Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with Kultura television channel for UNESCO: 70 Years in Russia film, Moscow, January 27, 2025.

Question: Please share with us the circumstances surrounding the Soviet Union’s accession to UNESCO. How was it back in 1954?

Sergey Lavrov: UNESCO was created much earlier, mostly by Western countries. In 1946, there were 28 member states. It was a fairly modest entity with a budget of only 6 million dollars (adjusted for inflation), and its projects were fairly small.

The Soviet Union decided to join this organisation guided by the goals, principles and ideals laid out in its Charter, which included universal welfare, refusal of confrontation, equality, mutual respect, and equal rights for all people on Earth without exception in the spheres of culture, science, and education. In April 1954, on behalf of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Ambassador to Great Britain Yakov Malik signed the Charter of this organisation. The Director-General of UNESCO, a US national Luther Evans, sent a warm letter to Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, in which he expressed his willingness to cooperate with the Soviet Union in every possible way based on these lofty principles. It was then decided to join UNESCO, because despite the already existing NATO bloc, the Soviet Union consistently sought equality and wanted all channels of communication and coexistence to remain open. I think this was a fair and justified decision.

Question: All in all, what was the role of the Soviet Union in the UNESCO system and in what areas it worked most actively?

Sergey Lavrov: The Soviet Union was among the leaders. Now, as the Russian Federation, we are trying to keep this position. In the 1960s-1970s (the Soviet Union joined UNESCO in 1954), we began to strongly promote specific projects that fit into UNESCO’s mandate. The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission was among the first ones to be created. Since 2015, it has been led by our researcher Vladimir Ryabinin, who, during his stint as the head of this Commission, secured the adoption of a UN General Assembly resolution on the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. This commission remains popular, because preserving bioresources, preventing tsunamis and other natural disasters in seas and oceans have remained a highly relevant priority.

There was another initiative. Our country and a group of enthusiasts have initiated an international communications programme, which was built on crucial principles such as ensuring freedom of speech, safe journalistic activities, and unhindered conditions for journalistic work.

Man and the Biosphere is another programme initiated and promoted by the Russian Federation. The first International Biosphere Reserve Congress was convened in Minsk, Belarus, in 1983.

We have indeed made a vast contribution to shaping the existing UNESCO agenda. Every year, we hold a meeting of the governmental Commission for UNESCO, which I chair. It is a major entity reflecting the entire range of our achievements in science, culture and education. Leading Russian researchers from all these spheres are members of this commission. They are well known in UNESCO. We, in Russia, use in practice all useful achievements of this organisation, such as university departments, UNESCO schools, ties among universities, and much more. We find useful this experience when we see at the practical level the serious interest on behalf of all our partners, and our participants in various UNESCO programmes.  

Question: Africa is a priority for Russia and UNESCO. What related programmes are being implemented by Russia in cooperation with UNESCO?

Sergey Lavrov: We are helping African countries in several areas. Africa is a priority for UNESCO, meaning that, in all areas of activity, including bodies, commissions and other events that we initiate, we pay special attention to this continent.

There is Green Chemistry for Life programme. We are focusing particularly on African countries as part of it. In all other areas of UNESCO’s activities, we always consider it important to support Africans in preserving their culture and traditions. This work will remain our priority.

Question: My question concerns sceptical remarks about Russia’s UNESCO membership that occasionally reach our ears. There have even been proposals to withdraw from the organisation. What do you think about this kind of rhetoric?

Sergey Lavrov: I take it as healthy criticism. Just like the UN Secretariat, the UNESCO Secretariat has been largely privatised by the West. Time after time, it has strayed from its statutory duties which require it to be a unifying body and to stick to a neutral and unbiased position, rather than to do any government’s bidding. All these principles from the UN Charter and the UNESCO Charter often get violated.

Take, for example, the International Programme for the Development of Communication which states explicitly the importance of ensuring freedom of expression and journalism. Based on this programme, the UNESCO General Conference has adopted multiple decisions to ensure the safety of journalists, especially the ones operating in troubled regions. Recently, the UNESCO Secretariat released a report about journalists in war zones, listing cases where they came under fire and died. It doesn’t show a single Russian name, even though we regularly informed the relevant Secretariat bodies about each Russian journalist, primarily the ones who died in the special military operation zone.  

Most recently, we submitted an official inquiry asking for a clarification. If it’s just an “oversight,” it’s not that bad. But if it is part of the Elysee Palace policies, bearing in mind that President Macron made it clear repeatedly that he would not let in or issue an accreditation to RT and Sputnik, because they are not “mass media, but propaganda tools,” then it would represent a dramatic change in circumstances. If, following the same line of thinking, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay (a French citizen, as luck would have it) failed to include our journalists who fell on the battlefield on these lists, it would represent a serious violation of the rules. Neither Macron, nor Azoulay are in a position to decide who’s a journalist and who is not.

With regard to RT, speaking at a meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club, President Vladimir Putin was clear that it was a small company with a global reach. It essentially stands alone against hundreds of Western news agencies, where freedom of speech is a scarce commodity.

If we dive deep into criticism, the saddest part about the reputation of the current UNESCO leaders is that they have adopted an absolutely biased stance with regard to the Ukraine crisis in flagrant violation of the UNESCO Constitution, which insists on ensuring equal rights when it comes to access to education for all. The UN Charter, which is binding on all specialised agencies (such as UNESCO) uses an even tougher language saying that everyone must respect human rights, regardless of race, gender, language, or religion. The Russian language and the canonical Orthodox Church have been outlawed in Ukraine. It was not an unplanned move. Those who came to power after the coup declared right away that they would abolish the status of the Russian language. Long before the special military operation, they began to adopt laws which first limited the rights of languages spoken by all ethnic minorities in secondary schools. Then, they adopted a special document that made an exception for the languages spoken in the EU, and left untouched only Russian in an absolutely discriminating position. After secondary schools, they proceeded to ban instruction in Russian in primary schools (I’m not even talking about universities.) That was followed by more laws and regulations at the level of the mayor’s offices in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities. Eventually, all Russian-language media corporations were kicked out from the media market. After that, they shut down three main Ukrainian-owned Russian-language broadcasters. Take a listen to what Zelensky himself and people from his inner circle (government officials) had to say about the Russian language. However, the organisation in charge of ensuring equal opportunities in education failed to respond to any of the moves that were aimed at wiping out education in the Russian language, which is a sad thing to say. However, we are adamant when it comes to upholding our principles and the principles that underlie the activities of international organisations.

I believe pulling out of UNESCO is not an option. We should instead fight this absolutely biased and unacceptable stance on the part of the Secretariat from within. That is exactly what we are doing: requesting information. The Secretariat is under obligation to respond to requests filed by member countries. Whenever we receive perfunctory answers to our inquiries, we make that state of affairs public.

UNESCO is dedicated to the eternal truths and eternal aspirations of humanity. Letting this organisation be run by usurpers who have privatised the Secretariat and now want to run things as they see fit would be a show of weakness. And we are an adamant lot.