⚡️On International Day for Universal Access to Information (September 28), we draw #UNESCO's attention to the restrictions against the Russian media abroad.

In France🇫🇷, the UNESCO Headquarters host-country, since 2022: 

❌RT and Sputnik channels were blocked;
❌RTR, Rossia-24, International TV Center, Channel One, Rossia-1 and NTV channels were shut down;
❌TASS Telegram channel was blocked;
❌Russian journalists have been repeatedly denied accreditation for various events, including the Olympic and Paralympic Games held in Paris.

👉 The list of restrictions against the Russian media is constantly expanding.

📢Universal access to information is one of UNESCO's priorities. We call on the Director General to speak out against restrictions imposed on the Russian media.

🇹🇷🇷🇺🇮🇷 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov takes part in the AstanaProcess meeting on the sidelines of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly

#UNGA79 #Peace4Syria

#Day3 📹 #UNGA79

🤝 On Day 3 of the Russian delegation's High-level Week of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly gauntlet, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took part in 9 events, including meetings in multilateral format:

• Ministerial Meeting of the Group of Friends in Defence of the UN Charter
• Meeting with Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of Syria Bassam Sabbagh
• Meeting of the regional quartet (Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan)
• Meeting with Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lebanon Abdallah Bou Habib
• Meeting with Foreign Minister of Brazil Mauro Vieira
• Meeting “Russia - Small Island States of the South Pacific”
• Meeting with Foreign Minister of Iran Seyed Abbas Araghchi
• Astana Process meeting
• Remarks at the UN Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question

✍️ Russian-Syrian Declaration on Ways and Methods of Countering, Combating the Derivative Effects of Unilateral Coercive Measures was signed during the Foreign Ministers Meeting.

👉 DAY 1
👉 DAY 2

#ICYMI

🇷🇺🇺🇳 Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly Philémon Yang hold a meeting.

#UNGA79

#PhotoOfTheDay

💬 Sergey Lavrov addresses the UN General Assembly

LIVESTREAM

📸 © Maria Zakharova

⚡️ In the evening of September 27, the Israeli Air Force delivered a series of heavy air bomb strikes against a densely populated district in the south of Beirut.

According to the IDF, it targeted Hezbollah’s main operational headquarters. On the same day, the Israeli Air Force carried out a massive bombing of the Lebanon capital’s southern neighbourhoods under the pretext that weapons depots were located there. The result was a complete destruction of residential buildings, which were literally levelled to the ground. Dozens of civilians were wounded. The exact death toll has yet to be established. Debris removal is currently in progress.

In the morning of September 28, the Israeli military command officially announced that the Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah had been killed as a result of the operation. The organisation itself confirmed the death of the leader who had been heading it for over 30 years.

❌ This is yet another political assassination committed by Israel, and Russia condemns it with great resolve.

This forceful action has the potential to entail even more dramatic consequences for Lebanon and the Middle East in general.

Israel was definitely aware of this danger. Nevertheless, it took this step and started killing Lebanese citizens, which will almost inevitably provoke a new outburst of violence.

Therefore, it bears full responsibility for the ensuing escalation.

❗️Once again, we are insistently calling on Israel to stop the hostilities immediately. This would make it possible to cease the bloodshed and create conditions for a political and diplomatic settlement. In the current explosive situation, responsible members of the international community must do everything in their power to prevent the region from plunging into a full-scale armed confrontation.

🎙 Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov's remarks at the General Debate of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly

📍New York, September 28, 2024

💬 A few days ago, this building hosted a forum called the Summit of the Future.

Russia was supportive of the idea of the Secretary-General to convene it, since the crisis of our Organisation is deepening and something needs to be done about this. We devoted our efforts to preparing the summit. However, we were realistic in our expectations. There have been many ambitious events in the modern history of the United Nations which ended up with loud declarations which were soon forgotten. <...>

The current UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, just like Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon before him, has put forward an initiative under the slogan of a new start for global cooperation. This is a wonderful idea. Who could disagree? But what global cooperation is there to talk about, when the West has trampled all those unshakeable values of the globalisation that speakers on the podium talked so much about, trying to convince us that they would give everyone equal access to the goods of modern civilisation?

Where is the inviolability of property, the presumption of innocence, freedom of expression, access to information, fair competition in markets under fair and constant rules?

The Secretary-General speaks of global cooperation at the very moment when the countries of the West have unleashed a veritable war of sanctions against more than half, if not the majority, of the countries of the world, and the US dollar, promoted as an asset and a good for all humanity, has been crudely turned into a weapon.

<...>

It is not late to breathe new life into the United Nations. But this can be achieved through restoration of trust based on the charter principle – sovereign equality of all states – rather than out-of-touch summits and declarations. However, while the trust is undermined, including through actions by the West to create its subordinate narrow formats to resolve crucial issues bypassing the UN such as control over the Internet or determination of legal frameworks to use AI technologies. These issues touch upon the future of the entire humanity and they have to be considered on a universal basis, without discrimination and aspiration to achieve unilateral benefits. Thus, everything has to be agreed on a fair basis involving all UN members.

Key points:

• The world faces massive challenges which require united efforts rather than confrontation and desire of global domination.
• It is obvious for the world majority that confrontation and hegemonism do not solve a single global problem. They just artificially restrain the impartial process of forming a multipolar world.
• Russia will always be on the side of collective work, truth and law, peace and cooperation in the interests of reviving the ideals laid down by the founding fathers.
• The unprecedented level of hypocrisy and aggressiveness of the western policy against Russia not only brings to naught the idea of global cooperation promoted by the Secretary General.
• The UN Secretariat cannot remain aloof from efforts to establish the truth in situations that directly affect global security and must act impartially in accordance with Art. 100 of the Charter, acting impartially and avoiding the temptation to play into the hands of certain states, especially those who openly call for the world to be divided into a flowering garden and a jungle, or for a democratic table to be set for dinner and those on the menu instead of cooperation.
• A more equitable world order unconditionally presupposes increased representation of the Global South in the UN Security Council. We reaffirm our position in support of Brazil and India provided a positive decision is reached in the framework of the well-known initiatives of the African Union.

#UNGA79 #UNCharterIsOurRules

Mrs. Nitusa Gaya Gookool, Secretary of the Mauritius NPC-World Youth Festival, speaking about her enriching experience as a delegate from Mauritius at Eurasia Global International Youth Forum 2024 in Orenburg, Russia.

#InternationalYouthForum2024
#Eurasia

​🇷🇺💬Points forts du discours du Ministre russe des Affaire étrangères, Sergueï Lavrov, lors de la discussion politique à la 79e session de l'Assemblée générale des Nations unies, le 28 septembre 2024:

🔹L'Otan tente de s'implanter en Transcaucasie, en Asie centrale et dans la région Asie-Pacifique, ce qui constitue des menaces pour la sécurité de la Russie;

🔹Les États-Unis et la Grande-Bretagne préparent l'Europe à une «aventure suicidaire» contre la Russie;

🔹L'idée même de se battre jusqu'à la victoire avec une puissance nucléaire comme la Russie est inutile et dangereuse;

🔹La Russie ne se ferme pas au dialogue avec l'Occident et est prête à discuter de l'avenir de la sécurité eurasienne;

🔹Le Secrétariat de l'ONU ne doit pas rester inactif pour établir la vérité sur le sabotage des gazoducs Nord Stream et la provocation à Boutcha;

🔹La Russie exhorte les pays, qui avancent des initiatives de paix sur l'Ukraine, à tenir compte de la nécessité de résoudre les causes profondes du conflit;

🔹Aujourd'hui, le monde est à nouveau confronté à des défis majeurs qui exigent des efforts conjoints plutôt qu'une confrontation et une soif de domination mondiale.

🎙 Russia's Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s answer to a Rossiya Segodnya question regarding the two-year anniversary of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipeline explosions (September 28, 2024)

❓ Question: Could you comment on the steps the West has taken to investigate the causes of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipeline explosions on September 26, 2022? What conclusions has the Russian side made in this regard?

💬 Maria Zakharova: The explosions of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines is a blatant act of international terrorism, violating several international treaties that obligate states to prevent such acts, suppress them, investigate their occurrence, hold those responsible accountable, and cooperate with other nations to achieve these goals.

Regrettably, despite repeated appeals from the Russian Federation, these obligations have not been fulfilled.

Switzerland, where the company operating the pipelines is registered, has not even attempted to investigate this terrorist attack.

The coastal states of Denmark and Sweden, where the explosions occurred within their exclusive economic zones, swiftly closed their investigations without releasing any findings. According to their statements, the investigation results were handed over to Germany.

Germany, the endpoint of both pipelines, has yet to provide the international community with any substantial outcomes from its investigation. Additionally, arrest warrants recently issued by Berlin for suspects have not been enforced. As a result, at least one suspect, who was in Poland, reportedly escaped to Ukraine, according to the Polish prosecutor’s office.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has bluntly stated that anyone concerned about the investigation “should shut up.”

❗️ This clearly indicates one thing: the West has no interest in conducting a thorough investigation of the terrorist attack, despite the enormous damage inflicted on Europe’s economy and environment by the pipeline explosions.

The Russian Federation has repeatedly submitted requests for legal assistance to the aforementioned countries, demanding cooperation in our investigation of the terrorist attack. All of these requests were denied, either with flimsy excuses or no explanation at all. Such actions blatantly violate the international legal obligations of these states.

In keeping with this unconstructive approach, Western countries refused to support the draft UN Security Council resolution proposed by Russia in March 2023, which called for an independent international investigation under the auspices of the United Nations. Due to persistent opposition from Washington and its allies, our crucial initiative failed to secure the required nine votes in favour. In October 2023, the US and its partners shamelessly blocked the Russian draft statement by the UN Security Council Chairman on this matter.

⚖️ In this regard, the Russian Federation has officially submitted pre-trial claims against Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland, citing the 1997 International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings and the 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.

The dispute is currently in the pre-trial resolution stage, a mandatory step outlined by these conventions. If the issue is not resolved during this stage, the Russian Federation intends to escalate the case to a judicial level by appealing to the International Court of Justice, citing violations of the aforementioned countries’ obligations under these conventions.

Other states potentially involved in the bombings of the Nord Stream pipelines are next in line for scrutiny. The West’s attempts to sweep this issue under the rug will not succeed. On the contrary, such actions only further suggest Western involvement in the crime. Those who claim to champion international law are, in reality, concealing evidence and protecting the true culprits.

☝️ Russia remains resolute in its pursuit of identifying and holding accountable all perpetrators, organisers and accomplice

🇷🇺🇺🇳 On September 28, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President of the UN GA Philemon Yang met in New York, during the high-level segment of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly.

🤝 The Parties discussed issued on the session’s agenda and underscored the key rule-making role of the General Assembly. The Officials also touched upon topics associated with raising the UN GA efficiency and the correlation of its activity with the work of other principal UN bodies.

The Minister expressed the hope that, as President, Mr. Yang would pursue a balanced and impartial line, take careful account of the views of all member states, and avoid using the United Nations platform to serve narrow national interests.

The Sides stressed the importance of maintaining the atmosphere of constructive cooperation at the General Assembly and the unacceptability of introducing any destructive initiatives of confrontational nature in its work.

#UNGA79

​🎙 Le Président russe Vladimir Poutine s’est adressé à la nation à l'occasion de la Journée de la réunification des Républiques populaires de Donetsk et de Lougansk, des régions de Zaporojié et de Kherson avec la Russie

💬 Vladimir Poutine: Chers amis, chers citoyens de Russie!

Aujourd'hui, le 30 septembre, nous célébrons la Journée de la réunification avec la Russie des Républiques populaires de Donetsk et de Lougansk, des régions de Zaporojié et de Kherson.

Je félicite cordialement tous les citoyens de notre pays pour cet événement véritablement fatidique. Nous y sommes arrivés après des années et des épreuves difficiles, conscients des conditions insupportables dans lesquelles le Donbass a vécu pendant huit longues années sous les bombardements et les blocus constants et de l'oppression à laquelle les habitants de la Nouvelle-Russie (la Novorossiya) ont été soumis.

☝🏻Ils se sont opposés au coup d'État armé à Kiev et ont lutté contre la dictature néonazie qui cherchait à les arracher à leur Patrie historique, à la Russie, pour toujours.

Nous n'avons pas abandonné nos frères et sœurs, nous avons essayé de trouver une solution pacifique au conflit le plus difficile. Vous savez comment ces négociations se sont terminées : mensonges, falsifications et tromperies de la part des élites occidentales, qui avaient transformé l'Ukraine en leur colonie, en une tête de pont contre la Russie.

❗️Elles ont systématiquement semé la haine et le nationalisme radical, incité à l'hostilité envers tout ce qui est russe, fourni des armes, envoyé des mercenaires et des conseillers, préparé l'armée ukrainienne à une nouvelle guerre afin de déclencher à nouveau, comme au printemps et à l'été 2014, une action punitive dans le sud-est.

Le Donbass, mais aussi la Crimée et d'autres régions russes ont été désignés comme cibles. La suite des événements a pleinement confirmé la nécessité et le bien fondé de l'opération militaire spéciale, ainsi que son caractère véritablement libérateur.

Je voudrais maintenant m'adresser aux habitants des Républiques populaires de Donetsk et de Lougansk, des régions de Zaporojié et de Kherson.

Je vous remercie pour votre persévérance, votre détermination et votre fermeté, pour la transmission de génération en génération de nos valeurs spirituelles, de notre mémoire historique, de nos traditions et de notre culture et, surtout, pour votre grand amour de la Patrie, le principal pilier de la vie de chacun d'entre nous.

Aujourd'hui, nous défendons ensemble un avenir sûr et prospère pour nos enfants et petits-enfants, notre destin commun, la mémoire des réalisations et des victoires de nos grands ancêtres, la loyauté envers leurs traditions et leurs préceptes.

Ces sentiments donnent de la force aux participants à l'opération militaire spéciale. En combattant actuellement dans le Donbass et en Novorossiya, en protégeant les frontières de Koursk, de Belgorod et de Briansk, ils défendent l'ensemble de notre immense Russie, notre beau pays bien-aimé. Nous sommes fiers de nos héros et faisons tout ce que nous pouvons pour les soutenir.

Dans les territoires libérés, on voit des entreprises activement restaurées, des maisons, des hôpitaux, des écoles et des jardins d'enfants construits. Toutes les régions russes sont impliquées dans ce travail. Les représentants des grandes et des petites entreprises œuvrent activement. À cela s’ajoute une contribution considérable de la part des bénévoles, des organisations publiques et religieuses et des partis parlementaires.

🤝🏻Je remercie tous les citoyens du pays pour cette unité et cet esprit patriotique. La vérité est de notre côté. Tous les objectifs fixés seront atteints.

Bonne fête, chers amis, joyeuse Journée de la réunification!