Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks during a meeting of the United Russia General Council’s Commission on International Cooperation and Support for Compatriots Abroad, Moscow, April 16, 2024

Colleagues,

Today, we are holding the 8th meeting of the United Russia Party General Council’s Commission on International Cooperation and Support for Compatriots Abroad.

We welcome the participation of other parliamentary parties, which has now become customary and helps us consolidate our efforts on the foreign front.

Today, we will review several agenda items. I propose beginning with a brief overview of the results of the presidential election voting that was held abroad. The Foreign Ministry acted as its main organiser.

The interest in voting was overwhelming, which was confirmed by high turnout as well as the large number of journalists, public figures and representatives from compatriot organisations who observed the elections.

The electoral process took place amid the hybrid war against Russia unleashed by the collective West. In the run-up to the election, this confrontation became particularly fierce. Our detractors widely used various techniques to exert pressure, blackmail and intimidate voters. They sought to thwart the elections and to question their legitimacy and legal purity. The significant reduction of our diplomatic presence in most Western countries, both in terms of the number of diplomats and the number of diplomatic missions, which was undertaken at the request of Western governments over the past two years, further complicated the voting process. Many consulates general have been closed, including in places densely populated by Russian citizens, which certainly affected the organisational side of the voting process. Our multiple requests to open additional polling stations in order to compensate for the closure of consular offices were turned down.

Nevertheless, the Foreign Ministry and its foreign missions have coped with the task. Hundreds of thousands of Russians got the chance to exercise their constitutional right. Polling stations were opened in popular tourist destinations, specialist communities at major industrial facilities, and in the areas of deployment of Russian peacekeepers, military and members of the security forces.

Elections were held at all 288 foreign-based polling stations. In all, almost 400,000 people took part in the voting, which is about twice as many as during the parliamentary elections in 2021.

Numerous international observers monitored the voting process in Russia, including Donbass and Novorossiya. They did not spot any violations that could affect the election outcome. In total, the CEC accredited more than 1,500 representatives from almost 120 countries and 14 international organisations.

Vladimir Putin won a landslide victory with over 87 percent of the vote. His victory was widely covered by the media in the Global Majority countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Dozens of foreign leaders from these continents personally congratulated the Russian President on re-election.

I would also like to discuss Russia’s current BRICS chairmanship. We aim at achieving tangible results. The action plan envisages active work in three main areas, including politics and security, the economy and finance, and cultural and humanitarian contacts. In light of the accession of five new members to our association on January 1, the key priority now is to ensure the new members’ harmonious integration into the strategic partnership architecture and to preserve the effective operation of all existing BRICS mechanisms. The first Sherpa meeting was held in Moscow in late January - early February. The new recruits reiterated their firm commitment to be actively involved and to take part in the common work across the agenda.

The participants in the BRICS Summit in August 2023 decided to start coordinating criteria for a new category of the association’s state partners. Now they are actively working on this. They will coordinate the main recommendations at the BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting in Nizhny Novgorod in June and submit them for approval at the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan in October. In addition to working on the partner states category, the BRICS members are going to deepen dialogue with friendly countries in the BRICS Plus/BRICS Outreach format. They are planning to involve our associates in the EAEU, CIS, CSTO and the SCO by using this format.

 One of the main foreign policy goals of BRICS is to enhance coordination with its partners at multilateral venues, primarily in the UN, the Group of Friends in Defence of the UN Charter and in the G20 where the number of participants exceeded that of the G7 after the expansion of BRICS. 

BRICS concentrates on ensuring favourable conditions for promoting the socio-economic, investment, technological and human potential of its member countries. We will continue implementing for this purpose the Strategy of BRICS Economic Partnership through to 2025 and the Innovation Cooperation Plan for 2021-2024.

We are interested in enhancing the role of the BRICS states in the currency, financial and trade systems, developing interbank cooperation, expanding the use of their national currencies in mutual trade and pooling efforts in creating a rating agency and the association’s exchange. The BRICS countries are actively discussing these plans, in part, based on the instructions given at the past year’s summit in Johannesburg. This work is becoming an increasing concern for the US and its allies. They understand that in case of success – and we will achieve success – it will call into doubt the mechanisms of globalisation of which the West is in charge now. The West has created and promoted them as mechanisms allegedly aimed at ensuring equitable and competitive participation of all states in the world economic processes for the benefit of humanity. The West has started to shamelessly abuse these mechanisms, using them for suppressing competitors and punishing those who do not accept its neocolonial policy.

BRICS has focused its attention on deepening cooperation in science, innovations, healthcare and humanitarian projects. The first session of the BRICS Working Group on Nuclear Medicine held in Moscow in February is one of the first practical results achieved during our chairmanship. A meeting of experts on launching an integrated early warning system for mass infectious disease risks took place in March of this year.

We plan to hold open BRICS Sports Games in Kazan in June. As of today, we expect over 5,000 athletes from 60 states to attend them.

I would like to note in the same context that the BRICS countries are also going to take part in the Friendship Games in Moscow and Yekaterinburg in September. We are also planning to hold the Intervision international song contest and participate in a new project of awarding a global cinema prize with emphasis on Eurasia.

I would like to note that the BRICS parliamentary dimension is being filled with new content. The first meeting of the chairs of international affairs committees took place on April 11-12 of this year. It became an important stage in the preparations for the 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum that will take place in St Petersburg on July 11-12.

Of course, we always bear in mind the party aspect. Our political parties continue their interaction. They have accumulated substantial positive experience. We are planning to hold an international interparty forum in the BRICS Plus/BRICS Outreach format that will take place in Vladivostok in June-July at the initiative of United Russia. We welcome the plan of holding it in an expanded format with the participation of our CIS partners. We can use this opportunity for further strengthening ties with the World Majority countries.

In conclusion, I would like to say that we are also planning to discuss the work on taking the inventory of international treaties and organisations in which Russia is taking part. We have conducted this work for several years. At this point, we need advice from the party and MPs to understand the relevance of these or other documents or structures.