focus of the talks with President of China Xi Jinping was the economy. China needs a stable supply of energy resources, and the Russian Federation is able to provide such stability. Both countries are striving to join forces in high-tech areas where they have high competitiveness.

🔸The President of China also paid a lot of attention to revealing the positive inception of the Chinese plan for a peaceful settlement in Ukraine.

🔸Russia and China are developing cooperation, including in the field of military-technical cooperation, but they are not creating a military alliance and do not threaten any countries.

🔸The growing dependence of Russia on China is not discussed by sceptics, but by envious people. “For example, the dependence of the European economy on China is growing at a much faster pace than Russia's. It is different, so they should rather think of themselves,” the President noted.

🔸The US is hurting itself by limiting the use of the dollar for politically biased reasons. Russia will expand the use of the currencies it considers reliable.

🔸The trip to Mariupol, which Vladimir Putin took last week, was long overdue. It was necessary to use the example of this city to see how the restoration has been proceeding.

🎙 On restoring the name of Patrice Lumumba to the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia

The Foreign Ministry welcomes the decision to restore the name of Patrice Lumumba, the world-famous fighter for the freedom and independence of Africa and a national hero of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University).

On March 23, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education assigned the relevant executive order. This was a long overdue and much awaited step towards restoring the historical truth of the times when the RUDN University was established. The reference is to Russia’s assistance in strengthening the sovereignty of independent states and training highly skilled national personnel.

This decision results from the joint efforts supported by the leadership of the Russian Federation and the public both in Russia and all over the world, including the African diplomatic corps in Moscow and RUDN alumni.

☝️ Restoring to the RUDN University its historical name is yet another sign of Russia attaching special importance to Africa in its foreign policy and a token of its firm determination to facilitate the emergence of a new and just system of international relations free from colonialism and neo-colonialism.

🌍 We are confident that this symbolic event, which takes place in the run-up to the second #RussiaAfrica Summit, will promote the further strengthening of the traditionally friendly ties between Russia and African nations.

🌾 Since the so-called ‘Grain Deal’ was signed back in July 2022 brokered by UN and Turkey some 26 million tonnes of products have been shipped via Ukraine’s ports of Odessa, Yuzhny and Chernomorsk, predominantly fodder corn and forage grain (70%), mostly to high (46%) and upper-middle (36%) income countries.

❗️The share of poorest nations receiving Ukrainian food amounts to only 2,5% and has tendency to decrease.

To compare the results of the 1st and the 2nd stage of the implementation of the Black Sea Grain Initiative:

➡️ the total volume of cargoes shipped under the deal GREW BY 23%
➡️ supplies of Ukrainian products to wealthy countries INCREASED from 78% to 85%
➡️ supplies of Ukrainian products to needy countries DECREASED from 4,2% to 1,34%.

❗️Which clearly indicates that Ukraine, US and EU do not care in the least for poorest nations and global food security in general, as they claim. They use the funds to uphold the criminal regime in Kiev and wage a proxy war against Russia as long as possible.

👉 Unlike the collective West, Russia has donated about 262,000 tonnes of fertilizers blocked in the ports of Latvia, Estonia, Belgium and the Netherlands, to poorest nations. 6 months into this decision, a single shipment amounting to 20,000 tonnes was delivered to Malawi. The second batch is being prepared to be sent to Kenya.

It needs to be emphasized: not only has Russia donated the fertilizers, it took over the transportation costs.

❗️At the same time the collective West continues blocking the implementation of the Russian part of the deal, despite Russian supplies would help avert or at least significantly relieve the looming food crisis across the world.

👉 The second 120-day validity period of the Black Sea Initiative on exporting Ukrainian food expired on March 18. Under the existing conditions, i.e. with the lack of progress in implementing the Russia-UN Memorandum on normalizing Russian agricultural exports, Moscow has decided to shorten the next renewal period to 60 days until May 18.

🇷🇺🤝 On January 1, 2023, Russia assumed the chairmanship of the Eurasian Economic Union (#EAEU), an organisation that united Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and our country in 2015.

Russia’s chairmanship has the following priorities:

• Developing the technological potential of the member states;
• Boosting interaction in digital transformation ;
• Developing the agricultural sector;
• Creating common energy markets ;
• Harmonising the financial markets;
• Equalising the competitive environment for the union’s enterprises.

In the past eight years, the EAEU member states have done a lot to eliminate the barriers to the movement of goods, services, capital and labour between the countries of the union. In most sectors, common markets have already been created and are operating successfully. In 2022, three of the 11 listed barriers were removed, and another four more will be lifted in the near future.

📈 In 2022, the EAEU member states managed to improve the following indicators as compared to 2021:

✅ Agricultural production grew by 9.4 percent and reached 11.5 trillion roubles;
✅ Grain production went up by 27 percent and reached almost 187 million tonnes;
✅ Fixed capital investment increased by 5.3 percent in 9 months, reaching 18.5 trillion roubles;
✅ Mutual trade grew by 10.3 percent;
✅ The number of completed construction projects increased by 5 percent (14.2 trillion roubles).

In 2022, the GDP of the EAEU was 173 trillion roubles.

👉 The EAEU space has all the necessary conditions for stable and comfortable work. After the launch of the common labour market, the residents of the union got the opportunity to travel between the EAEU countries with minimal difficulties; equal employment opportunities were created for all citizens of the member states in the EAEU space.

☝️ In addition, over 75 percent of mutual settlements between the EAEU countries have already been switched to national currencies.

#Eurasia4You

🎙 Briefing by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Moscow, March 23, 2023

🔹 FM Sergey #Lavrov’s schedule
🔹 #UkraineCrisis
🔹 NATO and EU military supplies to Ukraine
🔹 Monks of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church evicted from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra
🔹 The recent decisions by the International Criminal Court and questions asked in this connection
🔹 The anniversary of NATO’s aggression against Yugoslavia
🔹 Hearings on MH17 plane crash

And much more.

📚Read in full: https://is.gd/Z7sLtU

Talking points:

#Ukraine

The decision to evict the monks of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, approved by Ukraine’s political leadership, is the peak of Kiev’s years-long anti-church policy.

These actions violate at least a dozen universally recognised international legal documents on the freedom of belief.

#ICC

The ICC discredited itself long ago. It carries out political orders of its sponsors. It is also clear who these sponsors are. They are the Western countries. This has nothing to do with justice.

Russia does not cooperate with the International Criminal Court, nor will it ever do so, despite calls we are hearing from them.

#DepletedUranium

The UK decision to supply Ukraine with depleted uranium munitions, show that neither Kiev nor its Western handlers are interested in resolving the conflict.

They do not care what their scorched-earth tactics are doing to Ukraine. They’re now turning it into a source of radiation pollution.

❗️On NATO and EU military supplies to Ukraine
(from the briefing by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Moscow, March 23, 2023)

💬 Maria Zakharova: We hear daily reports by the Western media about the growing supplies of weapons, ammunition and military equipment sent to the Kiev regime by the United States, the EU and their satellites.

The 🇬🇧 UK's announcement about the depleted uranium munition supplies to the Kiev regime is changing the situation, no questions asked. Now, neither the neighbouring states, nor the states of the region will be able to control the impact of the used guns and shells. It simply cannot be done.

***
👉 We have conducted research and summed up the publicly available data about the volume and range of supplies by NATO and the EU countries and weapons and military equipment to Ukraine.

Since February 2022, the United States alone has supplied the Kiev neo-Nazi regime with weapons and military equipment worth $33 billion, the UK $5.2 billion, Germany $2.8 billion, and Poland $2.3 billion. The supplies include tanks and armoured vehicles, artillery systems, multiple launch rocket systems, and unmanned aerial vehicles. According to official statements, NATO countries have allocated at least $65 billion and the EU countries over $12 billion towards this end.

Since February 2022, the Ukrainian military has used about 110,000 munitions against the DPR and LPR, including tactical missiles, attack drones, various MLRS missiles and large-calibre artillery shells. More than 4,600 civilians (including almost 200 children) were killed in the DPR, LPR and the liberated regions of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions during this period, and several thousand people were wounded (more than 300 children among them).

☝️These statistics clearly demonstrate the scale of cynicism and violation of law by Western regimes, their disregard not only for human lives, but also for those theoretical developments that they call “human rights issues” & which they themselves created.

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The UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has released a report expressing concern over Ukraine church crackdown.

The apparent mistreatment of the Ukraine Orthodox Church (UOC) is something Russia has been repeatedly trying to draw international bodies’ attention to.

OHCHR cited several draft laws submitted to the Ukrainian parliament as well as the actions of the SBU, Ukraine’s domestic security agency, against the clergy. The report covers the period between August 2022 and January 2023, but more recent events highlight the grim situation with human rights in present-day Ukraine.

❗️The government of President Vladimir Zelensky is currently in the process of kicking UOC monks out of their homes at the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, an iconic monastery in the Ukrainian capital near the spot where in the year of 988 the ancient Rus was baptized.

Triumph of democracy❓

🎙 Russian MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s comment on a number of Western countries expressing concern over Russia-Belarus nuclear cooperation

💬 The inappropriate response by a number of Western capitals to the decisions to promote Russia-Belarus interaction in the military nuclear sphere cannot but cause astonishment.

❗️ There are undeniable facts indicating that it is the NATO countries that first introduced the concept of the so-called joint military operations and continued to follow it for decades. The concept is centred on the deployment of US nuclear weapons in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Türkiye.

It is also common knowledge that Washington has adjusted its military doctrine in recent years to lower nuclear employment thresholds with a focus on “limited scenarios.”

We note with concern the recent calls to store US nuclear air bombs in more European countries and bring the storage infrastructure closer to the borders of the Union State of Russia and Belarus.

It would be naïve to go on expecting that we will not take any military-technical countermeasures in this area in a situation where the West has unleashed a total hybrid war against Russia, with the US and NATO announcing their intention to inflict a “strategic defeat” on our country.

☝️ We reserved and still reserve the right to take the necessary additional steps to ensure the security of Russia and its allies.

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🎙 Explanation of vote by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia after UNSC vote on a draft resolution regarding the acts of sabotage at the Nord Stream pipeline (27 March 2023)

💬 I am afraid that after this vote the suspicion, who stands behind the sabotage at the Nord Stream, will but increase.

🌐 In plain view of the entire world, the United States and its allies did their best to preclude an objective international investigation regarding the blasts at the Nord Stream pipeline in September last year. First Washington make public threats at the highest level that they would blow up the pipe, then they scoffingly rejoiced at the news about the sabotage.

All calls by Russia as an affected side to join the national investigations in Denmark, Germany, and Sweden, were turned down.

<...>

❗️ When we raised the issue of an objective international investigation, the tactic of our American and European colleagues narrowed down to denying the involvement of the United States on the one hand and preventing a transparent and impartial inquiry into the circumstances of the sabotage on the other. The more evidence testifying to the involvement of Washington and its NATO allies came to surface, the more vocal the Western bloc was getting about alleged inexpediency of an international investigation.

This vote was a litmus test to show what world each of us is moving toward. Is it a world where international law is upheld and where there is accountability for attacks against international pipeline systems and other infrastructure? Or is it a world where there are states who can do whatever they like, who devise laws for everyone to follow while calling it a “rules-based order”, and who are never held accountable even for most reckless and dangerous actions?

☝️ We will draw our conclusions. We are convinced that more detailed facts are yet to be discovered, and that everyone who is complicit in the sabotage of the Nord Stream will be identified, as well as all details of this crime.

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🎙 Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s comment on an event convened by the United States under the pretext of supporting democracy around the world

💬 The United States plans to hold, on March 28-30, an international event which they call the Summit for Democracy. A similar meeting was held in December 2021.

This is, therefore, the second attempt by the current US administration to convene some kind of conference in order to - as Washington is portraying it - form a coalition of democratic states led by the United States.

We consider the US authorities’ claim to leadership in promoting democratic values on a global scale the height of hypocrisy since their reputation in this realm cannot even be called dubious. It has been ruined completely. The facts are widely known. Some of them can be found, in particular, in the Foreign Ministry Statement released on December 1, 2021.

👉 The “summits for democracy” are a clear demonstration of neo-colonial practices in US foreign policy. The efforts to organise and convene them are about the United States’ push to renew and legitimise the American tools of external control and interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states and to force everyone to look at the world through the lens of the rules-based order which is being promoted with the goal of serving Washington's global interests.

👉 At the same time, we are talking about them building an ideological platform to fight against the countries that the US political elite is trying to label as autocracies, primarily, Russia and China.

We deeply regret UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ decision to take part in this unseemly spectacle.

❗️ Responsible participants in international communication should not engage in “democratisation” or draw extra dividing lines. It is high time for the United States and its allies to resume compliance with international law and to join efforts to create proper conditions for peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation.

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🇷🇺🇺🇳🎙 Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at UNSC debate “Countering Terrorism and Preventing Violent Extremism Conducive to Terrorism by Strengthening Cooperation between the United Nations and Regional Organizations and Mechanisms”

📍 New York, March 28, 2023

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💬 We always stand for complete observance of norms and principles of the UN Charter, recognition of the leadership of states and their competent bodies, zero tolerance to any manifestations of terrorism, ensuring inevitability of criminal and legal accountability for terrorists and their accomplices. The UN should continue playing the central and coordinating role in terms of anti-terrorism cooperation given full abidance by the norms and principles of international law.

<...>

Terrorism in the Sahel assumed an avalanche character after the brazen military intervention in Libya by Western states that destabilized the entire region. This had implications even for coastal states of West Africa.

<...>

🤝 Russia supports the initiatives of African countries in the area of combating terrorist threat and manifestations of extremism. We welcome Africa’s measures to establish counter-terrorist cooperation within sub-regional organizations.

<...>

Today the issue of cooperation between Russia and African states was raised again. To this, I must say that Africans have every right to choose whom to partner with and on what conditions. It is failures of Western states that force African countries to turn to those who can make a real contribution to the fight against terrorism on the continent.

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❗️ Russia will keep engaging with reliable partners in Asia, Africa, and Latin America on issues relating to countering terrorism. We remain open to cooperation with all interested stakeholders. We are convinced that the global nature of the problem of terrorism requires coordinated approaches and consolidated efforts of the entire international community.