Lavrov in Munich: Strategic Crisis Built Up by West Over Past 25 Years

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov delivered a sober but tough address at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) Saturday, recalling that there has been no constructive response to Putin’s proposals for a strategic partnership, made at the MSC eight years ago, there has been no interest in common security at all, instead there has been an American obsession with global dominance. Serious damage has been done to all levels of arms control; there has always been resistance against any mutual agreements like the CFE (Conventional Forces in Europe) and INF (Intermediate Nuclear Forces), with all the blame put on Russia. The present strategic crisis has been built up over the past 25 years of domination attempts by the West, and all so-called offers by the West have always included the assumption that Russia accepts the rules of the game set by the West—this even occurred to Merkel, when she once proposed an EU-Russia partnership agreement, which was sabotaged by the rest of the EU and the U.S., another missed opportunity to improve relations, Lavrov charged. The relationship between the US and Russia has failed the stress test, Lavrov added.

The Western-supported coup d’état in Kiev has but been the latest provocation, in a long series of Western military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Mali—although at least some arrangements have been found in those cases, in contrast to the Ukraine crisis. Look at who is gaining prominence in Ukraine: the Azov Regiment under Andriy Biletsky, people like Sergey Yarosh and Oleh Tyahnybok, all followers of Stepan Bandera whose birthday is publicly celebrated in Ukraine. If this goes on, and the world is at a turning point, we will lose control of all governance on the globe, Lavrov warned. Instead, agreements directly between Eurasian Union and EU should be worked on. We need to agree on certain strategic principles—there is the occasion of 40 years of the OSCE (originally the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) and 25 years of the Paris Charter, which should be used, Lavrov urged.

In response to a question from the audience, concerning Russia’s alleged grab of Crimea, Lavrov answered that if the Western forces continue to operate like they have done, promoting the terrorists of the Maidan and the Bandera tradition, they should not be surprised at Russian counter-reactions.