Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview for a documentary titled The UN from the 20th to the 21st Century, Moscow, September 25, 2024

Question: We will soon celebrate the 80th anniversary of the UN, when Andrey Gromyko signed the documents on its establishment on behalf of the Soviet Union. We stood at the cradle of that organisation.

If we look at the history of the UN, what contribution have the Soviet Union and Russia made to its activities? What features distinguish Russia’s approach to that global organisation?

Sergey Lavrov: You have said correctly that the Soviet Union stood at the cradle of the UN. The idea of creating a universal international organisation (this is the earliest mention we have found in our archives) after WWII was first mentioned in a document which the Soviet, American and British foreign ministers coordinated at a meeting in the Reception House of the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow in the autumn of 1943. It is considered the first mention of the fundamental agreement, reached before the end of the war, on discussing the post-war architecture of international security, interaction and interstate relations.

The UN Charter is a document that was signed by those who attended that event, including Andrey Gromyko and his comrades and colleagues. The Soviet Union made a tangible contribution to the creation of the modern security infrastructure by insisting that France should be recognised as one of the five great powers with permanent representation at the main UN body, the Security Council. After the UN Charter came into force, the constituent conference was held in San Francisco, and the UN was established, the Soviet Union acted energetically to ensure respect for implementation of the principles set out in the UN Charter.

Less than a year after the victorious powers established the UN based on the noble principles formulated in its charter, it became clear that the West, acting contrary to these principles, intended to launch a war against the Soviet Union, and not merely a cold war but an all-out war. These plans hatched by the Anglo-Saxons have long become public knowledge.

Our archives have recently published documents showing that Britain and France considered confronting the Soviet Union before the beginning of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945). However, we thought that the establishment of the UN had buried these plans and that we would live on the basis of the main principles of the UN Charter – the sovereign equality of states, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, and respect for the right of nations to self-determination. Our Western colleagues have been treading on these principles especially heavily.

Once NATO was created, the Soviet Union circulated a large document which demonstrated the detrimental effect of that and the danger of building walls between the East and the West, especially in Europe, and called for respecting the UN Charter and for working towards this. Our call was not heeded. After that, the Warsaw Treaty Organisation was established and the Cold War began. Winston Churchill drew down the Iron Curtain in 1946.

However, we continue fighting for justice and the implementation of the principle of sovereign equality of nations. Decolonisation was a bright stage and a major embodiment of that principle. The Soviet Union was the main initiator of the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. Following its adoption, the number of UN states increased by 80-90 members. That declaration put the principle of self-determination of nations into practice.

They tell us that the main goal today is to ensure the territorial integrity of Ukraine. It is a misleading interpretation of the UN Charter, where the right of nations to self-determination is put before territorial integrity. The UN General Assembly subsequently resolved that the territorial integrity of states should be respected if their governments represent the whole people belonging to the territory. Just like the colonial powers that did not represent the whole people of colonised African, Asian and Latin American countries, the government that seized power following a state coup in Ukraine, and immediately declared that they would prohibit the Russian language, did not represent Crimea, Donbass or Novorossiya. This is what we see as a reason that prevents the West from demanding that Ukraine conduct fair negotiations and respect the principles of the UN Charter.

Even before demanding respect for territorial integrity, the UN Charter demands respect for human rights without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion. I am not going to speak about race or sex now; many other people are readily doing this. But the right to language and religion has always been the West’s banner in international affairs. Now that Zelensky’s Nazi regime, which the West nurtured, has banned both the language and religious rights of a large number of its own population, the West has put away the banners it was waving for decades. They are only speaking about ensuring Ukraine’s victory because it is fighting for European values. I see no need to say that these “values” are not in line with the UN Charter.

I could mention many other initiatives approved by the UN, the Soviet Union and Russia, such as the need to prevent the arms race in outer space, or a resolution that launched negotiations on creating a solid legal framework for international information security and preventing the use of cyberspace for military purposes. At the same time, work began – it is nearing completion now – on an international convention on cybercrime. Certain individuals are using the digital space for far from moral purposes. So, this convention is another contribution from Russia to strengthening international law.

The top priority now is to ensure the achievement of the initial goals and principles of the UN Charter in their entirety and as a whole, rather than selectively or occasionally.

Question: At various levels, a discussion is going on about the need to reform the United Nations, particularly the Security Council. These discussions have continued to this day. In July, during a UN Security Council meeting, you mentioned the importance of removing geographical and geopolitical imbalances plaguing the Security Council. Everyone is clear this must be done. What might a roadmap for such reforms look like? What could ultimately be the potential parameters of such reforms in the near future?

Sergey Lavrov: Reform is not a one-off event. It’s a process which has been ongoing since the time the United Nations came into being. The Security Council was expanded in the early 1960s. Bodies were created that were not originally envisioned by the Charter, such as the UN Human Rights Commission, which was later transformed into the Human Rights Council, and the Peacebuilding Commission (a relatively new body established 20 years ago), which deals with transitioning from conflict resolution to rebuilding impacted areas. UN peacekeeping operations have also expanded significantly and are broadly represented. We are active in a number of special operations. The UN keeps creating new bodies that reflect changes in real life. I mentioned cybersecurity which didn’t exist 20 years ago. No one even thought about it back then.

Without a doubt, amidst the ongoing reforms of various UN institutions, everyone is focusing primarily on reforming the Security Council. This is understandable. In addition to being the main body with a decisive role in matters of war and peace, it also offers an element of prestige. When a country is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, it evokes national pride, strengthens national identity, and has a significant domestic political dimension for the countries which strive to be on the Council.

This process is underway. When I came to New York as our country’s Permanent Representative in 1994, it was already underway and evolving. Nevertheless, it relies on principles that must be preserved at all costs. The main principle is that the Security Council reform should be based on a broad-based agreement among states. It does not say “consensus,” but it does state “broad-based agreement among states.”

Some countries are trying to artificially expedite this process (which is inherently a fairly complex endeavour) due to conflicting national interests and considerations of national prestige with regard to who enjoys greater respect in a particular region. Haste is out of place here. Those pushing to speed up the process argue that the UN Charter requires a two-thirds majority to amend it, and suggest putting the issue to a vote at the UN General Assembly. However, a two-thirds majority does not represent a broad-based consent. This would lead to polarisation. Other countries advocating for Security Council reform insist on adding more permanent members. They have formed the Group of Four (G4), which includes the initiators of this process, namely, India, Brazil, Germany, and Japan. Opposing them is a large group of countries which believe that adding more permanent members is unacceptable, and only endorse the idea of expanding the number of non-permanent Security Council members.

When I served as Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN in New York, my Mexican counterpart, discussing the Security Council reform, spoke against the need for new permanent seats, saying that an injustice was committed when five countries were granted special privileges, so we should not replicate this mistake. In line with this logic, a group called “Uniting for Consensus” was formed, which aims to avoid all voting at all. This group includes various countries, small, medium, and somewhat larger ones. I mentioned Mexico and several Latin American countries, as well as many European nations earlier. They understand that they cannot realistically expect to obtain permanent seats. This is another reason why they do not want to rush the voting process.

So, when someone says “let’s stop dragging things out and vote, we will have a two-thirds majority,” this is not necessarily true. It means they want to take a step. If that step is successful, it will marginalise one-third of “respectable” countries that contribute to the work of economic bodies, provide humanitarian aid to different countries, and contribute their contingents to peacekeeping operations. If such a decision is made, for them, the legitimacy of the Security Council will diminish, not improve. These games are dangerous.

Alongside the People’s Republic of China, which fully shares our approach for seeking broad-based agreement rather than imposing solutions, we are doing everything we can.

Against this backdrop, other permanent members of the Security Council - the UK, France, and the United States - have adopted a more ambiguous position. The UK and France are playing along with those who strive to rush the process.

At the same time, the French have floated the idea of limiting the veto power. They say it would be a voluntary limitation. We asked them how they see this play out in real life. They said it should apply to cases of genocide and mass human rights violations, suggesting that permanent members should voluntarily refrain from using their veto right in such situations.

It is sad that this situation must be looked at from a cynical perspective. We asked the French how many victims will be necessary for us to realise it is time to give up the veto right, be it genocide or mass violation of human rights. It is 100? More than 100? Should the veto be applied when the count is 99? This is a cynical approach, but it gives away the hypocrisy of the French, even in such circumstances, as long as it allows Paris to make another move in order to get in the spotlight.

In 2023, the United States started aggressively advocating for an immediate expansion of the UN Security Council by granting permanent seats to those who claim them, including Germany and Japan.

Our position is fairly straightforward. The Security Council does not need more members coming from the “Western group” (NATO, the European Union, or their allies, like Japan). Currently, six out of the 15 Security Council members represent the Western-centric countries. The Western participants in this process do not add any value to the work of the Security Council. Everything is determined by the United States, with the British always supporting them. More Western participants joining the Security Council (in this case, those who are eager to join it, such as Germany and Japan) would do nothing but expand and deepen the injustice. There is not a single international issue where Berlin or Tokyo has ever expressed views that are any different from the views of their overseas patrons. Meanwhile, developing countries are underrepresented at the UN Security Council.

We have invariably supported the legitimate aspirations of India and Brazil to secure permanent seats in the Security Council. However, African aspirations must be met as well. Africa has common collective positions, which we respect. And we would have like that.

Our position implies providing additional seats for Asia, Africa, and Latin America. We are open to some of these seats being permanent, but we need to achieve general agreement before we can move forward. It is a complicated process. I don’t see any chance for bringing this process to a swift and expedited completion any time soon.

Question: I have had the privilege of interviewing six out of nine United Nations Secretaries-General. As Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, you worked with Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan, and after that, as Foreign Minister, with Ban Ki-moon and Antonio Guterres.

In your opinion, and I do understand that considering your position making such comparisons may be quite challenging, which of the Secretaries-General contributed the most to UN’s work, promoting its development and securing the status it was intended to play in international affairs?

Sergey Lavrov: Each of those who preceded the current Secretary-General in this position made a meaningful contribution to shaping the way the Secretariat works and the traditions it upholds, as well as the Secretariat’s relations with the member states. I can point to U Thant, who was from Birma, as a case in point in this regard.

If I were to choose from those with whom I worked in New York and as Foreign Minister, I often recall Kofi Annan. He was a close friend of mine. Importantly, he did everything to make the adherence to UN Charter’s Article 100 sacrosanct. This article stipulates that the Secretariat is a purely administrative body headed by the Secretary-General. Therefore, it must remain neutral on all matters while leaving it to member states to reach an agreement. And when this happens, the Secretariat must execute the resolutions they take and the instructions it gets from them.

I had good relations with Ban Ki-moon, who used to serve as Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea before becoming Secretary-General. We knew each other well, communicated and visited each other.

I also knew Antonio Guterres quite well back when he served as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He visited Russia, and also travelled to North Caucasus in this capacity. In fact, Antonio Guterres has done a great deal to make sure that the international community learns the truth about the terrorist threats and the way we had to counter them.

There was an interesting reason that prompted us to support Antonio Guterres, to a certain extent, of course. There is no formal rule within the United Nations to ensure that Secretaries-General get appointed from specific regions or regional groups using a rotating mechanism. The UN has five such regions: Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, West Europe and other countries, including the United States and Australia. Eastern Europe is the fifth group. Instead, there is a tradition to follow this principle, which dates back to the era when the Soviet Union and the socialist camp wanted to be represented in the United Nations. These groups define quotes when electing various bodies such as the UN Human Rights Council, and the Economic and Social Council. There are quite a few bodies within the United Nations which are not open-ended, and these groups were designed to elect these bodies.

When Ban Ki-moon’s second five-year terms was coming to end and discussions about who was going to replace him started, we recalled that there was not a single time when the Secretary-General came from this region, even if almost all of Eastern Europe was part of the European Union or NATO by that time. Therefore, we wanted Eastern Europeans to have priority when electing Ban Ki-moon’s successor, and this was a sincere position on our behalf. By the way, there were candidates from that region. And there were women among the candidates, too. For example, there was Irina Bokova from Bulgaria, a highly respected person who used to head UNESCO and performed well in this position. There was also Kristalina Georgieva, a talented woman who now heads the International Monetary Fund. This is what we wanted.

However, the West stonewalled this process making it impossible for Eastern Europeans to obtain this right. There was a protracted back-and-forth period, during which developing countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America preferred not to be drawn into this controversy. It was then that we settled on Antonio Guterres as a compromise. However, this did leave an aftertaste. I believe that East European countries, which are currently under NATO’s umbrella and benefit from EU’s backing, must understand the way their masters treat them.

Question: I had the honour to meet with you on multiple occasions. I interviewed you before, so now, let’s imagine another interview 30 years from now. Maybe not here in this room, but in 30 years, we meet again, and I ask you again about the United Nations. Where do you see it 30 or 50 years from now?

Sergey Lavrov: The process that we are witnessing today has been underway for years. It was started by the West in order to take every global development, every situation or conflict under control, because developments in any region were to serve the interests of the West. About the same time, they invented the term rules-based international order. No one has ever offered us an explanation as to how it differs from international law, although we’ve asked. President of Russia Vladimir Putin has repeatedly mentioned that order and “rules” emphasising that they have never been formalised on paper or circulated.

Effectively, those rules imply that, when the United States wants something done in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, the Balkans, Ukraine, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, the South China Sea, or the Taiwan Strait, it provides some sort of lame justification and tells everyone what to do, just expecting others to follow the orders. The UN Charter is mostly ignored, or the part that suits their momentary interests gets plucked out of its context. For example, when Kosovo declared independence in 2008 without any referendums, they said that a nation had the right to self-determination, and forced the International Court of Justice to issue a ruling that Kosovo’s move was not at odds with international law. That implied that any part of a state could declare independence from that state unilaterally, without approval by the state’s government. This is how they handled Kosovo in 2008.

However, in 2014, when Crimea held a referendum in response to the brutal and anti-constitutional coup in Kiev and the crackdown on the Russian language and all things Russian the putschists launched, the move was immediately condemned as violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, with the [Crimeans’] right to self-determination taken out of the equation completely. There are many such examples. As the saying goes, every law has a loophole – this is exactly what the notorious American “rules” mean.

I have mentioned the core principle of the UN Charter, which is the sovereign equality of states. However, over the years since the UN was created, there has never been a time, a region, or a situation that involved the United States in one way or another, where the country would actually respect that principle. Every time, everywhere they acted as a hegemon, or like a bull in a china shop. In Afghanistan, their declared a mission to fight terrorism. They fled the country after 20 years, leaving a far greater number of terrorists there than before. In Iraq, a normal, stable country was dismantled. Not to mention Libya, which had been a prosperous country. Wherever the West meddled as the main “fixer” (pardon the use of a colloquial term), an even worse crisis hit, with hundreds of thousands of victims, devastation, and snowballing socioeconomic problems. Over the period of my active work in the international arena, there has not been a single case where Western intervention would actually do anyone good. And now we are seeing a similar picture in Ukraine, and in the Palestinian-Israeli confrontation.

Speaking about the future, I do not expect anything good if the West disregards its obligations under the UN Charter and continues to enforce its “my house, my rules” principle on others. The West has destroyed every rule on which it built its model of globalisation. After the Soviet Union disintegrated, the West spoke about the end of history, liberal philosophy, the triumph of liberalism, free market, the inviolability of private property, the presumption of innocence, and fair competition. The world was encouraged to believe that this was in the best interests of all. I remember that in the 1990s US envoys said at the IMF and the World Bank that there is no need to fear the dollar. The dollar is not an American weapon but a global asset, the blood system of the global economy, they said. What do we have now? Many are shedding the dollar, and those who are too deeply entangled with its nets are trying to gradually reduce their dependence.

When they wanted to punish Russia, the West abandoned all the principles which it was feeding to us and which it declared sacred. The same is happening to the principles of the UN Charter. The West is trampling and destroying them without a moment’s hesitation.

It is notable that the practice of communication was given priority at the Security Council since the UN inception, even in the Soviet period and during the Cold War and the age of confrontation. Council members discussed current issues without a microphone. I remember that Soviet – and subsequently Russian – representatives and their American counterparts maintained regular trust-based contacts, openly putting forth their positions and looking for ways to meet your partner’s interests. In fact, this is what diplomacy is about.

Today, the West has adopted microphone diplomacy, its goal at the Security Council and other UN bodies is to shift the focus on Ukraine, glorify Zelensky as the repository of global democratic values, make the Nazi regime presentable, and exonerate its crimes.

Groups of terrorists armed with modern West-supplied weapons are attacking the Kursk Region. Every day they bomb residential districts, social facilities, and civilians in their cars driving to a safer place. I have not heard UN officials in charge of human rights, including the UN Secretary-General, speak out against this. They reply to media questions that they are studying the information, and that, in general, they are “for everything good and against everything bad.” We have heard this from the staff of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and other UN human rights bodies.

In conclusion, I will say that what we need is victory. It is the only language they understand. We will attain victory. There is no doubt about this. We have really closed the ranks in the face of the war which the West has launched against us by Ukrainian hands. To be able to go back to the roots of the UN and to revive respect for all principles of the UN Charter, starting with human rights such as the right to language and religion, which Ukraine has destroyed with West’s assistance, to revive respect for international law and the principle of sovereign equality of states, the West must see that it will not win the war it is waging against both Russia and international law. There is no need to invent anything; everyone should only implement the UN Charter as approved many years ago.