Russian Federation

Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Many speakers before me have already made the point that our common planet is undergoing irreversible change. A new world order is being born before our very eyes. The contours of the future are being forged in struggle – between the World Majority, which stands for a fairer distribution of global goods and for civilizational diversity, and those few who apply neocolonial methods of subjugation in order to hold on to their slipping dominance.

A kind of "trademark" of the collective West has long been its rejection of the principle of equal rights and its total incapacity to honor agreements. Accustomed to looking down on the rest of the world, Americans and Europeans routinely make promises and assume obligations – including in writing and in legally binding form – only to simply fail to fulfill them. As President V.V. Putin has noted, the West represents nothing less than a veritable "empire of lies."

Russia, like many other countries, knows this firsthand. In 1945, as we were finishing off the enemy together with Washington and London on the fronts of the Second World War, our allies in the anti-Hitler coalition were already drawing up plans for a military operation called "Unthinkable" against the Soviet Union. And four years later, in 1949, the Americans developed "Operation Dropshot" for massive nuclear strikes against the USSR.

These insane schemes remained on paper. The USSR created its own weapon of retaliation. Although it took the Caribbean crisis of 1962, with its balancing on the brink of nuclear war, for the idea of unleashing such a war and the illusion of victory in it to cease being the basis of US military planning.

At the moment the Cold War ended, the Soviet Union played a decisive role in the unification of Germany and in agreeing the parameters of a new security architecture in Europe. In doing so, the Soviet and later Russian leadership was given concrete political assurances regarding the non-expansion of the NATO military bloc to the East. Records of the corresponding negotiations exist in our archives and in Western archives. But these assurances by Western leaders turned out to be empty – they never had any intention of honoring them. At the same time, Western leaders were never troubled by the fact that in bringing NATO closer to Russia's borders, they were grossly violating official obligations undertaken at the highest level within the OSCE framework not to strengthen their own security at the expense of the security of others and not to allow the military-political domination of Europe by any one country, group of countries, or organization.

In 2021, our proposals to conclude treaties on mutual security guarantees in Europe, without changing Ukraine's non-bloc status, were arrogantly rejected. The West continued systematically to militarize the Russophobic Kyiv regime, which had been brought to power as a result of a bloody coup d'état and was being used to prepare the unleashing of a hybrid war against our country.

A recent series of joint exercises by the United States and its European NATO allies has been unprecedented since the end of the Cold War, including the rehearsal of scenarios for the use of nuclear weapons against the territory of the Russian Federation. The declared goal of inflicting a "strategic defeat" on Russia has completely blinded irresponsible politicians obsessed with their own impunity and who have lost any elementary sense of self-preservation.

The NATO countries, led by Washington, are not only building up and modernizing their offensive capabilities but are also attempting to extend armed confrontation into outer space and the information domain. A new and dangerous manifestation of NATO expansionism has been the attempt to extend the bloc's area of responsibility to the entire Eastern Hemisphere under the disingenuous slogan of the "indivisibility of security in the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific region." To serve this purpose, Washington is creating military-political mini-alliances under its control, such as AUKUS, the US–Japan–Republic of Korea "troika," and the Tokyo–Seoul–Canberra–Wellington "quartet," drawing their participants into practical cooperation with NATO, which is implanting its infrastructure in the Pacific theater. The undisguised orientation of such efforts against Russia and China, and toward the destruction of the inclusive regional architecture that has taken shape around ASEAN, creates risks of a new explosive flashpoint of geopolitical tension – in addition to the already overheated European one.

There is a firm impression that the United States and the "Western collective," fully subordinate to it, have decided to give the "Monroe Doctrine" a global projection. Such plans are as illusory as they are extremely dangerous, but this does not stop the ideologists of a new edition of "Pax Americana."

The world minority is doing everything in its power to slow the natural course of events. The Vilnius Declaration of the North Atlantic Alliance characterizes the "deepening partnership between Russia and China" as a "threat to NATO." Speaking recently to his ambassadors abroad, President Emmanuel Macron expressed sincere concern about the expansion of BRICS, regarding this event as evidence of "an increasingly complex international environment, which threatens to weaken the West and, in particular, Europe… The world order, its principles, and the various forms of its organization – in which the West has held and continues to hold dominant positions – are being revised." Such is the candid admission: if someone, somewhere, gathers without us, makes friends without us, or acts without our permission, this is regarded as a threat to our dominance. NATO's advance into the Asia-Pacific region is a good thing, while the expansion of BRICS is dangerous.

Yet the logic of the historical process is inexorable. The main trend has become the aspiration of states of the world majority to strengthen their sovereignty and defend their national interests, traditions, culture, and way of life. They no longer wish to live under anyone's dictate; they want to be friends and trade among themselves, and indeed with the whole world – but only on an equal footing and to mutual benefit. Associations such as BRICS and the SCO are on the rise, offering the countries of the Global South opportunities for joint development and for asserting their rightful place in the objectively emerging multipolar architecture.

Perhaps for the first time since 1945, when the United Nations was established, there has appeared a chance for genuine democratization in world affairs. This inspires optimism in all who believe in the rule of international law and who wish to see the revival of the UN as the central coordinating body of world politics – where agreement is reached on how to solve problems jointly, on the basis of a fair balance of interests.

For Russia it is obvious that there is no other way. However, the United States and the "Western collective" subordinate to it continue to breed conflicts that artificially divide humanity into hostile blocs and impede the achievement of common goals. They are doing everything possible to prevent the formation of a genuinely multipolar, just world order. They seek to force the world to play by their own narrowly selfish "rules."

I would like to call on Western politicians and diplomats to reread the UN Charter carefully once again. The cornerstone of the world order created in the aftermath of the Second World War is the democratic principle of the sovereign equality of states – large and small, regardless of their form of government or internal political or socio-economic structure.

Yet the West still considers itself above the rest of humanity – in the spirit of the statement by the EU's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, that "Europe is a blooming garden, and everything around it is a jungle." He is not troubled by the fact that in this "garden" there rages Islamophobia and other forms of intolerance toward the traditional values of all the world's religions. Acts of Koran-burning, insults to the Torah, persecution of Orthodox clergy, and other forms of mockery of believers' feelings have literally become routine in Europe.

A gross violation of the principle of the sovereign equality of states is the West's use of unilateral coercive measures. Countries that have fallen victim to illegal sanctions – and there are more and more of them – know very well that such restrictions strike first and foremost at the most vulnerable segments of the population, and that they provoke crisis phenomena in food and energy markets.

We continue to insist on the immediate and complete termination of the unprecedentedly inhumane US trade, economic, and financial blockade of Havana, and on the repeal of the absurd decision to designate Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism. Washington must abandon, without any preconditions whatsoever, its policy of economically strangling Venezuela. We demand the lifting of unilateral US and EU sanctions against the Syrian Arab Republic, which blatantly undermine the right to development. An end must be put to any coercive measures imposed in circumvention of the UN Security Council, as well as to the practice, adopted by the West, of manipulating the Council's sanctions policy in order to pressure those who are out of favor.

A blatant manifestation of the selfishness of the Western minority has been its persistent attempts to "Ukrainize" the agenda of international discussions, pushing into the background a whole series of unresolved regional crises, many of which have dragged on for years and even decades.

A full-fledged normalization of the situation in the Middle East cannot be achieved without resolving the central issue – the settlement of the protracted Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the basis of UN resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative. The Palestinians have waited for more than 70 years for the state solemnly promised to them, yet the Americans, who have monopolized the mediation process, are doing everything to prevent this from happening. We call for uniting the efforts of all responsible countries in order to create conditions for the resumption of direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.

It is gratifying that the League of Arab States is finding a second wind, stepping up its role in regional affairs. We welcome the return of the Syrian Arab Republic to the Arab family, as well as the process, now under way, of normalization between Damascus and Ankara, which we are trying to help along together with our Iranian colleagues. These positive shifts reinforce the efforts of the "Astana format" to advance a Syrian settlement based on the restoration of Syria's sovereignty.

We hope that, with UN assistance, the Libyan people will be able to properly prepare for general elections in their long-suffering country, which for more than ten years has been unable to recover from the consequences of NATO's aggression, which destroyed the Libyan state and opened the floodgates for the spread of terrorism in the Sahara-Sahel region and for waves of millions of illegal migrants to Europe and other parts of the world. Analysts note that as soon as Muammar Gaddafi renounced his military nuclear program, he was eliminated. In doing so, the West laid the most dangerous risks for the entire nuclear non-proliferation regime.

We are alarmed by the whipping up of military hysteria on the Korean Peninsula by Washington and its Asian allies, where the strategic potential of the United States continues to accumulate. Russian-Chinese initiatives to treat humanitarian and political tasks as priorities are being rejected.

The tragic development of the situation in Sudan is nothing other than yet another consequence of the West's failed experiments in exporting liberal-democratic dogmas to that country. We support constructive initiatives aimed at the earliest possible settlement of the intra-Sudanese conflict, above all through facilitating direct dialogue between the warring parties.

Observing the West's nervous reaction to recent events in Africa, particularly in Niger and Gabon, one cannot help but recall how Washington and Brussels reacted to the bloody coup d'état in Ukraine in February 2014 – which took place one day after a settlement agreement was reached under EU guarantees, an agreement the opposition simply trampled underfoot. The United States and its allies supported that coup, welcoming it as a "manifestation of democracy."

The continuing deterioration of the situation in the Serbian province of Kosovo cannot but cause concern. The supply of weapons to the Kosovo Albanians and NATO's assistance to them in creating an army grossly violate the foundational UN Security Council resolution 1244. The whole world can see how the sad history of the Minsk agreements on Ukraine – which provided for a special status for the republics of Donbas and which Kyiv openly sabotaged with Western support – is being repeated in the Balkans. Even now, the European Union does not want to force its Kosovo protégés to implement the 2013 agreements between Belgrade and Pristina on the creation of a Community of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo, with special rights regarding their own language and traditions. In both cases the EU acted as guarantor of the agreements, and it seems their fate is the same in both instances. As the "sponsor," so the result. Now Brussels is imposing its "mediation services" on Azerbaijan and Armenia, bringing destabilization, together with Washington, to the South Caucasus.

Speaking of decisions by the international community that remain merely on paper, we call for finally completing the process of decolonization in accordance with General Assembly resolutions, and for putting an end to colonial and neocolonial practices.

A vivid illustration of the "rules" by which the West wants to force the entire world to live is the fate of the commitments it undertook back in 2009 to provide developing countries with $100 billion annually to finance programs for adaptation to climate change. Compare the fate of these unfulfilled promises with the sums that the United States, NATO, and the EU have spent supporting the racist regime in Kyiv – estimated at up to $170 billion since February 2022 – and you will understand the true attitude of the "enlightened Western democracies," with their notorious "values," toward you.

On the whole, the time has come for the prompt reform of the existing architecture of global governance. It has long ceased to meet the demands of the era. The United States and its allies must abandon their artificial restraint of the redistribution of voting quotas in the IMF and the World Bank, recognizing the real economic and financial weight of the countries of the Global South. The work of the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body must also be unblocked without delay.

There is also a growing need for the expansion of the Security Council – exclusively through eliminating the underrepresentation of the countries of the World Majority – Asia, Africa, and Latin America – in its composition. It is important that new members of the Security Council, both permanent and non-permanent, enjoy authority both in their own regions and in organizations of global reach such as the Non-Aligned Movement, the Group of 77, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

It is also time to consider fairer methods for staffing the UN Secretariat. The criteria that have applied for many years do not reflect the real weight of states in world affairs and artificially ensure the disproportionate dominance of citizens of NATO and EU countries. These imbalances are further deepened by the system of permanent contracts, which ties their holders to the position of the host countries of the headquarters of international organizations, the overwhelming majority of which are located in capitals that pursue Western policy.

Reform of the UN should be reinforced by associations of a new type, in which there are no leaders and led, no teachers and pupils, and all issues are resolved on the basis of consensus reflecting a balance of interests. This applies above all to BRICS, which has significantly increased its authority following the Johannesburg summit and has acquired truly global influence.

At the regional level there is a clear renaissance of organizations such as the African Union, CELAC, the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and other structures. In Eurasia, the harmonization of integration processes within the SCO, ASEAN, the CSTO, the EAEU, the CIS, and China's Belt and Road Initiative is gaining momentum. A Greater Eurasian Partnership is naturally taking shape, open to the participation of all associations and countries of our common continent, without exception.

These positive trends are contradicted by the increasingly aggressive attempts of the West to preserve its dominance in world politics, economics, and finance. It is in the common interest to avoid the fragmentation of the world into isolated trading blocs and macro-regions. But if the United States and its allies do not wish to negotiate on giving globalization processes a fair, equitable character, then the rest will have to draw the appropriate conclusions and think about steps that will help ensure that the prospects for their own socio-economic and technological development are not made dependent on the neocolonial instincts of former metropoles.

The main problem lies precisely with the West, since developing countries are ready to negotiate, including within the framework of the G20, as the recent summit of that association in India demonstrated. The main conclusion to be drawn from it is that the G20 needs to be freed from politicization and given the opportunity to do what it was created for: to work out generally acceptable measures for managing the world economy and finance. There are opportunities for dialogue and agreement. It is important not to miss the moment.

All these trends must be fully taken into account in its work by the UN Secretariat as well, whose statutory mission is to serve the search for agreement among all Member States under the UN roof – not to take sides.

The United Nations was founded in the aftermath of the Second World War, and any attempts to revise the outcomes of that war undermine the foundations of the world Organization. As a representative of a country that made a decisive contribution to the defeat of fascism and Japanese militarism, I would like to draw attention to such an outrageous phenomenon as the rehabilitation of Nazis and collaborators in a number of European countries, above all in Ukraine and the Baltic states. It is particularly alarming that last year Germany, Italy, and Japan voted for the first time against the UN General Assembly resolution on the inadmissibility of glorifying Nazism. This regrettable fact casts doubt on the sincerity of these states' repentance for the mass crimes against humanity committed during the Second World War and contradicts the conditions under which they were admitted to the United Nations as full members. We urgently call for special attention to be paid to these "metamorphoses," which run counter to the position of the World Majority and to the principles of the UN Charter.

Today, humanity once again stands at a crossroads, as it has many times in the past. It depends on us alone how history will develop from here. It is in the common interest to prevent a slide into a large-scale war and the final collapse of the mechanisms of international cooperation created by generations of our predecessors. The Secretary-General has put forward an initiative to hold a "Summit of the Future" next year. The success of this undertaking can be ensured only through the formation of a fair balance of interests among all Member States, while respecting the intergovernmental nature of our Organization. At their meeting on 21 September, the members of the "Group of Friends in Defense of the UN Charter" agreed to actively contribute to achieving such a result.

As António Guterres said at a press conference on the eve of the current session: "If we want peace and prosperity based on equality and solidarity, then leaders bear a special responsibility to reach a compromise in designing our common future for the common good." A fitting answer to those who divide the world into "democracies" and "autocracies" and seek to dictate to everyone their own neocolonial "rules."