Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s address at the High-level International Conference Eurasian Security: Reality and Prospects in a Transforming World, Minsk, October 26, 2023

Mr Aleinik,

Ministers,

Colleagues,

Thank you for inviting me to this conference on Eurasian security. I regard it as a wonderful opportunity to continue our dialogue with the concerned members of foreign ministries and the expert community on the further development of our policies.

I would like to express our sincere gratitude to President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, who initiated this event, and to all our Belarusian friends.

International relations have entered a stage of truly landmark tectonic change. We are witnessing the rise of a new and fairer multipolar world order. It is based on the cultural and civilisational diversity of the modern world and the natural right of nations to determine their own ways and forms of development through the realisation of the main UN principle set out in its Charter: the sovereign equality of states.

The distinguishing feature of the present time is the striving of an increasingly large number of states of the Global South and the East to strengthen their sovereignty in all areas and to steer pragmatic, independent and nationally oriented policies in global affairs, which is especially evident in the nascent process of rapid enlargement of BRICS.

The geopolitical balance of forces is changing to the disadvantage of the “historical” or “collective” West. Members of the Western elites are beginning to admit this, including in public, by speaking about the end of the post-Cold War era. US President Joe Biden and, quite recently, President of France Emmanuel Macron, as well as the leaders of other Western countries, have spoken about this. 

These mainline trends are also influencing international processes underway on our common continent, Eurasia. New global centres are strengthening their positions here. They not only have huge potential but are also demonstrating the political will to search for solutions in politics, security and the economy that will be based on a carefully calibrated balance of interests. President Vladimir Putin spoke about this on October 18, 2023, at the Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing.

The efforts of the Global Majority countries, including Russia, to promote a positive and forward-looking interstate agenda in Eurasia and other regions have been met with tenacious resistance from the Western minority. The United States and its satellites are not trying to hide their motives – they are determined to maintain their dominance and monopolise the entitlement to make globally significant decisions. They are pushing some unilateral and non-consensual rules of the game and a “rules-based order” on the international community. The collective West is using a wide range of tools to pressure dissenters, from unilateral coercive measures to demonisation across the global information landscape.

Having made a destructive choice in favour of zero-sum geopolitical games, the North Atlantic states led by Washington have provoked a major security crisis in the European part of our continent. In fact, they have been doing it for years. They bombed Yugoslavia and forcibly separated Kosovo from Serbia. NATO continued its reckless eastward expansion in defiance of the promises they made to the Soviet leaders. They supported the unconstitutional armed coup in Ukraine and spent years pumping the criminal Kiev regime full of money (billions of dollars) and weapons to wage war against Russia – all these policies are links in the same chain. Without the direct encouragement by the United States, Kiev would never have dared to take the path of destroying everything Russian, including the Russian language, education, media, culture, and the Orthodox faith. They would not have dared to legally and physically exterminate the opposition and openly establish Nazi rules, including through legislation.

The European system of confidence-building measures and arms control has been destroyed by the West. Suffice it to mention the US withdrawal from the missile defence, INF, and open skies treaties. American nuclear weapons that are forward-deployed in a number of European countries as well as “joint nuclear missions” run heightened strategic risks and have a highly destabilising effect; amid the general rise in threats generated by NATO, this forces us to resort to compensatory measures.

Western geopolitical “architects,” who have apparently lost all touch with reality and fancy themselves God's viceroys on Earth, are not remotely bothered by the fact that their actions have trampled on their own commitments undertaken at the highest level, including at the OSCE, (which is something Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó mentioned today) where they have made political commitments to strive to build equal and indivisible security, not to enhance their security at the expense of others and not to allow any country or organisation to dominate in Europe. But NATO is doing exactly the opposite. And the OSCE, originally conceived as a pan-European platform for equal dialogue and broad cooperation, is being remodelled, through NATO and EU efforts, into a marginal agency with no bearing on the security situation.

Western politicians once again revealed their true intentions when Washington and Brussels arrogantly rejected the proposals put forward by Russia in December 2021 to coordinate reliable security guarantees and to settle the situation around Ukraine without involving it into NATO or using the Kiev regime against the legitimate Russian interests. However, they did not even want to talk to us seriously.

The Alliance has been consistently and exponentially building up its military activity. A series of recent joint exercises involving the United States and its NATO allies, where, among other things,  the use of nuclear weapons against targets on the territory of the Russian Federation was drilled, took place on a scale unprecedented since the end of the Cold War. Washington pushes the most aggressive Russophobes in Europe into the forefront of those pursuing this reckless policy in order to make other EU and NATO members follow in their wake, while hoping to sit it out overseas across the ocean. It is pitting the European Union against the Russian Federation and demanding that they sever all trade, economic, investment and cultural ties with Russia, while simultaneously organising terrorist attacks like the Nord Stream explosions, which no one is even trying to investigate. Many other actions are taken to destroy the infrastructure that has been built over decades and ensured the interconnectedness of the economies of the continent’s western and eastern parts. All of this destroys the foundations that, to a decisive extent, ensured rapid and sustainable economic growth and socioeconomic development of European countries, including the EU members.

The Alliance refers to Russia as a “direct threat” in its doctrinal documents. They are waging an open and real hybrid war against us using all available forces and assets. Their declared goal is to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia “on the battlefield,” including with the hands and bodies of Ukrainian neo-Nazis. Then, later, they want to knock together some new European architecture, but without Russia and Belarus. Just recall the invention of the “European political community.” This initiative came from President of France Macron, and it was openly announced that everyone was invited except Moscow and Minsk.

I think there is no need to explain how short-sighted and simply unprofessional this is for any person who decides to engage in international politics. I am referring to efforts to securitise Europe without taking into account the opinions and legitimate interests of our two countries. Equally futile are the Kiev regime’s attempts to obtain some unilateral security guarantees from its Western masters. This also suggests that their other goal is to bar Russia and Belarus from the agreements that the West will subsequently conclude on the continent. They openly say that they will have to reckon with Russia and come up with some kind of agreements after the war, which would “protect” them from this country. That is their mentality.

Our readiness to negotiate, demonstrated as early as March and April 2022, led to an agreement of principles between Moscow and Kiev negotiators. But they seemed insufficient for the United States and London. The Anglo-Saxons simply banned them. This is well known. It is written about by all those who were involved in this event: the former Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Gerhard Schröder and journalists such as Seymour Hersh in the United States, and many others. It is difficult to talk about anything now, when the West declares daily that Russia must be defeated on the battlefield and Vladimir Zelensky has forbidden himself and all his employees from entering into any negotiations with Russia, with the government of Vladimir Putin.

It is obvious that the Western aggression against Russia is only a part of the crusade of the United States and its satellites against any member of the international community who demonstrates independence and defends national interests.

We can see the desire of Washington and its allies to create a long-term hotbed of tension in the Asia-Pacific region, which has already been openly declared and is, in their opinion, the area of NATO's responsibility. The situation around Taiwan is being purposefully fuelled. Various narrow formats for military preparations with the participation of Anglo-Saxons (AUKUS) and their obedient companions are being formed, "Indo-Pacific strategies" are being promoted, which are aimed at achieving the containment of China, isolation of Russia and collapse of the open and equitable regional architecture based on consensus that has been established around ASEAN.

Recently, the US has been particularly eager to extend its destructive influence to the South Caucasus and Central Asia. They continue to sway the situation in the Middle East. The peoples of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Sudan and Palestine are still feeling the consequences of their reckless policy of undermining the principles of the UN Charter and decisions of its Security Council.

Washington's attempts to monopolise the Middle East settlement process have led to the current catastrophic situation. While condemning terrorist actions and any other actions that violate international humanitarian law and harm civilians, Russia calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities and resumption of negotiations on the establishment of an independent Palestinian State, which was solemnly promised to the Palestinians almost 75 years ago. President of Russia Vladimir Putin spoke about this in detail once again yesterday.Given the West’s destructive policy to undermine Eurasia’s sustainable development and its reluctance to take part in honest competition and joint work, it is as imperative as never before to build a new continent-wide architecture of equal and indivisible security that will be maximally open to the widest possible range of states interested in equitable and constructive collaboration. The aim behind the conference convened at the initiative of the President of the Republic of Belarus is to connect Eurasia into a unified space so as to counteract common challenges in the name of peace and prosperity of all of its nations.

It is logical in this context to rely on the potential of the existing international organisations that operate on our continent. I am referring to the Union State of Belarus and Russia, the CSTO, the EAEU, the CIS, the SCO, the LAS, the GCC, ASEAN, and others. Other unification processes on the continent, including in Central Asia and South Caucasus, show good promise as well.

Many of these formats have established contacts of some or other type and their executive secretariats, among other things, already exchange best practices and information, with complementarity, or what is known as connectivity, that is, a positive and natural division of labour, taking shape in a natural way.   If objectives are the same, the efforts to attain them can and must be aligned, enhancing their mutual effectiveness. It is in this manner that the EAEU, the SCO, ASEAN, and China’s Belt and Road Initiative organise their relationship, something that objectively facilitates the emergence of the Greater Eurasian Partnership.

The collective approach is called on not only in the economy, but in security as well. In addition to the existing SCO and OSCE programmes, we think there is an opportunity to fulfil the potential of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia. As part of the efforts to transform it into a full-fledged organisation, this body could become a platform for discussion of a broad Eurasian agenda, including the issues of ensuring military-political stability on mutually acceptable terms for a circle of like-minded associates.

Our Belarusian friends are holding today’s event under the auspices of the country’s Chairmanship of the OSCE. The organisation, which marked its 20th anniversary in 2022, shows is practical efficiency, helps to ensure its members’ security, and makes a contribution to pan-Eurasian cooperation.

I would like to remind you about the initiative voiced by the leaders of OSCE member states to launch a dialogue between the continent’s integration agencies to exchange opinions on the security strategies they adopted and the experience of their implementation. It could become an important step in understanding the prospects of building an indivisible Eurasian space of mutual trust, including in the context of the discussion of the Diversity Charter. The Belarusian Foreign Minister spoke about it today. Diversity should be much wider than the “garden and jungle.” Josep Borrell, who came up with this metaphor, did not mention the taiga, or the tundra, or the hot sand of Central Asian deserts. I think that such a narrow view of the world should be corrected. It is important that the discussions that I am talking about and that everyone is interested in are based on the commonly accepted provisions of international law, first of all those enshrined in the UN Charter.

It is clear that the architecture of an indivisible Eurasian security should be comprehensive, take into account the interests of all countries on the continent without exception, literally from Lisbon to Vladivostok. But this time, the conversation should be honest and aimed at reaching practical results, not at shouting pretentious mottoes from the rooftops that conceal the desire to pursue selfish policies.

This dialogue and the architecture we are talking about must finally become a strong foundation that helps prevent and settle conflicts, create an environment in which every state will refuse to let its territory be used to pose a threat to anyone, and exclude the possibility of extra-regional and extra-continental players  exerting pressure on others.

As for our western Eurasian neighbours’ attitude to this, most of them are completely subordinate to Washington. Today we can see no prospects for a meaningful conversation with the vast majority of these countries. No such prospects exist. But in general (I want to emphasise this again), we are always ready to work together if our Western neighbours on the continent find the strength to become independent and gain the “strategic autonomy” that French President Emmanuel Marcon and a number of other leaders constantly talk about; if they can abandon their neocolonial instincts and a thoroughly ideological confrontationist policy, and return to the path of pragmatic, mutually respectful interaction to find a fair balance of interests. We’ll see.

In this context, I welcome the participation of the Foreign Minister of Hungary, my friend Péter Szijjártó, in our conference. His participation proves that the leadership in Budapest can see that it is possible to use the natural competitive advantages of cooperation between countries sharing the same continent, as well as the significance of this cooperation for the national interests of Hungary to more effectively develop the country for the prosperity of its people.

Anyway, the work on Eurasian security that lies ahead remains titanic, but delaying its practical start would only create additional risks.

I would like to once again thank my Belarusian friends for their timely initiative. I am sure that the discussions at the conference will help us better understand the prospects that will need to be put into practice in the interests of our people.