Russia accuses the West of “hysteria” over the referendums in Ukraine and says that “the US, the EU and NATO” are part of the conflict”

For four days the debate on the United Nations General Assembly has been the pulpit from which numerous world leaders have accused Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, to be attacking with his invasion of Ukraine not only the sovereignty and integrity of a country but the world order, or the principles and institutions that have governed it since the end of the Second World War, as well as injecting energy into multiple crises that are affecting the entire planet. This Saturday, on the other hand, with the intervention in the plenary of Sergei Lavrov, Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, a very different message has reached the conclave in New York: one that accuses the United States, the European Union and NATO of trying to destroy russia and impose another order.

“Official Russophobia in the West is unprecedented. His range is now grotesque. They do not hide from declaring the intention to inflict not only a military defeat on Russia, but to destroy and disintegrate it”, Lavrov denounced in his intervention, in which he denounced as“illegal” the sanctions imposed on Russia. “It is pure and crude dictatorship, or an attempt to impose it,” he has assured.

The Kremlin’s foreign minister, who has continued to avoid using the term “war” and has continued to speak of “special military operation” He has particularly singled out Washington, accusing it of trying to expand the Monroe Doctrine that it applied in Latin America and “trying to turn the entire world into its backyard.” “By declaring itself victorious in the Cold War, Washington set itself up practically a godsend on earthwithout obligations but with the sacrosanct right to act with impunity where and when they wanted”, he said.

Lavrov has extended his criticism, too, to the NATO and the European Union, in his words “subjugated” of the USA. And later, in a tense press conference, he assured that “the EU is becoming a dictatorial entity.” Also in that appearance before the journalists he has accused both Washington and Brussels to “not being neutral” and to be violating conventions with the military or intelligence aid that is being provided to Ukraine.

referendums

Both in his speech and in the meeting with the press, Lavrov has branded “hysteria” the reaction of the West to the annexation referendums that are being held in the occupied territories of Ukraine, consultations that numerous countries, including Spain, have branded a “farce” and whose result has been promised will not be recognized.

What Lavrov has not wanted to say is whether once these referendums are concluded, the Kremlin will consider attacks on those Ukrainian territories as attacks on Russia. Nor did he want to go into details about the nuclear threats launched this week by Putin. After launching a diatribe denouncing the “cancel culture”, according to which the Western media are ignoring that others before Russia put nuclear issues on the table, he has settled the issue by saying. “We have a nuclear security doctrine and it is an open document that includes the instances in which its use would be acceptable. I urge you to read it.”

confrontation with the press

Lavrov has reacted angrily to several questions from the press. When a German journalist asked him, for example, “why are there so many Russians leaving the country” he answered ironically about freedom of movement treaties. When another asked if China is pressuring Russia to end the war, something that Putin himself suggested after his meeting with Xi Jinping in Shanghai, the diplomat tried to distort the reporter’s question, putting in his mouth words you haven’t said. And when she has stood her ground, he has settled: “You can say that I have avoided answering her question.”

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“The nature of these questions is something that they need to demonize Russia,” Lavrov has denounced, that never, neither in his speech nor in the press room, has he abandoned a defiant tone.

The passage through New York of the foreign minister of the Kremlin does not seem to help a potential negotiated exit from the crisis. And although Lavrov has said that if Western forces try to open talks, “Russia will consider it,” he has also assured that Moscow “is not going to take the first step.” “They are egotistical, they only think about their interests, they would not respect a balance of interests”, he has said.