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On March 18, 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was interviewed by Russia Today TV about the Ukraine-Russia war. In the interview, Lavrov said that Ukraine is a quintessential example of the West's strategy to marginalize Russia, stop its development, and reduce it to "zero" in world politics, trade, science, and culture. He said that the Biden Administration wants to make the world "unipolar" and export the American "melting pot" concept all over the world, with the U.S. serving as the "melter."
In addition, Lavrov said that Russia will survive the economic sanctions against it and can only rely on itself and on loyal allies, since Western partners are unreliable, though he said that Russia would be willing to cooperate with the West when it comes back to its "senses." Later in the interview, Lavrov claimed that the U.S. has over 300 biological laboratories throughout the world, many of which he said are in the countries surrounding Russia. He elaborated that American biolabs in Ukraine are the Pentagon's biggest bioweapons project, which involves dangerous pathogens such as the plague, brucellosis, and anthrax. He also claimed that the U.S. is experimenting with pathogens that could potentially target east Ukrainian and Russian ethnic groups.
Lavrov also mentioned that a pro-Ukraine "lobby" is trying to influence President Biden to be more confrontational against Russia. Moreover, he emphasized that the Russian operation in Ukraine has the goal of protecting civilians, of demilitarizing Ukraine so it doesn't threaten Russian territory, of attaining guarantees of Russian security, and of the "denazification" of Ukraine, which he said would consist of repealing any laws that encourage racist ideologies, that discriminate against the Russian language, or that discriminate against Russians and other national minorities.
Sergey Lavrov: "I think what we witness in Ukraine is the quintessence of the Western course, strategic course, to marginalize Russia, to contain Russia, to stop Russia’s development and to reduce Russia to zero in world politics, world economy, world trade, world sports, art, science, education. And we observe unprecedented steps our Western colleagues are taking, and one of the underlying trends, is the United States' desire, which has been manifested by the Biden administration, to come back to a unipolar world. And if he wishes... they are trying to take the melting pot concept, from the United States soil, and make the melting pot from the entire world, they would be the melters.
"The European Union already, I think 99%, stopped trying to be independent, President Macron, of course, keeps repeating that strategic autonomy for the European Union is his goal, and he would be fighting for it. But my guess is that he will not succeed. Germany is already absolutely ready to be under the United States' orders and the situation with Nord Stream 2 clearly indicated what exact place in world politics Germany occupies now. When the Americans in fact have persuaded, quote-unquote, the Germans endeavors. That they, the Americans know much better what Europe needs for its energy security than Europeans themselves. And there are many examples like this. So, the sanctions drive is going to continue.
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"You know what was very interesting to me when I talked about those events to my Western colleagues? They very often use the tactic of cutting off unwanted historical periods. The situation in Ukraine they started discussing only from what they call the annexation of Ukraine. If you remind them it all started with the European Union being unable to insist on the implementation of the deal, which they guaranteed from their position, and when their position just threw away the deal signed and guaranteed by the European Union. Then the leaders of the position and the so-called 'Maidan,' the radicals like Dmytro Yarosh, are saying that we stand with Ukraine without Russians and Muscovites.
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"So, I said that the ultra-radical call for Russians to be wiped out of Crimea, and President Zelensky in September last year said, if you believe you are a Russian, if you believe you want to be a Russian and if you want to be a friend of Russia, then go to Russia. He said this just a few months ago.
"So, coming back to sanctions, sanctions — we will survive. The measures which the President and the government are developing, elaborating, and are being announced, this is only the beginning of our economy [becoming] adjusted to the new situation.
"After 2014, as I started to say, we did gain experience to rely upon ourselves, and be the biggest lesson from this particular historic period is that unlike what we saw after 2014, and that now if there was any illusion that we can one day rely on our Western partners, this illusion is no longer there. We will have to rely only on ourselves and on our allies who would stay with us.
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"Now, we are not closing the door on the West — they are doing so — but when they come back to their senses and the door is re-opened, we will be looking at proposed projects of cooperation, with a very important thing in my mind, which I alluded to already — that we will be going into cooperation with them knowing very well that we cannot be sure that they are reliable and that they are credible as long-term partners.
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"Those laboratories created, have been created by the United States all over the world, more than 300 laboratories in various countries, many of them on the perimeter of the Russian Federation and the former Soviet republics, including Ukraine.
"Ukraine is probably the biggest project for the Pentagon, who is running this show. The special defense reduction agency within the Pentagon is in charge of this biological activity, and they are developing very dangerous pathogens, including a plague, brucellosis, anthrax, and many others, which are really very dangerous. We know that they were experimenting on potential infections, which could be related to the ethnic groups living in the east of Ukraine and in neighboring regions of Russia.
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"The Americans some years ago decided it was too dangerous to do this thing on their own soil, so they moved all these threatening and dangerous activities to other countries, and more and more, they concentrate their research and experiments around the borders of the Russian Federation and China. We will be insisting on this issue to be picked up by the Biological Weapons Convention, but also by the Security Council, because it is a clear threat to international peace and security.
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"Ukraine understand that Joe Biden, whatever you think of some of his statements, is a very experienced politician, and he understands that it is absolutely inadmissible to establish something like a no-fly zone and to provide planes to Ukraine, and to do other things that will bring the risk of direct confrontation between NATO and Russia immediately.
"But Zelensky also understands that there are much less responsible politicians in the United States who are being educated by Ukrainian lobby and are just driven by Russo-phobic feelings. And many of them are in Congress. And they adopt every now and then resolutions condemning Russia and threatening Russia. And I believe, [Zelensky] is counting on them pushing the President to a more confrontational approach. Well, we clearly said that any cargo, moving into Ukrainian territory, which we would believe is carrying weapons would be fair game. This is clear. Because are implementing an operation, the goal of which is to remove any threat to the Russian Federation coming from Ukrainian soil.
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"They also speak about missile defense, and for obvious reasons, for pragmatic reasons, they think of asking NATO members who possess Soviet air defense systems to share this with them. I would like to remind the countries who might be playing with this idea that Soviet and Russian made systems of missile defense, or for any other purpose, are there on the basis of intergovernmental agreements and contracts, which includes and uses a certificate, and the end user's certificate does not allow them to send these weapons to any third country without our consent.
"This is a legal obligation — and I understand that legality and legal obligations are not something our Western colleagues respect these days. They have already thrown away the presumption of innocence, the private property being sacred, and many other pillars in which 'liberal values' have been resting for so many centuries.
"This is a serious matter, and I can assure you that we will not allow these risks to be materialized. The purpose of this operation is to protect the civilians who have been bombed and shelled and murdered for the 8 years. And demilitarize Ukraine, so it does not possess any threat to Russian territory, and to find security guarantees, which would be based on this equal indivisible security principle for Ukraine, for Russia, for all European countries.
"We have been proposing this for many years, and of course denazification is an absolute must, and it includes not only canceling the laws, encouraging Nazi ideology and practices, but it also includes withdrawing any legislation that discriminates [against the] Russian language and other national minority languages, and in general other minority rights in Ukraine, which have been hugely discriminated and offended"
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