Lavrov: Europe has Pushed Ukraine into War with Russia - UN Security Council Sept 23, 2026 - Michael Rossi Poli Sci - Sept 24, 2026 [Please click and subscribe!]
One cannot point to an exactly correct Russian translation, due to different interpretations of the sentence structure and whether it should be a casual or formal reading. Given this is the Honourable Sergey Lavrov, Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, it is certainly a formal address. From the link above, you get Lavrov's Russian language presentation.
Sergey Lavrov is given the floor by acting UNSC President, the Permanent Representative of France:
I would like to start by expressing my gratitude to our Western colleagues, especially the Europeans. Let me explain why. If it weren't for them, the situation in Ukraine would have remained in limbo, and the residents of Crimea, Donbass, and Novorossiya would have been deprived of the right to choose. Back in 2004, by imposing an illegal third round of presidential elections on Ukraine, Brussels decided to make things perfectly clear, demanding that Ukrainians choose whom they were with - Russia or Europe. In 2013, by organizing unrest in Kyiv with the demand to immediately sign the association agreement between Ukraine and the European Union, Brussels, openly ignoring its commitments under the CIS free trade zone, insisted on its approach. Leading in February 2014, the negotiation process between the legitimate president and the opposition, the Europeans achieved an agreement to resolve the crisis, in which President Yanukovych accepted all the conditions put forward, including the creation of a national unity government to prepare for early presidential elections with the immediate refusal of the authorities and the opposition from any kind of violence. The document was signed on February 21, 2014, under the official guarantee of Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Poland's Radoslaw Sikorski, and France's Laurent Fabius. However, already on the night of February 22, the opposition, ignoring these guarantees and their own signatures, seized the government building and announced the creation not of a national unity government, but of a government of the victors, so to speak. Feel the difference. As for the guarantors of the agreement trampled by the puffed-up ones in Paris, on February 23, they boldly stated that the beginning democratic transition meets the aspirations of the Ukrainian people. Naturally, the British couldn't stay out of it either. Their Foreign Secretary William Hague said on February 22: recent events have shown the will of the Ukrainians to move toward a different future. He also added, Yanukovych is no longer the universally recognized president. A little later, on March 1, Chancellor Angela Merkel joined in. I quote: "We must provide [giving] Ukrainians all possible support in their will and desire for freedom and democracy."
The new authorities in Kyiv, emboldened by the carte blanche received from the West, immediately proclaimed the goal of abolishing the status of the Russian language, and in response to the protests in Crimea and Donbas against the bloody coup d'état, labeled them terrorists and sent armed militant units and regular army forces, including artillery and aviation, against them. The result: 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 been cheating and had forced the opposition to comply with the agreement signed in February 2014 under the guarantees of Berlin, Paris, and Warsaw, it would have preserved Ukraine's territorial integrity within the same 1991 borders that Zelensky and his Western backers now cherish. But the Europeans couldn't suppress their age-old instinct to lie and try to achieve their goals through criminal methods. A year later, the Minsk agreements were concluded, about the achievements that Berlin and Paris were asking for so much. The agreements were signed on February 12, 2015, and already on February 17, on Russia's initiative, they were unanimously approved by the UN Security Council. Incidentally, Article 25 of the Charter requires all UN members to obey the decisions of the Security Council and carry them out. However, Ukrainian President Poroshenko categorically refused to do so, and his guardians in Berlin and Paris didn't even try to reason with their charge. With Mr. Macron coming to power in France, there was a surge of traditional French activity. On December 19, 2019, a Normandy Four summit was convened - Germany, France, Russia, Ukraine - where the Kyiv regime was now represented by Zelensky, who had come to power with loud slogans about establishing peace and good neighborly relations with Russia, and stopping attacks on the Russian language. In Paris, a declaration was adopted confirming the need for full implementation of the Minsk agreements, including securing enshrining a special status of certain districts of Donbas in the Ukrainian constitution. This status didn't imply anything supernatural. Just the right to use the Russian language and exercise local self-government.
If the 2015 Minsk agreements, confirmed in Paris in 2019, had been implemented under Zelensky, as the Security Council demanded, Ukraine would now remain within the same 1991 borders, except, of course, for Crimea. The question, which has long been closed, is well understood by everyone. However, even here Europe did not allow it, as openly admitted, once Merkel, Hollande and Poroshenko, after they had already retired, that they had no intention of fulfilling the Minsk agreements they had signed. They needed to buy time to arm Ukraine. Very frankly, all the meetings like the Paris one were purely to simulate hectic diplomatic activity and, under that cover, expand the anti-Russian campaign. Russian proposals to come to an agreement on the basis of mutual respect for the security interests of Russia, the countries of Europe and North America in December 2021 was arrogantly rejected by NATO and the Joe Biden administration.
On the ground, preparations were underway for a forceful takeover by Kyiv of territories in the Donbas that were not under its control. To prevent the implementation of the Western scenario, in February 2022 we were forced to start a special military operation. Within a week, the Ukrainians asked for 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. The main points included Ukraine's neutral status, recognition of realities on the ground, and collective security guarantees that reliably prevent recurrence of forceful provocations and attempts at aggression. The document was initialed by the delegations of Ukraine and Russia, but everyone knows how its fate turned out. The then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson forbade the Ukrainians from entering into legally binding agreements based on the text proposed by Kyiv and already initialed, I remind you, and ordered them to keep fighting. Europe agreed with London's position. If that initialed agreement had been formalized in the corresponding treaty and implemented, Ukraine would have retained its 1991 borders, but already without Crimea and part of Donbas. Europe's next contribution to peace efforts happened after the summit of Putin and Trump in Alaska in August 2025. There, the President of Russia, as he once commented, he accepted Washington's proposal, which contained certain compromises. The achievement of a fundamental agreement was clearly announced at a joint press conference of the leaders of Russia and the US in Anchorage, as well as in statements made in the following days by President Trump. Alarmed Europe rushed to dissuade the US president from his own initiative, just as Boris Johnson forced the Ukrainians to withdraw their own proposal in Istanbul.
Washington immediately sent a European task force. Everything was done to halt further work on the practical implementation of the Anchorage agreement. 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 now, supposedly, the United States firmly stands on Ukraine's side alongside Europe. During a recent visit to Moscow, Stephen Witkoff and Jared Kushner confirmed that Washington is still interested in helping achieve a Ukrainian settlement. As Donald Trump said, in August 2025, after the meeting in Anchorage, everyone agreed that we should aim not for some kind of ceasefire agreement, but for a long-term peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine that would reliably end the war. Russia, and this has been repeatedly supported by President Putin, is ready for negotiations to achieve precisely this kind of sustainable, just world.
The tasks that need to be solved to achieve this goal are clearly summarized in Vladimir Putin's programmatic speech in June 2024. However, having learned from bitter experience, we will not pause the special military operation during negotiations in any format, even though Europe wants exactly that. All with the same simple goal-to get a breather and replenish the depleted military arsenals of the Kyiv regime, which, out of desperation, has long since resorted to openly terrorist methods. One of the tasks of the special military operation, besides unconditionally ensuring Russia's security interests, is the full consideration of the rights of Russians and Russian-speaking people not only in Crimea, Donbas, and Novorossiya, but also in the territory of Ukraine, where, with the continued approval of the West, laws still operate that totally ban the Russian language in all spheres: in education, in mass media, in culture, in everyday life, and also ban the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. These laws began to be adopted long before the special military operation, since 2017. Europe and NATO remained silent. At the same time, encouragement of Nazi ideology and practices was being legally reinforced. The climax of the Nazification of Ukraine was recently Zelensky and other officials of his regime kneeling before the remains of Hitler's collaborators, which were transported from Europe with full honors for reburial in Kyiv. Moreover, they plan to turn such satanic graves into a pantheon of Heroes of Ukraine on the grounds of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, which is sacred to all Orthodox Christians. It's sad that our former allies in the fight against Hitlerite Nazism turn a blind eye to such antics.
Above all, the European Union likes to talk about human rights both with reason and without. However, regarding the Kyiv regime, we don't hear this phrase. Russia insists on strict adherence to Article One of the UN Charter, which requires everyone to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms without distinction of race, sex, language, or religion. Well, I understand that when it comes to sex and gender, the Kyiv regime is more oriented toward Europe. But as far as language and religion are concerned, no tricks will help here. When we draw attention to the unacceptability of banning the Russian language and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, at best they tell us: 'Well, when there is a comprehensive settlement, we will take this aspect into account in the package.' But the requirements of the UN Charter cannot be a subject of bargaining. They must, without a doubt, be carried out without any conditions. And those who support the Kyiv regime are obliged to ensure this. In practice, however, Ursula von der Leyen, other figures in Brussels and other European capitals pompously declare that Ukraine is moving toward the European Union and that support in money and weapons must continue, because, attention, I quote, Ukraine defends European values. This means that racism, persecution of the church and priests, glorification of Nazism in the form of horribleness, the disgusting bestial forms of Ukrainian nationalism are precisely the values on which the European Union stands today. Finnish President Sauli Niinistö recently made a nostalgic admission. Right now, we are learning more from Ukraine than Ukraine is learning from us. Nowhere in the world, except in Ukraine, is an entire language banned, not to mention that it is one of the official languages of the UN. You can speak Arabic and Farsi in Israel, you can speak Hebrew in any Arab country and in the Islamic Republic of Iran, where there is a Jewish community with its synagogues. Even in Ireland, you can speak English. But in Ukraine, Russian speakers are banned, and, as we understand it, EU and NATO members are completely fine with this. They even take Zelensky as an example, like the Baltic countries do.
And, of course, I cannot fail to mention the position of the custodian of the UN Charter, the Secretary-General of our organization. For a long time since the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, his official representatives have been saying the same thing: 'The conflict must be resolved on the basis of international law, the UN Charter, the relevant General Assembly resolutions, and the territorial integrity of Ukraine.' End quote. In response to our regular remarks, including those addressed personally to Mr. Guterres, that there are a whole range of other principles in the Charter, including the right of nations to self-determination, the respect for the right to one's native language and religion, we were told that the wording regarding Ukraine is carefully calibrated and cannot be changed. When President Trump announced that Greenland could very well become part of the U.S. territory, the UN official was asked at a press conference what he thought about it. Someone responded, I quote, 'The issue must be resolved based on international law, the UN Charter, the principle of Denmark's territorial integrity, and the right of the people of Greenland to self-determination.' End quote.
In this regard, at the press conference held on January 29 this year, António Guterres was asked whether the right question was asked: does the right to self-determination also apply to Crimea and Donbas? The Secretary-General replied, and I have to quote him in full. "We had very interesting discussions on this topic. There are two principles. One: the territorial integrity of states. The second: the self-determination of peoples. But self-determination of peoples involves a whole range of requirements, considering how this principle was formulated. And after careful study by our Office of Legal Affairs, our position is that the principle of self-determination does not apply to the situations in Crimea and Donbas. So, in this situation, the principle of territorial integrity prevails." End of quote. If anyone understood anything from that, I envy you. As we can see, Greenland is not Crimea and not Donbas, and together they don't match. Looking forward to the next episode 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 made by official representatives of the Secretariat back into the realm of international law. This might also help Western colleagues, especially European ones, to come back to reality and realize the consequences that their reckless course of unreserved support for Ukrainian Nazism has already led to. Once again, in the conclusion, there was agreement on the 1970 UN consensus declaration on the principles of international law concerning relations between states in accordance with the UN Charter. The declaration clearly establishes that the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity apply to those states that observe the principle of equality and self-determination of peoples and have a government representing all races, religions, and skin colors. The entire population living in the given territory. Obviously, it seems clear to me to everyone that the Kiev regime cannot be considered a government representing the interests of the residents of Crimea, Donbas, and Novorossiya, to Donbass and Novorossiya, whom it has declared terrorists, non-human, and creatures. Thanks for your attention.
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