Russian Foreign Minister Sergey interview with Rádio e Televisão de Portugal, S.A., Moscow, June 30, 2023

Question: Thank you for agreeing to make things clear for the people, urbi et orbi. People in dozens of countries, frightened and wary of Russia, will be watching us.

Many of them were supportive of the idea of building a common economic and humanitarian space from Lisbon to Vladivostok a while ago. Do you think the world is at war today? Is the risk of a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO unavoidable? Could it be a nuclear war?

Sergey Lavrov: The famous saying about creating a common economic and humanitarian space from Lisbon to Vladivostok also included a security space. Those were the times when we hoped that following the Cold War the West would act decently. Those expectations failed; I can spend a lot of time discussing this issue.

I agree with the people who say that instead of digging into the causes of what happened and why, it is better to start with the future in mind based on the fact that we can no longer trust the West in matters of security, trade or economic ties, or financial mechanisms that were created as part of the globalisation effort, which were touted as a boon for the world at large. Then, overnight, they turned into a tool of blackmail, pressure, racketeering and pure theft. But it is true, there was such a perspective.

The “frightened” people in dozens of countries should fear primarily their own governments where sensible voices drown in a conspiracy of silence. The European Union and NATO are lining everyone up according to rank. Everyone keeps repeating the same old mantra: they “cannot let Ukraine lose” and the only way out of the situation is to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia.

Liz Truss served as British prime minister for a brief stint. When asked about the use of nuclear weapons she, as a candidate for the office of prime minister, said that as a commander-in-chief she would not hesitate to press the “red button.”

German Air Force Commander Ingo Gerharz said the NATO countries must be prepared to use nuclear weapons. Those quotes are not verbatim, but the message is clear. They are ready for a nuclear war and President Putin should be aware of that.

Former French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said France also had nuclear weapons, a fact that should not be ignored. Remarks like that started discussions in the public space about the probability of a nuclear war.

When President Putin was asked whether Russia would use nuclear weapons, he provided a detailed answer. My key message is to look at and analyse what the EU and NATO leaders say. This is flat-out aggressive rhetoric. They keep repeating the mantra that Russia must suffer a “strategic defeat.”

Maybe, Portugal doesn’t have many strategic analysts, but many other EU and NATO countries surely have them (the Pentagon certainly does). They keep threatening Russia (a nuclear power) with “strategic defeat” every day and for the whole world to hear. Your viewers should be mindful of this in order to distribute their “fear” evenly.

Let’s go back to the times when the goals of creating a common economic, social and security space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean were declared. The last time this noble initiative was mentioned was during the signing of the Minsk agreements. In February 2014, following the coup, radical nationalists came to power and unleashed a war against their own people in the east and south of the country.

When the war was stopped, including at the request of Berlin and Paris, the renowned Minsk agreements were signed. Importantly, then Chancellor of Germany Merkel, President of France Hollande, and President of Ukraine Poroshenko who put their signatures under this document alongside President Putin, never intended to act on it, which they have since openly confessed.

They were banking on buying time, flooding the Ukrainian regime with weapons and resolving the Donbass “issue” by force and drown it in blood. They had been bombing it throughout the eight years that the Minsk agreements were in force.

Eventually, they came up with the final decision that there was no place for the special status. Plan B was now in place, where they were to suppress by force everyone who resisted the illegitimate and unconstitutional coup that brought the followers of Nazism to power.

In addition to the Minsk agreements, a Declaration by the German Chancellor, the President of France, the President of Ukraine and the President of Russia was adopted to support the Minsk Package of Measures to Implement the Minsk Agreements. Berlin and Paris undertook to do something important.

In purely practical terms, they pledged to resume banking services for the people in Donbass which had been blocked by Poroshenko and his regime. The leaders of France and Germany pledged to ensure the provision of banking services to these people, including social payments.

Next, the declaration by Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine focused on working out a partnership agreement between Ukraine and the EU. It explicitly stated that Berlin and Paris would organise tripartite consultations between Russia, Ukraine and the EU to make sure there were no differences between trade and investment arrangements that Ukraine discussed with Brussels and the commitments it had undertaken as part of the long-standing CIS free trade zone.

No banking services were provided. Berlin and Paris didn’t even try to do anything in this regard. No consultations were held regarding Russia, Ukraine and the EU. The concluding paragraph of that declaration included a solemn commitment to a common space from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Much was said there. As you can see now, not everything that Berlin and Paris promised in that declaration came to fruition. It is now clear that they were not going to do any of that. All they wanted was to stop the process of liberation of Ukraine started by the Donbass militias with our support, and to buy time.

We have heard lots of lies and false promises from the West. I’m not saying this to keep searching for arguments to back our past or current policies, but to re-confirm the fact that we have learned our lesson. We are no longer looking to the past, but to the future. The past has taught us a good lesson.

So, looking into the future and based on the current situation in our country and internationally, we will proceed to build our future without relying on our deceitful colleagues who are incapable of holding up their end of the bargain, our former Western partners.

Question: Do you think a nuclear conflict is possible?

Sergey Lavrov: I answered this question earlier. You should ask this question to the people who want to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.

Question: Russia is promoting the idea of multipolarity that you speak of and which is long overdue. Moscow is building relationships with major players such as India, Brazil, Türkiye and Algeria. However, these countries are not severing their relations with the West or condemning themselves to being left behind the technological and economic process. Is Russia’s breakup with the West in the way of Moscow’s ambitions to lead a multipolar world?

Sergey Lavrov: You said Russia was actively promoting the idea of a multipolar world. This is not so. The multipolar world is taking shape objectively, because new centres of economic growth, financial power and political influence have emerged.

China, India and Brazil are cases in point. Let’s not forget the Gulf countries, Türkiye, Indonesia and the ASEAN countries.

In Africa, leaders are rising who are willing to use the God-given resources of that continent not to serve the former colonial powers, but to industrialise their economies and to develop modern technology. This process also reflects the rise of Africa as a pole of an objectively forming polycentric system. There are numbers and statistics to back this up.

Look at the G7 countries’ share of global GDP which is now smaller than the share of the BRICS countries. The gap is steadily narrowing. China is leading the race with the majority of growth variables especially in terms of purchasing power parity, but it must be little in terms of GDP per capita. China has not yet made it to the top, but the trend is unstoppable. Everyone recognises it.

The problems created by the United States and its satellites in connection with our special military operation of necessity in Ukraine after years of making it clear to the West that its lies about not expanding NATO eastward and it breaking its promise would end badly.

The West’s reaction to the special military operation (which is an absolutely fair and the only possible solution to defend our security and the people who have lived on these lands for centuries whom the Kiev regime decided to strip of their right to their language, religion, culture and values) and the disgusting actions of the Kiev-based neo-Nazis supported by the United States have led Washington to abuse every tool it promoted as part of global economy mechanisms.

This includes fair competition (all of that was undone through unilateral sanctions), the inviolability of property (they steal not only from us; they did the same with property belonging to Venezuela, Iran and Afghanistan). Now, they are trying to find a way to “legitimise” this theft without much luck so far. At least here, they are showing they still have some remnants of conscience.

The freedom of market forces and the presumption of innocence were forgotten overnight. The sanctions imposed on us and other countries (they are beginning to impose illegitimate unilateral restrictions on China) have become the West’s hallmark.

They are using sanctions in an effort to keep their position in the global economy, and to ensure their political hegemony, so that no one can say a word against the United States and the rest of the collective West, which follows its line in every way.

With regard to our allies and strategic partners not ending their relations with the West, we haven’t severed relations with it, either. As far as I understand (I’d rather not use lofty terms), it, the West, had a grudge against Russia that dared to defend its legitimate historical interests. The West acted out its anger by severing almost all relations with us.

This began long before the special military operation. In December 2016, then US President Obama kicked out dozens of our citizens three weeks before leaving office. Then, five properties were taken from us in violation of intergovernmental agreements and in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. These sanctions continued to escalate.

It is said that if Jupiter is irate, he is wrong. I don’t even want to liken the West to Jupiter. But the West is driven by anger and by realisation that it has irrevocably lost its dominant positions, as well as by the desire to slow this historical process down as much as it can. I think any politician in the West who is more or less capable of reasoning understands that this historical process will eventually triumph.

We maintain diplomatic relations with Western countries and we are not shutting ourselves off. President Putin recently emphasised this when he said that we are not self-isolating.

Of course, we maintain relations with those who are willing to act honestly (based on equal rights and compliance with international law, including the UN Charter-enshrined provision that makes it obligatory for everyone to respect the sovereign equality of large and small states alike).

We are not “shutting the door” on the West. It is the West that is trying to isolate itself from us. But if and when reasonable people come to power there, and if they suggest that we consider opportunities to expand our contacts, which are still there, but have been reduced to the bare minimum, we will see what they have to offer. We will respond based on our core interests.

Never again during the life of the current politicians and the generation that will come after us, at least not when it comes to developing strategic sectors of the economy and areas that are critical for the sovereignty and independence of the Russian Federation, will we rely on “projects” involving our Western colleagues.

Question: There is a view that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict can be resolved by President Putin and President Biden. Is that true? Are diplomats from the two countries working together right now?

Sergey Lavrov: I’m not sure how much President Biden is interested in seeing this happen. At least, he has not shown any interest in that. Everyone is aware that Vladimir Zelensky is not an independent figure, not even in the least. He is told what to do. Of course, he improvises depending on developments on a particular day. But there is little point in talking to him.

Now, the West has put together a group of countries, which met in Copenhagen the other day. All of the G7. The BRICS countries, except Russia, were invited to attend, as were Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Ukraine.

The People’s Republic of China was invited as well, but chose not to participate as it believed it was futile and would focus on confrontation, because it was announced ahead of that meeting that the goal was to ensure the approval of Zelensky’s peace formula.

Everyone is aware of what this is about. The “formula” requires Russia to capitulate and be punished as well as pay reparations. Allegedly, peace talks can be held and peace agreements can be signed only after that.

President Biden and his administration never suggested looking for a peaceful solution. Instead, they made critical remarks whenever the Global South countries came up with relevant initiatives, or when the African countries and Brazilian President Lula da Silva came up with their respective initiatives.

The other day, we hosted the Pope’s envoy, who came to see us with the same mission. A number of other countries have come up with proposals to assist and mediate.

The West, including the United States, spoke negatively about them under the pretext that now is not the time to stop the hostilities because Ukraine must first improve its situation on the front as part of the course of inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia and start talks from a higher ground in terms of the prevailing state of affairs.

Of course, figures like EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and virtually the entire US administration are talking about inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia on the battlefield. They don’t mention talks, only the battlefield.

We are ready to keep working on the battlefield and will do so. We know what we are fighting for. We are fighting to eliminate a direct military threat to our security, which, contrary to its assurances, the West is creating right on Russia’s borders as it drags Ukraine into its game and is promising it NATO membership once again.

We are fighting to prevent the annihilation of the people of Donbass and southeastern Ukraine in general, who are being forcibly deprived, through laws adopted by the Nazi regime in Kiev, of their right to their identity, including language, religion, the right to education, access to the media, and any right related to the use of their native language, the language of their ancestors who have lived for centuries in the lands that President Zelensky wants to subject to genocide. They live on lands, where all the major cities were founded by Russian rulers.

The fact that the West is casting a benevolent eye on Russophobia, the discrimination campaign and the banning of everything that is Russian, as well as openly racist actions with a Nazi flavour (because Nazism is flourishing in Ukraine in addition to extermination of everything that is Russian).

Most of the nationalist battalion troops wear Nazi division tattoos and carry SS Nazi division banners and chevrons. The West keeps silent and fairly quiet about it to the point of ignoring it altogether.

We are not the ones who turned down the talks that were held in March 2022 at the request of the Ukrainian side and ended up with an agreement. President Putin mentioned this fact at a meeting with the African mediators. However, the Anglo-Saxons, represented by Washington and London, told Zelensky not to support that agreement.

According to them, since the Russians were willing to sign it, the war should be continued in order to wear Russia down even more and press it into signing agreements that are satisfactory for Ukraine.

So, this is not our choice. And the question about nuclear weapons should not be addressed to us, either. Have you interviewed in a similarly detailed manner any Western figures who are in favour of continuing the war?

Question: I haven’t.

Sergey Lavrov: I thought not.

Question: Is peace in exchange for territories still possible? Would Russia agree to that option?

Sergey Lavrov: You see, it sounds like a farmer’s market: I give you this, you give me that. We are fighting not for territory, but for the people, our history, religion, and the Russian language which is an official language of the UN and which is being eliminated not only in Ukraine but also in other European countries including the Baltic states. Everyone is silent about this.

I pose questions like this to many people I talk to and no one has any reaction to it. Can anyone picture a situation where Switzerland bans French or German, for example? Or, Ireland English? Or, Belgium Flemish? It’s impossible to even think about that. Swedes account for 5.2 percent of the population of Finland and Swedish is an official language there.

In Ukraine, at least 20 percent of the population are ethnic Russians and more than half of its people speak and think in Russian. So, it is not about territory. It is about Zelensky acting on orders to destroy any manifestation of the Russian civilisation within the borders of the country, where not him, but his predecessors, also radicals and neo-Nazis, were allowed to stage a coup with the key goal of turning Ukraine into a tool to contain and undermine Russia’s security, and to eliminate everything that is Russian on lands that were developed by Russians.

Question: I have to ask you about the current situation. What do you think about the future of the forces represented by PMC Wagner in Africa?

Sergey Lavrov: Their future depends on the stance of the countries, whose governments invited PMC Wagner and negotiated the terms with it. These terms were negotiated without the Russian government’s involvement.

The Russian government has its own military and military-technical cooperation relations with many African countries, but the terms on which the African countries signed contracts with this entity are none of our business.

Question: Even though I haven’t spoken to anyone, and I cannot imagine how it is physically possible to destroy a country with eleven time zones and a population of 146 million people, how do you see the post-war solution to the existential conflict between Russia and the West?

Sergey Lavrov: Speaking of you having no idea how to destroy Russia: are you pondering a political career in Portugal?

Question: Thankfully, I am not.

Sergey Lavrov: I think many people will support you in that. This is a sensible statement. We are not seeking confrontation. But we will not let anyone do us wrong.

Question: So, you do not rule out a military solution?

Sergey Lavrov: We are now engaged in bringing a military solution to a problem called “a war of the West at large against the Russian Federation.” They are using Ukraine as an expendable material, drugging Ukrainian soldiers for them not to feel any pain and driving them to the front lines like cattle.

President Putin said a few days ago that the entire economic, war and information machine of the West is working against us. Media lies are off the charts. Everyone knew that the Ukrainian armed forces, especially the nationalist battalions, were using civilian sites to deploy heavy weapons since the onset of the crisis (back in 2014, when they shelled Donbass with heavy weapons and used aviation).

This practice continued uninterrupted and ran rampant when the special military operation began. Heavy weapons were placed in the cities next to kindergartens and right in school buildings. Rounds were fired from there, thus causing retaliatory strikes against civilian sites.

The internet is rife with witness accounts where Ukrainian citizens approach Ukrainian troops demanding that they leave kindergartens, schools, retail stores, and other civilian sites. The evidence abounds, but no one paid any attention to it. Just like everyone quickly forgot about the footage of the POWs being shot in the head and dumped in a pit with their hands tied behind their backs, just like the Nazis did.

No one is talking about what happened when residential areas were shelled and children were killed in Donbass. There’s an Alley of Angels in Donbass. I do not recall any Western journalist showing any interest in what was happening behind the line of contact in the territories that the UN Security Council promised to give a special status to.

Our journalists have been working 24/7 since the beginning of the coup on the line of contact. They show the destruction and atrocities committed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We demanded that the OSCE put on record the consequences of the bombing raids on these territories and the shelling of the civilian sector.

However, for years that the OSCE mission operated there, it simply reported the number of ceasefire violations, shellings, and casualties, without specifying the number of casualties on the militia’s side and casualties on the side of the Kiev regime.

When we finally succeeded in getting this data published, it turned out that almost all of the casualties on the militia side came from indiscriminate bombing attacks, while the destruction on the side of the Kiev regime was the result of retaliatory fire. This truth is being swept under the rug.

You are a journalist and you can conduct investigations. The numerous fakes and lies have been dwarfed by the Western coverage of what happened in the town of Bucha, where in early April 2022 the bodies of the people who had been allegedly tortured and killed by the Russian army were displayed. There were scores of dead bodies strewn on the main street.

They were shown publicly three days after the Russian army withdrew from Bucha. It would look more credible if the bodies had been hidden in a basement. But TV cameras filmed them lying on the central street of that town. We are well aware of such staged performances. Bucha is the most cynical of them all.

We asked for the names of the people who were “killed” there. It has been more than a year now, but no one is going to provide the names. No one is talking about an investigation. There was no investigation in 2014, when on May 2, Ukrainian nationalists did not hesitate to pose for the cameras as they proceeded to burn 50 people in the Trade Union House in Odessa. There was an investigation but with no results. Nine years have passed since then.

Nor was there an investigation into who fired shots during the Maidan coup. There are many angles to these stories. The West is using propaganda tricks pinning the blame on the Russian Federation, but has so far failed to provide any evidence. Your readers are not treated with respect.

Note that the leading US broadcasters offer almost zero analytics or factual reporting. All they do is slogans. Readers in the West have been trained to listen only to what the President, NATO Secretary General, or the head of the EU are saying. The media is lined up and does not utter a word of doubt.

Bucha was used to disrupt the signing of a peace agreement with Russia and for imposing another batch of anti-Russian sanctions. Bucha was followed by material consequences. Who are the people that were tortured there? Probably their relatives should know about it.

Given the wide coverage of this story by Washington and Brussels, the international public must know about it as well. I think the international public must demand the truth. Give it a try. With luck, you may succeed.

Question: As far as I know, investigations are underway.

Sergey Lavrov: Are they?

Question: Judging by media reports, yes, they are. I do not entirely agree with you saying that the entire Western press is “lined up.” I witnessed analytical discussions and doubts expressed live by experts in the studio. Even our television shows have many guests who provide engaging expert comments.

Sergey Lavrov: I did not mean to offend anyone. Maybe these reports do not reach us.

Question: Of course, they don’t. Just like Western correspondents are not allowed to come from the Donbass side.

Sergey Lavrov: I would appreciate your writing about the investigation of the situation in Bucha. If it is a problem to do so publicly, send us at least some information about who is in charge of this investigation and when it began. If you know anything about the investigation of the terrorist attacks on the Nord Streams, I would also appreciate getting some information about them.

Question: I can hardly do anything about these attacks. How should the UN be transformed to become an effective tool of international policy?

Sergey Lavrov: It is fairly simple. All that is needed is to abide by the UN Charter and to return to the commitments that were solemnly proclaimed, signed and ratified. Primarily, the issue is about the principle of the sovereign equality of states.

Humanity’s problems since the creation of the UN are rooted in the fact that the West outright refused to respect the sovereign equality of all other countries. It continues to think and act in colonial ways and to live at the expense of others.

A couple of years ago, one of the G20 summits adopted a declaration on the green transition and climate change. The developing countries reasonably said that they have not yet reached the post-industrial stage of development and thus cannot just give up industrialisation since they are still far from getting there, but they are willing to use the environmentally friendly technology.

It was agreed to allocate $100 billion to this end for a certain period. So far, nothing has been done. The statistics of aid to Ukraine show a figure of $160 billion allocated in a matter of just one year. Probably, African and other countries which need outside help assess, on the one hand, how the West goes about their needs and the commitments that were made within the UN to help these countries.

On the other hand, they can see how the West approaches not the needs of the Ukrainian people, but its own obsession to leverage the Ukrainian people in a war against the Russian Federation.

You have probably heard the most recent statements by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, about the importance of continued supplies and even doubling them. So, they will be doubling the supplies. I am not sure their people will be happy about it.

You said many people are “frightened” by the developments in Ukraine. If I were a German voter, I would have been frightened by my counterpart Annalena Baerbock, who responded to a question about the hardships experienced by the German public by saying she knew her voters were impacted, but they had to endure it for the sake of Ukraine.

If that is the way votes are won in Europe in the run-up to elections, it means that some kind of a turnaround has taken place. Everything is being done in compliance with the task that has been set overseas.

Question: So, Russia is still capable of deciding on things in conjunction with the overseas leaders?

Sergey Lavrov: We are tired of answering this question. Ask them.

President Putin said many times a year ago and has reiterated it several times since then that we are not refusing to talk.

I gave you an example when we reached an agreement, even though the Ukrainians are now trying to deny it. But that is not true. They are trying to distort the actual state of affairs. We reached an agreement back then: I know this for a fact, since I was part of the process.

They are now being told not to enter in negotiations. There is the Zelensky formula, which demands Russia surrender, and only after that, the “strategic defeat” which the West keeps talking about, will a peace treaty be concluded with Russia.

Now the West has thrown all its weight and made it public that the main goal on the political track is to win over the Global South, including the BRICS countries, and have them support the “plan” aimed at Russia’s surrender.

This was the subject of a meeting in Copenhagen where a number of countries of high standing from the Global South were invited, which, we were told, refused to sign joint statements. But these attempts will continue.

This lies at the heart of the political process that the West wants to impose on everyone else, which is to win our friends and like-minded strategic partners over to Zelensky’s side to see the Russian Federation surrender. If this is true (and it really is, because they are talking about it publicly), then, to put it mildly, the quality of their diplomatic art leaves much to be desired.

Question: How would you describe your ongoing relations with Africa?

Sergey Lavrov: We have good relations with the African countries. The second Russia-Africa summit will be held in St Petersburg in late July and include several events. In addition to the summit, there will be an economic forum, as well as panels dedicated to our cooperation in education, humanitarian ties, and culture.

We maintain regular contacts with the African countries. Last year, I was in Africa four times and visited 15 countries. African guests come to see me on a regular basis. Today, I have a meeting with the Deputy Chairman of the Supreme (Sovereign) Council of the Republic of the Sudan.

Unlike some other countries dominated by those who we in Russia call “people who lost track of their origins,” African countries are well aware of the history of their states and their struggle against colonialism.

They appreciate our country’s help, including in organising governance, building state institutions, and creating the foundations of national economies – which the colonisers never did – and education systems, as well as training national personnel.

This is a solid foundation. It has retained its significance in those relatively short years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, when, due to grave challenges in Russia, we never got around to building up cooperation with Africa.

We are now past that period. The first Russia-Africa Summit was held in Sochi in October 2019; its decisions are being put into action. New plans will be announced at the second summit in St Petersburg in late July.

July 5, 2023