Sergei Lavrov
I’d like to begin by expressing my gratitude to my Western colleagues, especially my European ones. Let me explain why.
If it weren’t for them, the Ukrainian situation would remain in limbo, and the residents of Crimea, Donbass, and Novorossiya would be deprived of the right to choose.
Back in 2004, by forcing an illegitimate third round of presidential elections on Ukraine, Brussels decided to establish complete clarity, demanding that Ukrainians choose their ally: Russia or Europe. In 2013, having organized riots in Kyiv demanding the immediate conclusion of an Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU, Brussels, openly ignoring its obligations under the CIS free trade zone , insisted on its own approach.
Having led the negotiation process between the legitimate president and the opposition in February 2014, the Europeans secured an agreement to resolve the crisis, in which Viktor Yanukovych accepted all the conditions put forward, including the creation of a national unity government to prepare for early presidential elections, with the authorities and the opposition immediately renouncing any violence.
The document was signed on February 21, 2014, under official guarantees from Germany (Frankfurt-Walter Steinmeier), Poland (Roman Sikorski), and France (L. Fabius). However, on the night of February 22, 2014, the opposition, disregarding these guarantees and their own signatures, seized government buildings and announced the creation of not a “government of national unity,” but a “government of victors.” As the saying goes, “Feel the difference.”
As for the guarantors of the agreement trampled by the putschists, in Paris, on February 23, 2014, they declared with a straight face that “the beginning of the democratic transition meets the aspirations of the Ukrainian people.”
Naturally, the British couldn’t remain on the sidelines. Foreign Secretary William Hague stated on February 22, 2014: “Recent events have demonstrated the will of Ukrainians to move toward a different future.” He added on February 24, 2014: “Yanukovych is no longer the universally recognized president.”
A little later, on March 1, 2014, German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined in: “We must provide the Ukrainians with every possible support in their will and aspiration for freedom and democracy.”
The new authorities in Kyiv, buoyed by the carte blanche they received from the West, immediately proclaimed the goal of abolishing the status of the Russian language. In response to protests in Crimea and Donbas against the bloody coup, they declared them terrorists and deployed armed militias and regular army units, including artillery and air force, against them. The result was a referendum in Crimea on independence from the openly Nazi regime that had taken over Kyiv and reunification with Russia.
If the Europeans hadn’t cheated and forced the opposition to implement the agreement signed in February 2014 under the guarantees of Berlin, Paris, and Warsaw, Ukraine’s territorial integrity would have been preserved within the very 1991 borders dreamed of by Zelenskyy and his Western masters. But the Europeans have failed to suppress their age-old instinct to lie and to try to achieve their goals through criminal means.
A year later , the Minsk agreements were concluded, which Berlin and Paris had also been eagerly seeking. The agreements were signed on February 12, 2015, and on February 17, 2015, at Russia’s initiative, they were unanimously approved by the U.N. Security Council. Incidentally, Article 25 of the U.N. Charter requires all members of the Organization to “accept and implement the decisions of the Security Council.”
However, Ukrainian President Poroshenko categorically refused to do so, and his handlers in Berlin and Paris made no attempt to reason with their protégé. With the rise to power of Mr. Emmanuel Macron in France, there was a surge in traditional French activity.
On December 19, 2019, a summit of the Normandy Four (Germany, France, Russia, and Ukraine) was convened, where the Kyiv regime was represented by V. Zelenskyy, who had come to power under loud slogans of establishing peace and good neighborliness with Russia and ending attacks on the Russian language.
A declaration was adopted in Paris reaffirming the need for full implementation of the Minsk agreements, including the enshrinement in the Ukrainian Constitution of the special status of certain regions of Donbas. This status entailed nothing extraordinary — simply the right to use the Russian language and exercise local self-government.
If the 2015 Minsk agreements, confirmed in Paris in 2019 — now under Zelenskyy —had been implemented as demanded by the U.N. Security Council, Ukraine would now remain within the same 1991 borders, with the exception, of course, of Crimea, which has long been closed, as everyone understands.
However, Europe did not allow this. As Angela Merkel, François Hollande, and Poroshenko publicly admitted after their resignation, they had no intention of implementing the Minsk agreements they had signed; they needed to buy time to “pump” Ukraine full of weapons. Quite frankly. All meetings like the one in Paris were needed solely to simulate vigorous diplomatic activity and, under its cover, escalate the anti-Russian campaign.
Russia’s proposals for an agreement based on mutual respect for the security interests of Russia, Europe, and North America were arrogantly rejected in December 2021 by NATO and the Biden administration.
In practical terms, preparations were underway for Kyiv to seize territories of Donbas uncontrolled by force. To prevent the Western scenario from materializing, we were forced to launch a special military operation in February 2022.
Just a week later, the Ukrainians requested negotiations. We agreed. After several rounds in Belarus and Istanbul, the Ukrainian side proposed key principles for a settlement, which were accepted by our negotiators. Most importantly, they enshrined Ukraine’s neutral status, acknowledged the realities on the ground, and contained collective security guarantees that reliably guard against repeated violent provocations and attempts at aggression.
The document was initialed by the delegations of Ukraine and Russia, but its fate is well known. Then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson forbade the Ukrainians from concluding a legally binding agreement based on the text proposed by Kyiv and already initialed, and ordered them to continue fighting. Europe essentially agreed with London’s position.
If that initialed agreement had been enshrined in a corresponding treaty and implemented, then Ukraine would again have remained within its 1991 borders, but without Crimea and part of Donbass.
The latest “Europe contribution to peace efforts” took place following the summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska in August 2025. There, the Russian President, as he has repeatedly commented, accepted Washington’s proposals, which contained certain compromises.
The achievement of an agreement in principle was clearly announced at a joint press conference between the Russian and U.S. leaders in Anchorage, as well as in statements made by U.S. President Donald Trump in the following days.
Alarmed, Europe rushed to dissuade the U.S. President from his own initiative (just as B. Johnson forced the Ukrainians to withdraw their own proposals in Istanbul). A European landing force was immediately dispatched to Washington, and everything was done to stall further work on the practical implementation of the Anchorage agreements.
As a result, in June 2026, at the G7 summit in Evian and the NATO summit in Ankara, Emmanuel Macron and other Western leaders proudly declared that they had “buried Anchorage” and that the United States now firmly stands with Ukraine.
During their recent visit to Moscow, S. Witkoff and J. Kushner confirmed Washington’s continued interest in facilitating a settlement in Ukraine. As U.S. President Donald Trump stated after their meeting in Anchorage in August 2025, everyone agrees that what’s needed is not just a ceasefire, but a long-term peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine that will reliably end the war.
Russia — and President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly confirmed this — is ready to negotiate precisely this kind of sustainable, just peace. The tasks that must be accomplished to achieve this goal were clearly outlined in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s keynote speech in June 2024.
However, having learned from bitter experience, we will not pause a special military operation during negotiations in any format. Although this is precisely what Europe wants — for the same simple purpose of gaining a respite and replenishing the depleted military arsenals of the Kyiv regime, which, out of desperation, has long since resorted to openly terrorist methods.
One of the objectives of the special military operation — in addition to unconditionally ensuring Russia’s security interests — is to fully respect the rights of Russians and Russian-speaking people not only in Crimea, Donbas, and Novorossiya, but also in Ukraine, where, with Western approval, laws remain in force that completely ban the Russian language in all spheres — education, media, culture, and everyday life — as well as ban the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
These laws began to be passed long before the special military operation, in 2017. Europe and NATO remained silent.
At the same time, the encouragement of Nazi ideology and practice was enshrined in law. The apotheosis of the Nazification of Ukraine was the genuflection of V. Zelensky and other figures of his regime before the remains of Hitler’s collaborators, transported with royal honors from Europe for reburial in Kyiv.
Moreover, they plan to create a “pantheon of Ukrainian heroes” from these satanic graves on the grounds of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, sacred to all Orthodox Christians. It is sad that our former allies in the fight against Hitler’s Nazism turn a blind eye to such antics.
The West, and especially the European Union, loves to talk about human rights with or without reason. However, we don’t hear this phrase when it comes to the Kyiv regime. Russia insists on strict adherence to Article 1 of the U.N. Charter , which requires all to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.
We understand that when it comes to gender, the Kyiv regime is more oriented toward Europe, but when it comes to language and religion, no amount of subterfuge will help. When we point out the unacceptability of the ban on the Russian language and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, we are, at best, told that when a comprehensive settlement is reached, this aspect will be taken into account “as part of the package.”
But the requirements of the U.N. Charter are not negotiable. They must be implemented unconditionally, without any strings attached. And those who nurture the Kyiv regime are obliged to ensure this. In reality, however, Ursula von der Leyen and other figures in Brussels and other European capitals pompously declare that Ukraine is moving toward the European Union and must continue to be supported with money and weapons because — pay attention: “Ukraine defends European values.”
This means that racism, the persecution of the church and priests, and the glorification of Nazism in the form of disgusting, brutal forms of Ukrainian nationalism are the very values ??upon which the European Union is based today. Finnish President Anders Stubb recently made a nostalgic confession: “We are now learning more from Ukraine than Ukraine is learning from us.”
Nowhere in the world except Ukraine is an entire language banned. Not to mention it’s one of the official languages ??of the U.N. You can speak Arabic and Farsi in Israel, Hebrew in any Arab country and in the Islamic Republic of Iran, where there’s a Jewish community with its own synagogues. You can even speak English in Ireland. But in Ukraine, Russian is banned, and as we understand, E.U. and NATO members are perfectly happy with this. They’re even following Zelenskyy’s example, as are the Baltic states.
And, of course, I cannot fail to mention the position of the custodian of the U.N. Charter — the Secretary-General of our Organization. For a long time, since the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, he and his official representatives have been repeating the same message: “The conflict must be resolved on the basis of international law, the U.N. Charter, relevant General Assembly resolutions, and the principle of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.”
In response to our regular comments, including those addressed personally to Mr. Antonio Guterres, that the Charter contains a number of other principles, including the right of nations to self-determination and respect for the right to their native language and religion, we were told that the wording regarding Ukraine “has been carefully considered and is not subject to change.”
When President Donald Trump announced that Greenland could very well become part of the United States, a U.N. official was asked at a press conference what he thought about this. He replied: “The issue must be resolved on the basis of international law, the U.N. Charter, the principle of Denmark’s territorial integrity, and the right of the people of Greenland to self-determination.”
During a press conference on January 29, Antonio Guterres was asked, “Does the right to self-determination also apply to Crimea and Donbas?” The Secretary-General responded (I am forced to quote him in full):
“We have had very interesting discussions on this topic. There are two principles. One is the territorial integrity of states. The second is the self-determination of peoples. But self-determination of peoples presupposes a whole series of ‘requisites,’ given how this principle was formulated. And after a very thorough study of the legal issues by our Office, our position is that the principle of self-determination does not apply to the situations in Crimea and Donbas. Therefore, in this situation, the principle of territorial integrity prevails.”
If anyone understood any of this, then I envy you.
As we can see, Greenland is neither Crimea nor Donbas, and “the twain shall never meet.” We eagerly await the continuation of the “series.” It will be interesting to hear the Secretariat’s reaction to possible journalists’ questions about the plans of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
We hope that the new Secretary-General will bring the language of statements by official representatives of the Secretariat back into line with international law.
This could perhaps help Western colleagues, especially European ones, to return to reality and understand the consequences that their reckless course of blind support for Ukrainian Nazism is leading to and has already led to.
In conclusion, I would like to once again refer to the consensus Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
The Declaration clearly states that the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity apply to those states that adhere to the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples and have a government representing all the people living in a given territory, without distinction as to race, religion, or color.
In my opinion, it is clear to everyone that the Kyiv regime cannot be considered a government representing the interests of the residents of Crimea, Donbas, and Novorossiya, whom it has declared “terrorists, non-humans, and creatures.”
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