Lavrov's September 22 UNSC Address & Putin's Speech Prior to the Solemn Concert Dedicated to the 1160th Anniversary of the Birth of Russian Statehood
Today at the UNSC Lavrov delivered a full broadside to its Western members of the sort they most certainly deserve. As usual, only the Russian transcript is available. Several reports were made by TASS and Sputnik on his statement, but there really isn't any substitute for reading all his words. After that I provide the complete transcript of Putin's speech on the 1160th anniversary of the birth of Russian statehood. Now for Lavrov's remarks. What follows are the excerpts I chose to comment upon:
As usual, Lavrov's expertise turned the tables on those who called the meeting as his opening two paragraphs show:
"I understand that today's meeting was motivated by the desire of some delegations to discuss the topic of "impunity" in Ukraine. I think this is very timely. It is this term that fully reflects what has been happening in this country since 2014. national radical forces, outspoken Russophobes and neo-Nazis then came to power as a result of an armed coup with the direct support of Western countries. Immediately after that, they embarked on the path of lawlessness and total disregard for fundamental human rights and freedoms - the right to life, freedom of speech, access to information, freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, use of their native language.
"Crimes on the Maidan in February 2014 still go unpunished, and the perpetrators of the monstrous tragedy in Odessa on May 2, 2014, when about 50 people were burned alive and killed alive in the local House of Trade Unions, were not found and punished. In the same series there are political murders of O.A. Buzina, P.G. Sheremet, other public figures and journalists. Despite this, today they are trying to impose a completely different narrative on us about Russian aggression as the primary cause of all troubles."
Lavrov pulls no punches and clearly aims for the Western jugular:
"We have no doubt that Ukraine has finally become a totalitarian State of the Nazi persuasion, where the norms of international humanitarian law are violated with impunity. It is not surprising that the Armed Forces of Ukraine and nationalist battalions use terrorist tactics, using civilians as human shields.
"Against this background, the position of those states that pump Ukraine with weapons and military equipment, train the personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is especially cynical. The goal is obvious (they do not hide it, but declare it): to prolong the fighting as much as possible, despite the casualties and destruction, in order to exhaust and weaken Russia. Such a line means the direct involvement of Western countries in the Ukrainian conflict, making them a party to it. The deliberate fomenting of this conflict by the "collective West" also goes unpunished. Indeed, they will not punish themselves.
"We have no illusions that today the Armed Forces of Russia and the militias of the DPR and LPR are opposed not only by the neo-Nazi formations of the Kiev regime, but also by the military machine of the 'collective' West. In real time, using modern systems, aircraft, ships, satellites, strategic drones, NATO supplies the Armed Forces of Ukraine with intelligence, insisting that Russia must be defeated on the battlefield (this is directly stated by EU officials) and deprived of any sovereignty as a punishment. This is no longer latent racism, but the most blatant one." [My Emphasis]
And there's much more between my citations that's just as damning. In his conclusion, Lavrov hints at the fact that Russia can also act unilaterally and now will since "[w]e no longer count on justice on the part of this [International Criminal Court] and a number of other international institutions. The waiting time has ended."
The entire transcript will be posted below.
On the heels of yesterday's Mobilization Speech, “Vladimir Putin spoke at a gala concert dedicated to the 1160th anniversary of the birth of Russian statehood.” One might think the timing of the former was made in reference to the latter. Given the speech's content, I'd say that's a very good possibility. What follows is the transcript's machine translation with all additional emphasis being mine:
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Friends,
Today we celebrate 1160 years of Russian statehood. I congratulate you on this significant and key historical date for Russia.
Veliky Novgorod, Rurikovo settlement, Staraya Ladoga, Izborsk – all this is the cradle of Russia, the source of our civilization and our state, our culture, enlightenment.
From here, from the north, the campaigns of the vigilantes of the first Russian Rurik dynasty began, trade caravans went "from the Varangians to the Greeks", Rus was created - the largest state in Europe of that time, uniting the Slavic, Finno-Ugric, Turkic and other tribes, gathering them under its growing wings from Ladoga and the Baltic, Novgorod and Pskov to Kiev and Chernigov, Azov, the Black Sea, the Crimea.
Over the past more than a millennium, our statehood has experienced different eras, including brutal invasions of enemies, fragmentation and tragedies of internecine strife, but each such difficult period invariably ended with the revival of the Fatherland. The heroic generations of our people conquered difficulties and adversities, overcame all trials, created, multiplied the greatness of our Fatherland and covered their names with glory.
We remember and honor these truly outstanding people: Rurik and Oleg the Prophet, Princess Olga and Svyatoslav Igorevich, Prince Vladimir and Yaroslav the Wise, Vladimir Monomakh and Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy and Sergius of Radonezh, Ivan III and Ivan the Terrible. Yermak, Minin and Pozharsky, Dezhnev and Bering, Peter I and Catherine II, Lomonosov and Pushkin, Suvorov and Ushakov, Alexander II the Liberator and Alexander III the Peacemaker. Brusilov and Denikin, Zhukov and Rokossovsky, Kurchatov, Korolev, Gagarin.
These and many other our compatriots were large-scale, complex, sometimes contradictory historical figures. Some of them saw the future of Russia in their own way and were even on opposite sides of the barricades. You know, I wrote in this text, then crossed out such names as Nicholas II, Lenin, Stalin. Apparently, not much time has passed from a historical point of view in order to give full-fledged objective assessments, devoid of the current political conjuncture.
But all of them are statesmen, workers, warriors, pioneers, scientists, ascetics and saints, and most importantly, all our people made Russia a great world power, determined its fate.
And everything, I repeat, began here, in Veliky Novgorod, and the Novgorod Hagia Sophia Cathedral, like other ancient Russian churches, will always serve as a sacred symbol of our historical unity. Modern Russia is the heir of ancient Holy Russia, as well as the Tsardom of Moscow, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. These are the greatest epochs of our unbroken thousand-year history that we are proud of.
Today we look into the depths of centuries and understand that we must not only preserve, but also continue the traditions of our ancestors with dignity, that each of us bears a colossal responsibility for Russia, for protecting and strengthening our huge country, our beloved Motherland.
For centuries, Russia has been built as a common home for people of many nationalities and different religions. It is in our brotherhood that the powerful energy of harmonious, independent, original development lies.
No one will ever be able to ban or abolish our unique civilization and rich culture, just as it is impossible to shake and even more so to destroy the values that unite Russian society and make us one, a large single people.
This is loyalty to truth and justice, respect for the family, love for children, this is a solid foundation of traditional values, such as mercy, compassion and mutual assistance, readiness to achieve well-being not for oneself, but for everyone, for the whole country, for the whole of Russia and in the face of a common threat to stand together, with a wall – "for one's friends", for the Fatherland.
Being a patriot is the essence of the nature and character of the Russian people. Now, in the course of a special military operation, our heroes, soldiers and officers, volunteers show just such highest human qualities, fight bravely, shoulder to shoulder, like brothers, for the sake of saving the people of Donbass, for the sake of a peaceful sky for our children and grandchildren, for the sake of their native country, which will always be only free and independent.
For 1160 years, we have firmly learned that it is deadly dangerous for Russia, even for a while, to weaken its sovereignty and abandon its national interests. In such periods, Russia's very existence was threatened.
We won't get any more mistakes like this. We will not succumb to blackmail and intimidation and will never betray or lose our sovereignty, and by strengthening it, we develop our country.
Sovereignty is a guarantee of everyone's freedom. And in our tradition, a person cannot feel truly free if his people, Fatherland, Russia, Motherland are not free.
A responsible, strong government in our state serves and will serve only the people of Russia, and its support on key issues of the domestic and foreign agenda is the key to the successful and safe development of our country as one of the centers of a more just, multipolar world that is now emerging.
We are on the side of an open and honest partnership, we stand firmly on this and will build such relations with all those who share our ideas of equal and mutually beneficial cooperation.
Dear friends!
Being part of the diverse Russian civilization is happiness, but, I repeat, both responsibility and duty. Our civilization is original, it has its own way, and there is not an ounce of swagger and a sense of superiority in this. This civilization is ours – this is what is most important for us.
And for our Fatherland, for our Motherland, which we have alone, for our freedom, independence and sovereignty, for our culture and traditions, we will fight, defend and defend them in the name of our ancestors and our descendants, for the sake of Russia, its great history and great future.
Congratulations!
Take care!
Thank you very much.
I doubly emphasized one passage above because it ties directly to the end of Putin's Mobilization Speech that I urged all to read several times. You'll also read others that make a connection but not in the same manner. Also note that according to Putin to be Russian one must be a Russian Patriot, a clear message to those in the 5th and 6th Columns. And given the values Putin listed, how can one not come to the aid of his/her fellows in whatever manner possible? Who in the Duma of Executive Council will mount a counter argument?
How many Russians stop and watch Putin's speeches then discuss the content? I recall way back in the early 1960s when POTUS speeches were watched and discussed by a majority, but that ended with the proven immorality of Vietnam and subsequent overt Outlaw US Empire Imperialism. The point being today's Russia must be considered one solid society whereas the West is fractured and fragmented with very few patriots of the Russian sort. And so the West is reduced to lying, propaganda, and unleashing squads of trolls to replace its great lack of patriotism.
And now Lavrov's complete UNSC statement without comment or emphasis:
Dear Madam President,
Excellencies
Colleagues
I understand that today's meeting was motivated by the desire of some delegations to discuss the topic of "impunity" in Ukraine. I think this is very timely. It is this term that fully reflects what has been happening in this country since 2014. national radical forces, outspoken Russophobes and neo-Nazis then came to power as a result of an armed coup with the direct support of Western countries. Immediately after that, they embarked on the path of lawlessness and total disregard for fundamental human rights and freedoms - the right to life, freedom of speech, access to information, freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, use of their native language.
Crimes on the Maidan in February 2014 still go unpunished, and the perpetrators of the monstrous tragedy in Odessa on May 2, 2014, when about 50 people were burned alive and killed alive in the local House of Trade Unions, were not found and punished. In the same series there are political murders of O.A. Buzina, P.G. Sheremet, other public figures and journalists. Despite this, today they are trying to impose a completely different narrative on us about Russian aggression as the primary cause of all troubles.
At the same time, it is ignored that for more than eight years, the Ukrainian army and militants of nationalist formations killed and are killing residents of Donbass with impunity only because they refused to recognize the results of a criminal, bloody, unconstitutional coup d'état in Kiev and decided to defend their rights guaranteed by the Constitution of Ukraine, including the right to free use of their native Russian language.
Remember how in 2015, the then Prime Minister of Ukraine A.P. Yatsenyuk said that "non-humans" live in Donbass. Not far from it, the current President V.A. Zelensky also left. In an interview in September 2021, when asked what he thinks about the people living in Donbass, he said that there are people, and there are "creatures", "individuals". This is a stable characteristic of the Ukrainian regime, both under Petro Poroshenko and under V.A. Zelensky.
They declared all those who disagreed with the results of the coup d'état terrorists. For eight years, the Kiev regime conducted a "military operation" against the civilian population. In Ukraine, for many years, the total mobilization of the entire adult population, including women, has been carried out to recruit them into the ranks of nationalist battalions and the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Hypocritically declaring their commitment to the Minsk agreements, the Kiev authorities openly and with impunity sabotaged their implementation. A financial, transport and energy blockade of Donbass was introduced. Residents of the region were cut off from social benefits, pensions, salaries, banking services, communications, education and health care. They were deprived of elementary civil rights guaranteed, including by the 1966 International Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as on Civil and Political Rights.
At one point, tired of pretending, V.A. Zelensky said that the Minsk "Package of Measures" was needed only in order to maintain the sanctions imposed against Russia. Even more frank was his predecessor and co-author of the Minsk Agreements, Petr Poroshenko. A couple of months ago, he publicly and proudly stated that neither he nor anyone in Ukraine intended to fulfill these agreements signed by him. They were needed only to buy time to obtain weapons from Western countries for war with the Russian Federation. Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine A.M. Danilov spoke in the same vein.
The Kiev regime owes its own impunity to its Western curators, first of all, Germany and France, and, of course, the United States. Instead of pushing the Kiev leadership to implement the Minsk agreements, Berlin and Paris cynically turned a blind eye to Kiev's open threats to solve the "Donbass problem" by force - the so-called plan "B".
In recent years, the Kiev regime has waged an all-out, frontal offensive against the Russian language. With impunity, he infringed on the rights of the Russian and Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. Scandalous "language" laws were adopted - "On Education" (2017), "On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language" (2019), "On Complete General Secondary Education" (2020), "On Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine" (2021). All of them are aimed at displacing the Russian language and, in fact, at its complete ban.
At the same time, laws were passed that encouraged the theory and practice of Nazism. Kiev ignored the timid recommendations of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities on the amendment of language legislation. In turn, these multilateral structures did not find the courage (maybe they were simply not allowed) to encourage the Ukrainian authorities to fulfill their international obligations in the field of human rights.
The Ministry of Education of Ukraine excluded the Russian language and Russian literature from the school curriculum. Books in Russian language are banned and destroyed, as in Nazi Germany, monuments to Russian writers are destroyed.
With state support, the ideology of national intolerance towards ethnic Russians is being imposed. Today, the country's officials are no longer ashamed of their Nazi nature, openly and with impunity call for the murder of Russian people.
Let me give you some examples. Ukrainian Ambassador to Kazakhstan P.Y. Vrublevsky, now in Kiev, said in an interview on August 22 of this year: "We are trying to kill them (russians) as much as possible. The more we kill Russians now, the less our children will have to kill. That's it." Has anyone noticed this? Earlier, last spring, the mayor of Dnipro B.A. Filatov spoke in the same spirit: "The time has come for cold rage. We now have every moral right to kill these inhumans all over the world in peace and with a completely unclouded mind, for an unlimited amount of time and in as large quantities as possible." On September 13 of this year, NSDC Secretary A.M. Danilov said: "In those settlements where the Armed Forces of Ukraine enter, residents will be Ukrainized without taking into account their opinions. This will affect not only Russian people, but also representatives of other nationalities. If you have a desire to study additionally in some other languages, Romanian, Polish, Hebrew, please, but not at the expense of our state, at your own expense, you can improve your education. "
Needless to say, all these Russophobic antics went absolutely unpunished? It's not just about Russophobia. He spoke about representatives of other nationalities living in Ukraine.
The apotheosis was the interview of V.A. Zelensky on August 5, 2021, in which he advised everyone who feels Russian, for the benefit of their children and grandchildren, to go to Russia.
It seems to me that the decisions taken now by residents of a number of regions of Ukraine to hold referendums are a response to his wishes.
Under the "sauce" of the fight against "Russian aggression" and "separatism" in Ukraine, the persecution of dissidents is intensifying. In March of this year, a ban was imposed on the activities of 11 political parties under the pretext of their "ties with Russia". Leading opposition TV channels in Russian language have long been closed. Websites unwanted by the government are blocked. Journalists are persecuted for trying to give an alternative to the official view of the state of affairs. In the dungeons of the SBU is a prominent Ukrainian public figure E. Berezhna, who has repeatedly spoken at the UN and the OSCE about the growth of neo-Nazism in Ukraine.
We have no doubt that Ukraine has finally become a totalitarian State of the Nazi persuasion, where the norms of international humanitarian law are violated with impunity. It is not surprising that the Armed Forces of Ukraine and nationalist battalions use terrorist tactics, using civilians as human shields.
Against this background, the position of those states that pump Ukraine with weapons and military equipment, train the personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is especially cynical. The goal is obvious (they do not hide it, but declare it): to prolong the fighting as much as possible, despite the casualties and destruction, in order to exhaust and weaken Russia. Such a line means the direct involvement of Western countries in the Ukrainian conflict, making them a party to it. The deliberate fomenting of this conflict by the "collective West" also goes unpunished. Indeed, they will not punish themselves.
We have no illusions that today the Armed Forces of Russia and the militias of the DPR and LPR are opposed not only by the neo-Nazi formations of the Kiev regime, but also by the military machine of the "collective" West. In real time, using modern systems, aircraft, ships, satellites, strategic drones, NATO supplies the Armed Forces of Ukraine with intelligence, insisting that Russia must be defeated on the battlefield (this is directly stated by EU officials) and deprived of any sovereignty as a punishment. This is no longer latent racism, but the most blatant one.
Against the backdrop of massive shelling of Donbass settlements, Vladimir Zelensky rejoices at the effectiveness of Western weapons. Here is his quote: "Finally, it feels like the Western artillery has worked very powerfully – the weapons that we received from our partners. Its accuracy is really as it should be," the leader of this state formation said cynically. At the same time, no military or strategic targets were hit in the shelled settlements. Civilians of Donbass are suffering.
Since the end of July this year, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been remotely mining the center of Donetsk and its suburbs with prohibited anti-personnel mines "Petal". Their use flagrantly violates the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines, ratified by Ukraine in 2005, as well as the Second Protocol to the Geneva Convention on Conventional Weapons (prohibits mines without self-destructors).
Such atrocities have become possible and remain unpunished due to the fact that the United States and its allies, with the connivance of international human rights institutions, have been systematically covering up the crimes of the Kiev regime for eight years, building their policy towards Vladimir Zelensky, based on the well-known American principle: "He, of course, is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch."
The inconvenient truth that darkens the bright appearance of Ukraine as a victim of Russian aggression is diligently hushed up, and sometimes frankly erased. Even the Western human rights organization Amnesty International, which is hardly suspected of being sympathetic to Russia, has been severely criticized and labeled as an agent of the Kremlin. Only for the fact that in its report this structure confirmed the well-known facts that Kiev deploys combat points, heavy weapons at civilian facilities.
Criminal shelling of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant (ZNPP) by militants of the Kiev regime, creating risks of a nuclear catastrophe, remains unpunished. And this is happening despite the fact that since September 1 of this year, employees of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been constantly present at the station, and it is not difficult to identify the party responsible for the shelling.
Let me remind you that the visit of the IAEA mission to the ZNPP was artificially delayed, because already on June 3 of this year all the details were agreed upon and the mission could safely go there. Then an unseemly situation arose when the Department of Security of the UN Secretariat refused to "give the go-ahead" for a specific route agreed by Russia and the Agency. Then he began to declare that the IAEA would independently determine all the parameters of this mission. This not a clean idea delayed the visit of the Agency's mission to ZNPP for three months.
We are seriously concerned about the fate of Russian servicemen who fell into the hands of Ukrainian nationalists. There is ample evidence of ill-treatment, including summary executions, in violation of international humanitarian law. I am sure that those who are interested in real events in Ukraine have seen a video recording of the massacre of Russian prisoners of war by Ukrainian Nazis, who were thrown to the ground with their hands tied behind their backs and shot in the head. Has any of the countries represented here commented on this crime?
We have a lot of evidence of these and other criminal acts of the Kiev regime, regularly committed since 2014, russian law enforcement agencies, in cooperation with colleagues from the DPR and LPR, carefully record and investigate the facts of crimes. The involvement of more than 220 persons, including representatives of the high command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, commanders of military units that shelled civilians, was established. Criminal cases are being investigated against citizens of Great Britain, Canada, the Usa, the Netherlands on the facts of mercenarism and the commission of criminal acts in Ukraine. I assure you that all those responsible, regardless of their citizenship, will be brought to justice.
Once again, I want to draw your attention to the following. When Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul at the end of March this year practically agreed to the parameters of the settlement proposed by Kiev, a tragedy occurred in Bucha a couple of days later. No one doubts that it was staged. Immediately after this staging, our Western colleagues raised a tantrum and introduced a new package of sanctions against the Russian Federation, unsubstantiated accusing us of killing civilians. Since this propaganda effect was realized, no one remembers Bucha. Except for us. I once again appeal in the presence of the Secretary General and distinguished ministers: please get the Ukrainian authorities to take the elementary step of publishing the names of the people whose corpses were shown in bucha. I have been asking for this for months. No one hears or wants to react.
Dear Mr. Secretary-General,
At least you will use your authority, please. I think it will be useful for everyone to deal with this episode.
We drew attention to the increased activity of international justice in relation to Ukraine. Some "efforts" to investigate crimes in Ukraine attributed to the Russian military are being advertised. All this is custom-made. We can see it very well.
Neither the bloody coup of 2014 in Kiev, nor the Odessa tragedy of May 2, 2014, nor the shelling of peaceful cities of Donbass, nor the bombing of Luhansk by military aircraft on June 2, 2014 and many other facts did not become a reason for any clear reaction from the International Criminal Court (ICC). More than 3,000 reports of crimes against residents of Donbass were sent to the ICC. There was no reaction. Apparently, now the leadership of this "judicial body" has received a command "from above" that they develop a flurry of activity. We have no confidence left in this body. For eight long years, we waited in vain for the fight against impunity in Ukraine to begin. We no longer count on justice on the part of this and a number of other international institutions. The waiting time has ended.
Everything I have said once again confirms that the decision to conduct a special military operation was inevitable. We have talked about this more than once. They presented a huge number of facts showing how Ukraine was preparing to play the role of "anti-Russia", a springboard for creating and implementing threats against Russian security. I dare to assure you that we will not allow this.