Russia, 2014

There is growing evidence today of a contradiction

between the need for collective and partnership efforts

in order to develop adequate responses to the challenges

common to us all, on the one hand, and, on the other,

the aspiration of a number of States to domination and

a revival of the archaic bloc thinking based on military

drill discipline and the erroneous logic of friend or foe.

The United States-led Western alliance, which

portrays itself as a champion of democracy, the rule of

law and human rights within individual countries, acts

from a directly opposite position in the international

arena, rejecting the democratic principles of the

sovereign equality of States enshrined the Charter of

the United Nations and trying to decide for everyone

what is good or evil.

Washington has openly declared its right to the

unilateral use of military force anywhere to advocate

its own interests. Military interference has become a

norm, despite the dismal outcome of all the operations

involving the use of force that the United States has

carried out in recent years.

The sustainability of the international system has

been severely shaken by the NATO bombardment of

Yugoslavia, the intervention in Iraq, the attack against

Libya and the failure in Afghanistan. It was due only

to intensive diplomatic efforts that aggression against

Syria was prevented in 2013. The various colour

revolutions and other schemes aimed at changing

unsuitable regimes inevitably give the impression that

their goal is to create chaos and instability.

Today Ukraine has fallen victim to that policy.

The situation there has revealed the deep-rooted and

systemic flaws remaining in the existing Euro-Atlantic

architecture. The West has embarked on a course

towards a vertical structuring of humankind tailored to

its own standards, which are hardly inoffensive.

After the West declared victory in the Cold War

and the so-called end of history, the United States and

the European Union opted to expand the geopolitical

area under their control without taking into account

the balance of legitimate interests of all the peoples

of Europe. The Western partners did not heed our

numerous warnings with regard to the unacceptable

violations of the principles of the Charter of the United

Nations and the Helsinki Final Act, and time and again

they have avoided serious joint work to establish a

common space of equal and indivisible security and

cooperation from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans.

The Russian proposal to draft a European security

treaty was rejected. We were told directly that only the

members of the North Atlantic Alliance can have legally

binding security guarantees, and the NATO expansion

to the East continued in spite of the promises to the

contrary given earlier. NATO’s instant switch to hostile

rhetoric and the reduction of its cooperation with Russia,

even to the detriment of the West’s own interests, and

the additional build-up of military infrastructure along

Russia’s borders revealed the inability of the Alliance

to change the genetic code embedded in it during the

Cold War.

The United States and the European Union supported

the coup d’état in Ukraine, recklessly justifying any

acts by the self-proclaimed Kyiv authorities, who

opted to suppress by force that part of the Ukrainian

people who had rejected the attempts to impose an

anti-constitutional order throughout the country and

wanted to defend their rights to their native language,

culture and history. It is precisely the aggressive assault

on those rights that compelled the population of Crimea

to take its destiny in its own hands and make a choice

in favour of self-determination. That was an absolutely

free choice, no matter what was invented by those

who were responsible in the first place for the internal

conflict in Ukraine.

There have been attempts to distort the truth and

hide facts behind blanket accusations at all stages of the

Ukrainian crisis. Nothing has been done to track down

and prosecute those responsible for the bloody February

events at Maidan and the massive loss of human lives

in Odessa, Mariupol and other regions of Ukraine. The

scale of the appalling humanitarian disaster provoked

by the acts of the Ukrainian army in south-eastern

Ukraine has been deliberately understated.

Recently, horrifying new facts came to light when

mass graves were discovered near Donetsk. Despite

Security Council resolution 2166 (2014), a thorough

and independent investigation into the circumstances

of the loss of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH-17 over

Ukrainian territory has been delayed. Those guilty for

all those crimes must be found and brought to justice.

Otherwise, national reconciliation in Ukraine can

hardly be expected.

Russia is sincerely interested in the restoration of

peace in a neighbouring country, and that should be well

understood by anyone even slightly acquainted with the

deep-rooted and fraternal relations between the two

peoples. The path to a political settlement is known.

As early as this April, Kyiv made a commitment in the

Geneva Statement on Ukraine — agreed upon by Russia,

Ukraine, the United States and the European Union

(EU) — to immediately start a nation-wide dialogue

involving all of Ukraine’s regions and political forces

to implement constitutional reforms. The fulfilment

of that obligation would allow all Ukrainians to agree

on how to live in accordance with their traditions and

culture and would allow Ukraine to return to its organic

role as a link between the different parts of the European

space, which certainly implies the preservation and

respect by everyone of its non-aligned, neutral status.

We are convinced that with goodwill and the refusal

to support the party of war in Kyiv, which is trying to

push the Ukrainian people into the abyss of national

catastrophe, a way out of the crisis is within reach.

A way to overcome the situation has opened with

a ceasefire agreement for south-eastern Ukraine on

the basis of initiatives of Presidents Poroshenko and

Putin. With the participation of representatives of Kyiv,

Donetsk, Luhansk, the Organization for Security and

Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and Russia, practical

measures are being agreed on for the consecutive

realization of those agreements, including the separation

of the parties, the withdrawal of the heavy weapons of

the Ukrainian military forces and of the militias, and

the organization of monitoring through the OSCE.

Russia is ready to continue to actively promote a

political settlement, both under the framework of the

well-known recommendations of the Minsk process

and in other formats. But it should be quite clear that

we are doing this for the sake of peace, tranquillity

and the well-being of the Ukrainian people, and not to

appease someone’s ambitions. Attempts to put pressure

on Russia to force it to abandon its values of truth and

justice are absolutely futile.

I will allow myself a digression into recent history.

As a condition for the establishment of diplomatic

relations with the Soviet Union in 1933, the United

States Government demanded from Moscow guarantees

of non-interference in the internal affairs of the United

States, obligations not to undertake any actions aimed at

changing the political and social structure of America.

At that time, Washington feared the revolutionary virus,

and such guarantees were secured between America

and the Soviet Union, on the basis of reciprocity.

Perhaps it makes sense to return to that subject

and reproduce the then demand of the American

Government on a universal scale. Why not adopt a

General Assembly declaration about the inadmissibility

of interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign

States and non-recognition of coups d’état as a

method of regime change? It is time to fully exclude

from international interaction attempts at illegitimate

pressure by some States against others. The meaningless

and counterproductive nature of unilateral sanctions is

obvious in the example of the American blockade of

Cuba.

A policy of ultimatums and a philosophy of

superiority and domination do not meet the needs

of the twenty-first century; they are in conflict with

the objective processes of forming a polycentric,

democratic world order. Russia promotes a positive,

unifying agenda. We have always been and will be open

to discussing the most difficult questions, no matter

how intractable they may seem at first. We will be

ready to seek a compromise and a balance of interests

and to agree to exchange concessions, provided only

that the conversation is respectful and equitable.

The Minsk Agreement of 5 and 19 September about

the ways out of the Ukrainian crisis and the compromise

about the dates of entry into force of the Association

Agreement between Kyiv and the European Union are

good examples to emulate, as is the readiness, at last,

of Brussels to begin negotiations on establishing a free

trade area between the EU and the Customs Union of

Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, as Mr. Putin suggested

back in January.

Russia has consistently advocated the harmonization

of integration projects in Europe and Eurasia.

Agreement on political benchmarks and terms such

as “convergence of integration” would be a real

contribution to the work of the OSCE on the topic

of Helsinki+40. Another important aspect of that

work would be to launch a pragmatic, de-ideologized

conversation on politico-military architecture in the

Euro-Atlantic area, so that not only members of NATO

and of the Collective Security Treaty Organization but

all the countries of the region, including Ukraine, the

Republic of Moldova and Georgia, would enjoy equal

and indivisible security and not have to make a false

choice of “either with us, or against us”. New dividing

lines must not be allowed in Europe, especially because

in the context of globalization they could become a

watershed between the West and the rest of the world.

It must be stated honestly that no one has a

monopoly on the truth; no one can forcibly tailor global

and regional processes to suit their needs. Today there

is no alternative to developing consensus on the rules

of sustainable global governance in the new historical

conditions, with full respect for the cultural and

civilizational diversity of the world and the multiplicity

of development models. To attain such a consensus

on every issue will be difficult, perhaps tedious. But

recognizing that in every State democracy is “the worst

form of Government except for all the others” also took

a long time, not until Churchill issued his verdict. It

is time to recognize the inevitability of that axiom in

international affairs, which currently suffer from a huge

deficit of democracy. Of course, someone will have to

break the age-old stereotypes, to abandon claims to

eternal exceptionalism. But there is no other way.

United efforts can be built only on the principles of

mutual respect and mutual consideration of interests, as

is done, for example, within the Security Council, the

Group of 20, the BRICS States of Brazil, Russia, India,

China and South Africa, and the Shanghai Cooperation

Council.

The theory of the advantages of collective work

are confirmed in practice, for instance, the progress

in settling the situation concerning the Iranian

nuclear programme and the successful completion of

the chemical demilitarization of Syria. By the way,

speaking of chemical weapons, I would like to obtain

honest information on the state of Libya’s chemical

arsenals. We understand that our NATO colleagues,

having bombed the country in violation of Security

Council resolutions, do not want to stir up the disorder

they created. However, the problem of uncontrolled

Libyan chemical arsenals is too serious to turn a blind

eye to. We believe the Secretary-General must show his

responsibility in that matter.

The main thing today is to see the global priorities

and avoid making them hostage to a one-sided agenda.

There is an urgent need to refrain from double

standards in approaches to conflict resolution. By

and large, everybody agrees that the key task is to

resolutely counter the terrorists, who are trying to

gain control of increasingly larger areas of Iraq, Syria,

Libya, Afghanistan and the Sahel-Sahara region. That

being the case, that problem cannot be sacrificed to

ideological schemes or to settle a score. Terrorists,

whatever slogans they hide behind, must be outlawed.

At the same time, of course, the fight against

terrorism should be based on the solid foundation of

international law. An important stage in that fight

was the unanimous adoption of a series of Security

Council resolutions, including those on the issue of

foreign terrorist fighters. On the other hand, attempts

to act contrary to the Charter of our Organization

do not contribute to the success of joint efforts. The

fight against terrorists in Syria should be built on

cooperation with the Syrian Government, which has

clearly stated its willingness in that regard. Damascus

has already demonstrated its ability to cooperate with

the international community and to fulfil its obligations

in the framework of the programme for eliminating its

chemical weapons.

From the very outset of the Arab Spring, Russia

urged that it not be abandoned to the control of

extremists, that a united front be created to counter the

growing terrorist threat. We have warned against the

temptation to take as allies almost anyone who declared

himself an enemy of Bashar Al-Assad, whether

Al-Qaida, Jabhat Al-Nusra and other fellow travellers

of regime change, including the Islamic State of Iraq

and the Levant (ISIL), which today is the focus of

attention. As they say, better late than never. This is not

the first time that Russia is making a real contribution

to the fight against ISIL and other terrorist groups in

the region. We are delivering large-scale supplies of

arms and military equipment to Iraq, Syria and other

Middle Eastern and North African countries, and we

will continue to support their efforts to suppress the

terrorists.

The terrorist threat requires a comprehensive

approach if we want to eradicate its causes and not

be doomed to reacting to the symptoms. ISIL is only

part of the problem. We propose to organize, under the

auspices of the Security Council, an in-depth study of

the threat of extremism and terrorism in all of their

aspects throughout the Middle East and North African

region. That integrated approach also presupposes

that chronic conflicts should be considered, above

all the Arab-Israeli conflict. The failure to settle the

Palestinian issue over several decades remains, as is

widely recognized, one of the main factors of instability

in the region, and that helps extremists to recruit more

and more new jihadists.

Another area of our common work together

demanding attention is uniting our efforts to implement

the decisions of the General Assembly and Security

Council to combat the Ebola virus. Our doctors are

already working in Africa. There are plans to send

additional humanitarian assistance, medical equipment

and instruments, medicine and teams of experts to assist

the United Nations programmes in Guinea, Liberia and

Sierra Leone.

The United Nations was established on the ruins

of the Second World War, and it is entering the year

of its seventieth anniversary. We all have an obligation

to celebrate in an appropriate manner the anniversary

of the great victory and to pay tribute to the memory

of all who perished for freedom and the right of each

people to determine their own destiny. The lessons

of that terrible war and the entire course of events in

today’s world require us to join efforts and forget about

unilateral interests and national electoral cycles when

it comes to countering global threats to all humankind.

National egoism should not be allowed to prevail over

collective responsibility.