🎙 Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s answer to a media question about #UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay’s visit to Ukraine

❓Question: Reportedly, the Director-General of UNESCO visited Kiev and Odessa the other day. What’s your take on this move by Audrey Azoulay?

💬 Maria Zakharova: We took note of UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay’s recent trip to Ukraine.

Unfortunately, her remarks during her visit to Ukraine make us think of her visit as a political public relations stunt.

One could only welcome the UNESCO Director-General’s resolve to provide effective support to education, science and culture within her mandate and to uphold the right to self-expression and one’s native language, including in Ukraine, if this support were to be provided on an equal and non-discriminatory basis without regard to race, gender, language, religion, political or other beliefs, ethnic or social origin, etc.

👉 However, Audrey Azoulay never uttered a word over the nine years of the tragedy in Donbass and against the background of many years of persecution of the Russian language, culture and education in the present-day Ukraine, the suppression of freedom of speech, the glorification of Nazi henchmen, persecution of dissidents, inciting interethnic and inter-religious animosity, and Neanderthal Russophobia.

During her stay in Ukraine, Ms Azoulay took part in a grand ceremony for unveiling a plaque at a new World Heritage site – the historical centre of Odessa – standing shoulder to shoulder with the people who adopt and then implement decisions to destroy numerous cultural monuments evoking the glorious historical past of that city. And it doesn’t seem to bother her at all.

❗️ It is regrettable that UNESCO – a respected organisation with an established international reputation – with the connivance of a number of senior Secretariat officials, has become a victim of the Western countries’ policies which assigned it the role of a mere mouthpiece for Ukrainian propaganda.

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🎙 Briefing by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (Moscow, May 17, 2023)

🔹 FM Sergey #Lavrov’s schedule
🔹 #UkraineCrisis
🔹 #Gagauzia #Moldova
🔹 #Azerbaijan #Armenia
🔹 Armed attack on humanitarian relief convoy in #Myanmar
🔹 #RussiaFinland
🔹 #UNESCO
🔹 Report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the events in #Mali
🔹 Ongoing discrimination against Russian athletes
🔹 Desecration of monuments to Soviet soldiers in #Bulgaria

And much more...

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Talking points:

#Ukraine

The West has made its role in the conflict abundantly clear: Ukraine serves merely as a tool and Ukrainians as pawns it is ready to sacrifice in its standoff with Russia. The West has sacrificed literally everything on the altar of its morbid geopolitical ambitions. They are “exceptional”. Only they can govern everyone. Nobody has the right to take independent decisions, be it domestic affairs or foreign policy. The previous times of colonialism and imperialism have not receded into the past but rather are being converted to a modern format.

#UNESCO

In its commitment to confrontation, the collective West continues intentionally undermining mechanisms underpinning interstate relations and ignoring the diplomatic norms by using all kinds of dirty tricks. Paris followed in the footsteps of Washington by adopting bad visa practices. As a country hosting the UNESCO Headquarters, France failed to issue visas on time to several Russian representatives, preventing them from attending the 216th Session of the UNESCO Executive Board. Visa-related incidents of this kind with their obvious political bias are becoming a regular occurrence. By doing this, Paris has intentionally failed to honour its obligations as a host country.

Congratulations on #KiswahiliLanguageDay 7️⃣July

📍Kiswahili is spoken by more than 200 million people in Africa and Middle East

📍Kiswahili Language Day was proclaimed by 41st #UNESCO General Conference.

📍Proclamation & celebration of language days was supported by decision of 215th #UNESCO Executive Board.

👉 Russia🇷🇺 fully shares @UNESCO values on promotion of multilingualism and protection of language diversity and undertakes efforts to contribute to this important endeavor.

🎙 Comment by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in view of double standards in the #UNESCO Secretariat

💬 We have taken note of the press release published on the UNESCO website condemning "the bombing that hit a historic building in Lvov last night, located in the buffer zone of the World Heritage Site of Lvov – the Ensemble of the Historic Centre".

With its mentor-like statement, designed primarily for Western capitals, the Secretariat of the Organisation has once again demonstrated a biased and inconsistent approach, characterised by the division of countries into "good" and "bad".

☝️ It is to be recalled that despite the Russian Federation's demarche following the terrorist attack on the World Heritage site The Moscow Kremlin and Red Square, this Ukrainian crime, in flagrant violation of the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, was not dealt with publicly by the Director-General of the Organisation.

In the same way, in violation of the established practice and authority vested in Audrey Azoulay, she refuses to condemn the brutal murders by Ukrainian national radicals of Russian journalists Darya Dugina, Oleg Klokov and Vladlen Tatarsky with stubbornness worthy of a better cause.

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❗️ By doing so, the institution at the very least sanctions, if not condones, the aggressive neo-Nazi course of the current Kiev regime.

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🎙 Briefing by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (Moscow, July 26, 2023)

🔹 FM Sergey Lavrov’s schedule
🔹 #RussiaAfrica Summit
🔹 Ukrainian crisis
🔹 Russia’s cooperation with African countries
🔹 Day of Remembrance for Child Victims of the War in Donbass
🔹 Harassment of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
🔹 Double standards of the #UNESCO Secretariat

And more...

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#Africa

▪️In the context of confrontation with the collective West, our interaction with the states of North Africa is of particular importance. Despite unprecedented pressure from the United States and its allies, up to and including outright blackmail, the countries of the region, guided primarily by their fundamental interests, have taken a balanced and responsible position on the Ukrainian issue.

Today it can be said with confidence that the Westerners’ attempts to isolate Russia and bring discord into our relations with the countries of the Middle East and North Africa have failed. We continue to have regular and intensive contacts with their leadership. Despite the illegal sanctions imposed against Russia, the trade with our key partners is growing.

#Ukraine

▪️ The Kiev regime has recently switched to terrorist activity akin to that of ISIS and al-Qaeda, which is primarily due to the obvious failure of the counteroffensive by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, undertaken with the generous sponsorship of the United States and other NATO countries.

I would like to remind ordinary Americans that it is the United States and Great Britain, the two allies, who are sponsoring all these terrorist attacks by the Kiev regime as it targets civilian infrastructure with drones. In fact, Washington and London are paying for all this from their taxpayers’ pockets.

The people of the United States and the UK must understand that they are being drawn against their will into a situation where they become sponsors of international terrorism, even if indirectly.

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at the General Meeting of the Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO (December 22, 2023)

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💬 The outgoing year was not an easy one for #UNESCO. As we know, after the beginning of the special military operation, the collective West began to intensify its efforts to politicise the organisation, and reduce its agenda to Ukraine.

Their notorious double standards are reflected in regular anti-Russia resolutions on Crimea and Ukraine. The West is pushing through these resolutions by twisting the arms of the developing nations.

These resolutions go beyond UNESCO’s mandate. It has no competence in this area.

❗️ Attempts to defame Russia for “destroying Ukraine’s cultural heritage" without citing any evidence are in the same category. Such evidence simply does not exist. Nor does UNESCO have any right to attribute guilt. <...>

At the same time, we still haven’t heard any statement condemning the act of terror at the Moscow Kremlin, a world heritage site. Nor has UNESCO Secretary-General Audrey Azoulay from France denounced the murder of Russian journalists although this is her direct mandate.

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But the attempts to “cancel” Russia in UNESCO did not achieve the desired effect. As President Vladimir Putin noted at the St Petersburg Cultural Forum last November, in UNESCO we are conducting very serious projects that generate widespread interest in the world.

I will emphasise again that we are not closing ourselves off from anyone.

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Overall, we have accumulated a wealth of positive experience to build upon. Frankly, a mutually beneficial professional dialogue in UNESCO is still possible despite the blatantly unlawful actions of its Secretariat’s senior officials.

💫 Moscow has topped the list of the leading cities of #BRICS+ countries by the level of potential of their population.

👉 The ranking was developed using #UNESCO methodology by a team of researchers from universities in India 🇮🇳, Malaysia 🇲🇾, Argentina 🇦🇷, the Philippines 🇵🇭, Indonesia 🇮🇩 and other countries under the auspices of the Pan American University of Mexico.

🌏 The experts analyzed a total of 1️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ cities in 32 countries, including BRICS members & states aspiring to join the bloc.

#Moscow #Russia #BRICS

#UNESCO has added five new African sites to the World Heritage List, including the Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites.

🇿🇦 These sites embody South Africa's rich heritage of human rights, freedom, and reconciliation.

🕊 Congratulations to South Africa on the inscription of these poignant sites, which bear witness to the struggle against apartheid and Nelson Mandela's enduring legacy of freedom, human rights, and peace.

#WorldHeritage #NelsonMandela #SouthAfrica #HumanRights