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All posts for the day April 26th, 2023
The Ukraine conflict is about the future of global order, the senior diplomat told the UN Security Council
https://www.rt.com/russia/575281-lavrov-un-security-council/
April 24, 2023
© Russian Foreign Ministry via Sputnik
Amid a storm of protest from the US and its allies, and a ban on Russian journalists from travelling to New York, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov chaired Monday’s session of the UN Security Council.
The meeting was dedicated to “effective multilateralism,” as Moscow continues to emphasise to emphasise its intentions to help change the world order. In his opening remarks, LAVROV outlined the nature of the current conflict, which he said was really between the UN Charter and the “rules-based order” of the collective West.
Lavrov also noted that the US had effectively denied visas to his accredited media pool, a move to which Moscow has vowed to respond to in such a way as “to make Americans remember that things should not be done in such a fashion.”
Crisis of the world order
The UN-centric system is going through a deep crisis caused by some members’ desire to replace international law with their “rules-based order,” Lavrov insisted. Such “rules” are invented ad hoc and applied to stop independent development. They are enforced through means ranging from military force to embargoes, financial sanctions, the confiscation of property, “destruction of critical infrastructure” – likely a reference to the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines – and “manipulation of universally agreed norms and procedures.” The World Trade Organization (WTO) has been paralyzed, market mechanisms have collapsed, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been turned into “an instrument for achieving the objectives of the US and its allies.”
Globalization and its enemies
“In a desperate attempt to assert its dominance by punishing the disobedient, the US has moved to destroy globalization, which for many years it extolled as the greatest good of all mankind,” said the Russian foreign minister. Now the US and its allies blacklist anyone who dissents from their “golden billion” and tell the rest of the world, “those who are not with us are against us.”
Yet the “Western minority” has no right to speak for the entire world, Lavrov said. Its “rules-based order” amounts to a rejection of sovereign equality, the key principle of the UN Charter, as evidenced by EU commissioner Josep Borrell’s infamous statement about the European “garden” and the “jungle” outside it.
Gross violations of the UN Charter
In addition to the string of US military “adventures” from Yugoslavia and Iraq to Libya, the worst violation of the UN Charter was its meddling in the affairs of post-Soviet states, Lavrov said. As examples, he brought up the “color revolutions” in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan and the 2014 coup in Kiev. When the UN sought to stop the ensuing war by endorsing the Minsk Agreements, they were “trampled by Kiev and its Western masters, who recently cynically and even proudly admitted that they never intended to fulfill them, but only wanted to buy time to pump Ukraine with weapons against Russia,” the Russian foreign minister added.
What the Ukraine conflict is about
Today “it is clear to everyone” that the Ukraine conflict isn’t about Ukraine at all, but “about how international relations will be built: through crafting a stable consensus based on a balance of interests, or through aggressive and explosive promotion of hegemony,” Lavrov said. Russia has “honestly said what we are fighting for” in Ukraine, he added. The goals of its military operation are to eliminate the threat to its security posed by NATO, and protect the people whose rights recognized by international conventions have been systematically violated, by a regime that seeks to “expel and exterminate” them.
How to save the UN
The West has made a “brazen attempt to subjugate” the UN by taking over its secretariats and other international institutions, Lavrov told the Security Council. Washington and its allies have abandoned diplomacy and demanded a battlefield showdown within the halls of the UN, created to prevent the horrors of war. Genuine multilateralism “requires the UN to adapt to objective trends” of emerging multipolarity in international relations, the Russian foreign minister argued. The Security Council should be reformed to increase the representation of Africa, Asia and Latin America, as the current “exorbitant overrepresentation” of the West “undermines the principle of multilateralism.”
The Russian Security Council deputy chief also pointed out that the world is witnessing today the progressive degradation of the US political elite, “when the real power in this country ends up in the hands of the so-called ‘deep state,’ with the country [ostensibly] being run either by charismatic but totally useless amateurs, or feeble old men”
https://tass.com/politics/1609279
April 25, 2023
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev
© Yekaterina Shtukina/POOL/TASS
MOSCOW, April 25. /TASS/. The secession of certain states from the United States of America could be a distinct possibility, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev told participants in the Znanie (Knowledge) educational marathon on Tuesday, adding that he would “be rooting for [the state of] Texas” should it decide to opt for independence.
“A battle of annihilation on the part of political elites and economic clans could result in certain states splitting off, a scenario which is a distinct possibility,” Medvedev said. “These states already brag about their independence as regards highly sensitive issues, such as the right to institute the death penalty for criminals and various economic issues.”
“California and the ‘Lone Star State,’ Texas, are already asking to go their own way, and it seems that, just recently, such a scenario would have been viewed as absurd or, at least, very strange,” he continued.
“However, Texas has already laid the groundwork for holding a referendum, as the [Texas state] Republicans drafted a bill on the independence of Texas, as well as a Texas [state] bill on organizing the referendum itself. They have even come up with a legal rationale based on the alleged violation of Article 1 of the Texas Constitution,” the Russian official said.
“New bills have emerged this year, and so the most interesting things there [in the United States] are just beginning. I don’t know how you all feel, but personally, I would be rooting for Texas, and we would see what interesting solutions they might come up with,” Medvedev noted.
The Russian Security Council deputy chief also pointed out that the world is witnessing today the progressive degradation of the US political elite, “when the real power in this country ends up in the hands of the so-called ‘deep state,’ with the country [ostensibly] being run either by charismatic but totally useless amateurs, or feeble old men.”
In this regard, Medvedev said that the next presidential election in the United States could be a landslide win for American celebrity entrepreneur Elon Musk, who heads Tesla and SpaceX and owns Twitter [but who would be ineligible given his birth in South Africa – TASS].
“Elon Musk is being hyped today as the new face of the new United States,” the Russian official stated. “The next US presidential election may end up being won by a person who enjoys greater authority than, say, [ex-US President Donald] Trump himself, never mind [incumbent US President Joe] Biden. I’m speaking here about the celebrated [Elon] Musk. This could also prove to be a very interesting turn of events.”
According to Medvedev, it is not important today for Russia who holds the presidential seat in the White House since this issue should mostly concern the United States itself and its allies.
“But, a protracted agony for the US political classes may serve as a trigger for the destruction of human civilization’s further development and this fact must not be underestimated,” he added.