Sergey Lavrov Quotes

It is safe to say that this situation will be with us for a long time.

The questions I receive are as if no one listens.

What do they mean by insolent remarks that the countries external to the Western Hemisphere are not allowed to have any interests there?... Take a look at the map of the U.S. military bases—the whole world is dotted with red spots and each of them poses rather serious risks.

We proposed not creating any threat on the ground and Putin explained very clearly why he took the decision to conduct this special military operation.

In 2014, our Western colleagues “swallowed” the anti-constitutional armed coup in Ukraine, and since then they’ve been unable to hold that government accountable, although they have long since understood who they are dealing with. Having once branded them democrats and partners, they cannot publicly criticise them now. That's the problem.

We are concerned about what the US and its closest allies are doing with respect to Venezuela, brazenly violating all imaginable norms of international law and actually openly pursuing the policy aimed at overthrowing the legitimate government in that Latin American country... US companies operating in Venezuela are exempt from these sanctions. In other words, they wish to topple the government and derive material gains from this... According to our sources, the leaders of the opposition movement who have declared ‘dual power’ are in fact receiving instructions from Washington not to make any concessions until the authorities agree to abdicate in some way. Together with other responsible members of the international community, we will do everything to support President Maduro’s legitimate government in upholding the Venezuelan constitution and employing methods to resolve the crisis that are within the constitutional framework...
Given signals coming from the EU and... Caribbean countries, as well as...China and India... we would like to figure out what the international community could do to prevent another blatant violation of international law and violent regime change... This is what I discussed yesterday with the Iranian foreign minister, who - just like us - wants to find an opportunity for external players to prove themselves useful to the Venezuelan people.

President Poroshenko and his regime enjoy impunity and plan provocations like the one that occurred at the entrance to the Kerch Strait from the Black Sea. Literally a day after this blatant provocation, the text of the order...was found on one of the boats... It said that the boats should covertly, without requesting authorisation of the Russian authorities...Why?...There may only be one answer: they wanted to provoke a scandal.

We cannot allow the part of Ukraine that Zelenskyy, or whoever replaces him, will control to have weapons that will pose a direct threat to our territory and the territory of those republics that have declared their independence, those who want to determine their future on their own.

In a number of Western countries, students learn at school that Jesus Christ was bisexual.

We are determined to help the people of eastern Ukraine to liberate themselves from the burden of this absolutely unacceptable regime.

Russia has an unblemished reputation and is not ashamed.

The war, which we are trying to stop, which was launched against us using Ukrainian people, of course, influenced the policy of Russia, including energy policy.

It is also alarming that our Western colleagues use the term “international law” less and less often. Instead, they talk more about a rules-based order... something they can invent themselves... We urge our colleagues to comply with the agreements reached within the framework of international law.

We will certainly help the Ukrainian people to get rid of the regime, which is absolutely anti-people and anti-historical.

We have come up with proposals that we have repeatedly made available to the United States, including in Helsinki, when President Putin met with President Trump. I myself presented one such proposal to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. We re-submitted our proposals during a visit by US National Security Adviser John Bolton to Moscow in August and later in October, when he was in Moscow again. These proposals are about starting a serious, candid and professional dialogue on the INF Treaty, compliance with the START Treaty, and a number of other proposals regarding our approaches to ​​strategic stability. We got nothing in response from the US partners. We occasionally remind them about it. They keep saying that we need to correct our mistakes and stop the violations.