Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov lambasts West but barely mentions Ukraine in UNGA speech
Sep 23, 2023
New York [US], September 24 : While refraining from mentioning its war with Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Saturday attacked the US and the West as self-interested defenders of a fading international order in his speech to the UN General Assembly.
“The US and its subordinate Western collective are continuing to fuel conflicts which artificially divide humanity into hostile blocks and hamper the achievement of overall aims. They’re doing everything they can to prevent the formation of a genuine multipolar world order,” Lavrov said, adding, “They are trying to force the world to play according to their own self-centered rules,” he said.
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a speech at the UN General Assembly on Saturday that the time was ripe for trust-building measures between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh, and that Moscow's troops would help that.
Lavrov accused the West of trying to force themselves as mediators between the two countries, which he said was not needed.
"Yerevan and Baku actually did settle the situation," Lavrov said. "The time has come for mutual trust-building. There are Russian troops who will certainly help this," he said.
Russia has peace-keeping missions in Nagorno-Karabakh, a separatist Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan where Baku launched an offensive this week.
The ethnic Armenian leadership of breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh said on Saturday that the terms of their ceasefire with Azerbaijan were being implemented, with work proceeding on the delivery of humanitarian aid and evacuation of the wounded.
Lavrov briefly reviewed some earlier grievances on the 19-month war in Ukraine that date back to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, but he avoided getting into the more recent fighting.
The General Assembly is being held for a second year in succession with no end to the conflict in sight. Slower than Kyiv had planned, a three-month Ukrainian counteroffensive has made some minor gains but no significant ones.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on Wednesday, charged that Russia was "weaponising" food, energy, and even children against Ukraine and "the international rules-based order" in general. When urging international leaders to continue supporting Ukraine, Biden struck a similar theme, asking, "If we allow Ukraine to be divided, is the independence of any nation secure?"
On Wednesday, Lavrov and Zelenskyy both spoke to the UN Security Council, albeit they avoided direct conflict. Lavrov entered the room before Zelenskyy.
Lavrov had accused the West of selectively turning to principles of the UN Charter on a case-by-case basis based on their "parochial geopolitical needs."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday (local time) said that Russia's aggression must end with Ukraine's victory. In his address at the Canadian Parliament, Zelenskyy said, "This Russian aggression must end with our victory so that Russia will never bring back genocide to Ukraine and will never ever try to do so. Moscow must lose once and for all and it will lose.
"Ukrainian President said, "now as always is bent on controlling Ukraine and makes use of all available means to do that, including genocide. It is genocide what Russian occupiers are doing to Ukraine and when we want to win, when we call on the world to support us, it is not just about an ordinary conflict. It is about saving the lives of millions of people."
