Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement and answers to media questions at a joint news conference following talks with Lao Foreign Minister Thongsavanh Phomvihane, Moscow, June 26, 2025

Colleagues, 

I have just held talks with Lao Foreign Minister Thongsavanh Phomvihane focusing on implementation of the agreements signed by the leaders of our two countries. 

We firmly underscored our mutual commitment to strengthening strategic partnership in the Asia-Pacific region that is based on traditions of friendship, solidarity, and mutual support. 

This October marks the 65th anniversary of diplomatic relations between our countries. We agreed to commemorate this milestone with a programme of concrete events. 

We welcomed the high intensity of inter-parliamentary and inter-party dialogue, as well as delegation exchanges between Russia and Laos across various ministries, agencies, and business circles. We noted the ongoing relevance of strengthening defence and security ties, as well as expanding cooperation between law enforcement agencies. We reiterated our willingness to enhance the legal framework of our relations.

Bilateral trade is significantly up even though the absolute figures still fall short of our expectations and are well below what our two countries can do. 

Considering this, we discussed in detail ways to expand cooperation in energy (including hydropower and peaceful nuclear energy), outer space exploration, transport, logistics, ICT, healthcare and epidemiological safety, as well as finance and banking. 

Concrete plans are available in all the above areas. We agreed to speed up their implementation and to facilitate the activities of the Russian-Laos Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, and Scientific and Technical Cooperation. The 18th session of the Commission will take place in Russia before the year is out. The previous session was held in Vientiane. 

We reviewed a list of documents currently in the works which is fairly long, and work on each of them must be sped up. We share this understanding and will push these processes forward. 

We placed great emphasis on fostering region-to-region ties. St Petersburg and Vientiane are twin cities. Moscow and Vientiane are working under a five-year cooperation plan. Tyumen is part of the region-to-region cooperation as well. 

Cultural and humanitarian exchanges are ongoing, including joint educational initiatives such as supporting the Russian language in Laos, for which we are sincerely grateful to our friends. Plans are in place to expand these efforts. 

We will continue to provide scholarships for Lao citizens under the Russian Government quota which cover both civilian and specialised fields under the Defence Ministry and the Interior Ministry’s programmes. 

Once again, we re-affirmed our overlapping positions on most pressing international issues. Russia and Laos advocate for a just, democratic, sustainable, and multipolar world order based on respect for all principles of the UN Charter, starting with the sovereign equality of all states. 

We will continue coordinating our actions at the UN, particularly within the promising framework of the Group of Friends in Defence of the UN Charter - an initiative launched by Venezuela in 2021, of which our countries are participants. 

Specifically, we attribute great importance to advancing within this Group and at the UN General Assembly initiatives concerning the fight against unilateral illegal coercive measures and countering modern neocolonial practices. The General Assembly has earlier adopted a resolution on this matter. We will work to specify the tasks outlined in these decisions. 

We will continue working together in the Asia-Pacific region and, in this context, we will strengthen dialogue-based partnerships between Russia and ASEAN. We firmly support ASEAN’s central role in regional security and cooperation architecture in Southeast Asia. Together with our Laotian friends and other ASEAN members, we are exploring initiatives advanced by President Vladimir Putin, including the Greater Eurasian Partnership and the creation of Eurasian security architecture. 

We are grateful to our Laotian friends for their objective and balanced stance on all matters related to the Ukraine crisis. We appreciate their assistance in addressing humanitarian issues, including the rehabilitation of our servicemen in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. We also value their understanding of the importance of eliminating the root causes of the Ukraine crisis to achieve a lasting resolution ensuring that Ukraine’s territory never again poses a security threat to the Russian Federation or any other country, nor violates human rights in gross defiance of the UN Charter, which demands respect for the rights of all, regardless of gender, race, language, or religion.

I believe today’s talks were highly productive. I look forward to further deepening our multifaceted strategic partnership. I wish to thank my counterpart, Foreign Minister Thongsavanh Phomvihane, for the candid exchange of views. I am confident that after reporting to our respective presidents and receiving their guidance, we will redouble our efforts to implement their agreements in practical terms.

Question: Europe has decided to increase defence spending to 5 percent of GDP. Does this constitute a threat from our perspective especially considering strange utterances coming from Britain? Does this mean Donald Trump plans to withdraw from the Ukraine conflict and shift its burden onto Europe entirely?

Sergey Lavrov: I believe there certainly is a threat which is growing. This threat targets taxpayers in EU countries and Britain who have been robbed blind over the past three years. Instead of using tax revenue to address urgent and worsening socioeconomic issues at home, these funds are being used to reinforce failure in Ukraine, to fund a war that has neither good prospects, nor achievable goals. The Europeans, for all their posturing and tough rhetoric about their stated goal of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia, have lowered their expectations. First, they took their rhetoric down a notch saying Russia must not be allowed to win, and lately they’ve realised that even that is too big a claim and are now talking about an immediate ceasefire, but are saying they’ll keep sending armaments to Ukraine. French President Macron said there must be an immediate ceasefire without any conditions, but made it clear they will keep supplying weapons to Ukraine. That’s a fairly candid and cynical thing to say.

There’s another suicidal decision by the EU, or rather the European Commission. Brussels bureaucrats have forced their agenda on the democratically elected governments, including a total ban on petroleum and gas supplies from Russia that served as the long-term and robust foundation of Europe’s economic prosperity for decades. All of that has gone down the drain. EC President von der Leyen proudly reported that this decision had been made and that purchases of Russian petroleum and gas would be reduced to zero. However, she kept silent about how much it will cost taxpayers and consumers. The amounts in question are quite substantial. Energy prices are through the roof triggering de-industrialisation. Industrial enterprises are fleeing to the United States, where energy costs are a third or even a quarter of what they have to pay in Europe.

Everyone is aware of their proverbial pride about them looking the other way when the Nord Stream pipelines were blown up. Moreover, they are claiming they will do everything to make sure they never go online again. This is a case of political masochism rooted in certain leaders’ exasperation over the fact that Russia wants to and always will pursue an independent policy and will uphold its interests, preferably, of course, through political negotiations, as we’ve tried to do over the past 20 years. But if and when they ignore our interests, we won’t hesitate to act decisively. Our people fully understand the importance of the special military operation in a situation where the West simply wants to push us to the back alley of world politics and surround us with NATO military bases. This won’t happen.

I don’t think Europe’s five-percent of GDP increase in defence spending will affect our security in any meaningful way. We know what goals we’re pursuing, we are not hiding them, and we declare them openly. They are absolutely legitimate no matter how you may choose to interpret the UN Charter and international law. And we know exactly what means exactly we will use to achieve these goals.

Question: Does the Foreign Ministry share concerns that the US strikes on Iran might instead push the Islamic Republic to develop nuclear weapons? Could this trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East? How viable is the idea of establishing a zone free of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in the region? What is your assessment of the IAEA’s work in this regard? Is there an effective mechanism to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue, given Tehran’s plans to suspend cooperation with the agency? 

Sergey Lavrov: Without a doubt - the ministry commented on this situation earlier - the non-proliferation regime was impacted by the aggressive actions taken by Israel and then the United States when it attacked the facilities of Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme groundlessly accusing Tehran of using this programme to illegally develop nuclear weapons. 

At the stage when threats were being exchanged and Israel began military operations, the IAEA confirmed it had no evidence that Iran was re-focusing its nuclear programme on military objectives. Yet, when this distinguished international agency - the IAEA - states there are no grounds for concern and fully stands by its 2015 findings that Iran shows no signs of weaponising its nuclear programme, and when Israel and the United States respond by claiming they know better than the experts and will decide for themselves how to proceed, this constitutes an egregious disregard, in this case by the United States, for its obligations as a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and for the IAEA’s authority.

This is a lesson for the agency, because the Secretariat’s latest comprehensive report which was put together painstakingly over a long period and submitted at the recent IAEA Board of Governors session was drafted by it under intense pressure from Western countries, primarily Germany, France, Britain, and the United States. Much of the report’s language was ambiguous, which the four Western countries I mentioned immediately seized upon. They drafted a resolution based on this ambiguous language or excessive allusions in IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi’s report that barely secured the required majority in the IAEA Board. Its deliberately alarmist tone essentially gave Israel an additional reason to launch its operation, citing the IAEA’s supposed concerns as justification. 

Everyone must exercise caution, above all, the Director General and his staff and focus strictly on their respective jobs and resist politicisation. All NPT parties and IAEA member states must uphold the principle that governments are responsible for their decision-making. The Secretariat must present facts with utmost honesty and not yield to pressure from anyone.

I cannot comment on the Iranian parliament’s resolution to halt cooperation with the IAEA, as it is non-binding for the executive branch. 

We are interested in Iran continuing its cooperation with the IAEA, and everyone respecting repeated statements by Iran’s Supreme Leader that the country has no plans to develop nuclear weapons, nor will it have such plans going forward. This position is enshrined in a special fatwa, a religious document of the highest authority in the Islamic Republic. 

All parties should seek a political resolution. President Trump has stated his desire to mediate between Israel and Iran.

Iran said it will maintain its ceasefire if Israel refrains from renewing hostilities. Unfortunately, Israeli Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir (whose last name ironically translates as “for peace” in Russian) said the ceasefire was holding, but mostly because they need to finish operations against Hamas, and after that Israel will return to its operation against Iran. 

This causes our concern and cuts against everything that nearly all other stakeholders, including President Trump, had to say. 

Russia’s position is clear. President Putin has unambiguously outlined our approaches in his contacts with the officials from Israel, Iran, the United States, and the Gulf countries, proposing practical ideas for a settlement which would safeguard Iran’s legitimate rights as an NPT member while addressing Israel’s security concerns and those expressed by the US President.