Russian Federation

Mr. Chairman,

Ladies and gentlemen,

A few days ago, a forum called the "Summit of the Future" was held within the walls of this building. Russia understood the Secretary-General's idea to convene it, since the crisis of our Organization is deepening and something must be done about it. We honestly engaged in the preparation of the summit. Although, I will say honestly, we had no particular illusions. In the modern history of the UN there have been many ambitious events that ended in loud declarations, soon forgotten.

The "Millennium Summit" in 2000 proclaimed the task of "freeing peoples from the scourge of war." A little more than two years later, the United States, at the head of a "coalition of the willing," under a laughable pretext, invaded Iraq without a UN Security Council mandate — a country that to this day cannot recover from the devastating consequences of this adventure.

The "World Summit" of the UN in 2005 announced a commitment to "establishing a just peace in accordance with the principles and goals of the UN Charter." This "sacred obligation" did not in the least prevent the United States and its allies from inciting the then Georgian leader M. Saakashvili to unleash armed aggression in 2008 against the people of South Ossetia and Russian peacekeepers. And three years later, NATO organized a military intervention in Libya, destroying its statehood and undermining the stability of neighboring countries.

In 2015, the "UN Summit on Sustainable Development" adopted grandiose plans in the sphere of combating poverty and inequality. In fact, they turned out to be empty promises against the backdrop of the unwillingness of Western countries to abandon neocolonial practices of pumping the wealth of the whole world in their favor. Look at the statistics on fulfilling promises to finance the development of the countries of the Global South and the transfer of nature-conserving technologies.

Like K. Annan and Ban Ki-moon once did, the current UN Secretary-General A. Guterres has put forward his own initiative under the slogan of a "reset" of global cooperation. A wonderful slogan — who could be against it? But what global cooperation can we speak of, when the West has trampled on all those "immutable values" of globalization that we were told about for so many years from every rostrum, assuring us that they would ensure equal access for all to the benefits of modern civilization. Where is the inviolability of property, the presumption of innocence, freedom of speech, access to information, fair competition in markets under clear and unchanging rules? The Secretary-General speaks of global cooperation at the very moment when Western countries have unleashed a real sanctions war against a good half, if not the majority, of the states of the world, while the dollar, which was advertised to us as the property and benefit of all humanity, has been crudely turned into a weapon.

For more than sixty years the trade blockade of Cuba has continued, which the overwhelming majority of members of the international community demand be lifted. In pursuit of an increasingly elusive goal of preserving its dominance, Washington blocks the normal functioning of the WTO's dispute resolution mechanism and reform of the Bretton Woods institutions, whose structure has long ceased to reflect the real balance of power in the world economy and finance. The West also wants to turn the UN into an instrument for advancing its own selfish agendas. As the "Summit of the Future" showed, attempts are growing to blur the intergovernmental nature of the Organization. Long overdue changes in the methods of staffing the Secretariat are being restrained, key posts in which today are effectively occupied by, and "inherited" among, representatives of the Western minority. If the Secretary-General is calling for a "reset" of global cooperation, then the Secretariat should be promoting unifying ideas, proposing compromise options, rather than inventing justifications for introducing narratives favorable to the West into the work of the UN.

It is not yet too late to breathe new life into the UN. But this can be done not through summits and declarations divorced from reality, but through the restoration of trust based on the Charter principle — the sovereign equality of all states. However, trust is currently being undermined, including by the actions of the West to create, bypassing the UN, narrow controlled formats for resolving fateful issues — such as internet governance or determining the legal framework for the use of artificial intelligence technologies. After all, these problems affect the future of all humanity, and they must be considered on a universal basis, without discrimination and without seeking unilateral advantages. That is, agreements must be reached honestly, with the participation of all UN members, and not as the "Pact for the Future" was prepared — without a single plenary round of negotiations in which all countries would participate. Instead, work was conducted under the control of Western manipulators. As a result, the "Pact," without even being properly born, has already joined the pantheon of beautifully worded declarations in English.

Such, however sad, is the fate of the "products" of such world summits. But things are no better with the implementation of Security Council resolutions, which are binding. Consider the sabotage of decisions on the Kosovo settlement and the Dayton Agreements on Bosnia and Herzegovina. The most flagrant example remains the "stalling," for almost 80 years now, of consensus resolutions on the creation of an independent Palestinian state coexisting in peace and security with Israel.

There is not and cannot be any justification for acts of terrorism, of which Israelis were victims on October 7, 2023. But everyone in whom a sense of compassion is still alive is indignant at the fact that the October tragedy is being used for the mass collective punishment of Palestinians, which has turned into an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. The killing of peaceful residents of Palestine with American weapons must be stopped immediately. The delivery of humanitarian cargo to the enclave must be ensured, the restoration of infrastructure organized, and — most importantly — the legitimate right of Palestinians to self-determination must be guaranteed, and they must be allowed — not in words but in deeds, "on the ground" — to create a territorially contiguous and viable state within the 1967 borders with its capital in East Jerusalem.

Another "glaring" example of terrorist methods as a means of achieving political goals is the inhumane attack on Lebanon through turning civilian technologies into lethal weapons. This crime must be investigated immediately. But even now one cannot pass over in silence the numerous publications in the media, including in Europe and the United States, testifying to a certain degree of involvement and, at the very least, awareness by Washington of the preparation of the terrorist attack. We understand that the Americans always deny everything and will do everything to "bury" the emerging facts — just as they did in response to irrefutable evidence of their involvement in the terrorist attacks on the "Nord Stream" gas pipelines. These pipelines, by the way, were a wonderful symbol of the "global cooperation" that the UN Secretary-General dreams of. As a result of their destruction, the competitiveness of the European Union in the world economy has been undermined for many years to come, to the benefit of the United States. On the conscience of the West also lies the "covering up" of the truth about the organizers of many other repugnant crimes, including the bloody provocation in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha in April 2022 and a series of poisonings of Russian citizens in Britain and Germany.

The UN Secretariat cannot remain aloof from efforts to establish the truth in situations directly affecting global security, and is obliged to scrupulously observe Article 100 of the Charter, act impartially, and avoid the temptation to play along with individual states — especially those who openly call not for cooperation but for the division of the world into a "flourishing garden" and a "jungle," or into those "dining at the democratic table" and those "on the menu."

One must not forget the "track record" of those who demand that everyone else in the world follow their "rules." The invasion of Afghanistan and the inglorious twenty-year presence there of the well-known coalition was accompanied by the formation of "Al-Qaeda." The direct result of the aggression against Iraq was the creation of ISIS. The unleashing of the war in Syria gave birth to "Jabhat al-Nusra" (now "Hayat Tahrir al-Sham"), and the destruction of Libya opened the floodgates for the penetration of terrorism into the Sahara-Sahel region and for millions of streams of illegal migrants into Europe. We call on all who think about the future of their countries and peoples to be extremely vigilant regarding new adventures by the inventors of those very same "rules."

Extreme alarm is caused by methods of political assassination, which have become almost a common practice, as happened again yesterday in Beirut.

The tragic and unacceptable development of events in the Arab-Israeli conflict, in Yemen, in the waters of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, in Sudan and other "hot spots" in Africa reflects an indisputable fact: security can be either equal and indivisible for all, or it will not exist for anyone.

Russia has spent years trying to instill an understanding of this seemingly simple truth, in the context of European security, into the minds of Washington, London, and Brussels, which are overwhelmed by complexes of their own exceptionalism and impunity. Although at first they promised not to expand NATO, and in 1999 and 2010 signed official documents at OSCE summits under the obligation not to ensure their own security at the expense of others, in reality the North Atlantic alliance has for three decades been carrying out geopolitical and military expansion in Europe, trying to entrench itself in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, creating direct threats to the security of our country. The same thing is now happening in the Asia-Pacific region, where NATO infrastructure is "creeping in," and where, in order to contain the PRC and Russia, narrow military-political blocs are being created that undermine the inclusive security architecture under the auspices of ASEAN.

At the same time, the West not only does not recall the "global cooperation" that our Secretary-General champions, but openly, in its doctrinal documents, harshly accuses Russia, China, Belarus, the DPRK, and Iran of creating threats to its dominance. Regarding Russia, a goal of inflicting on it a "strategic defeat" has been announced: almost as London and Washington planned in May 1945, developing (even before the end of World War II) Operation "Unthinkable" for the destruction of the USSR. At that time this was kept in the strictest secrecy, but today's Anglo-Saxon strategists do not hide their intentions. True, for now they are counting on defeating Russia by the hands of the illegitimate neo-Nazi Kiev regime, but they are already preparing Europe as well to throw itself into a suicidal adventure. I will not dwell here on the senselessness and danger of the very idea of trying to "fight to victory" against a nuclear power, which Russia is.

Equally senseless are the incantations of the Western masters of Kiev about the "lack of alternative" to negotiations based on the notorious "peace formula." Defending this doomed ultimatum, the West unabashedly appeals to the UN Charter, demanding that the territorial integrity of Ukraine be ensured.

I want to remind, including colleagues in the UN Secretariat, that the Charter is not only about territorial integrity. The very first article of the Charter proclaims the obligation to respect the principles of equal rights and self-determination of peoples. This is precisely what served as the international legal basis for the process of decolonization (which, by the way, has yet to be brought to completion, no matter how much the French, the British, and other former metropoles resist it). And in 1970 the General Assembly unanimously decided in its Declaration that everyone must respect the territorial integrity of those states whose governments respect the right of peoples to self-determination and, by virtue of this, represent the entire population living in the corresponding territory. I emphasize: this was a unanimous decision of the UN General Assembly after long years of difficult discussions. There is no need to prove that the Ukrainian neo-Nazis, who seized power in Kiev as a result of the bloody state coup supported by the US and its allies in February 2014, did not and do not represent the Russian population of Crimea, Donbass, and Novorossiya.

Western leaders, obsessed with the topic of human rights on any pretext, conspicuously remain silent about these rights as applied to the racist actions of their Kiev clients. In light of such forgetfulness, let me recall yet another requirement of that very same first article of the UN Charter: to respect the rights and fundamental freedoms of every person regardless of race, sex, language, and religion. The rights of Russians and people affiliated with Russian culture have been methodically eradicated after the state coup in Kiev. The Russian language in Ukraine has been legally banned in all spheres — in education, media, art, culture, even in everyday life. Recently another law was passed — on the banning of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. These flagrant violations of the rights of Russians enshrined in the UN Charter, together with the threats to the security of Russia, and indeed of all Europe, emanating from the Kiev regime and those who are dragging it into NATO, are the root causes of the current Ukrainian crisis. It is precisely at eliminating these that the special military operation is directed, which Russia is conducting with the aim of protecting its security, the present and future of the people on their ancestral land.

We value the sincere desire of a number of our partners to promote, out of the best of intentions, mediation initiatives. We respect their constructive focus on results — in contrast to V.A. Zelensky's dead-end "peace formula." We call on friends, in their further efforts, to fully take into account the aforementioned facts about the true causes of the current situation. Without eliminating them, a just peace based on the UN Charter cannot be achieved. A realistic settlement plan was set out by President V.V. Putin on June 14 of this year, when he once again convincingly demonstrated Russia's goodwill toward reaching negotiated agreements — prospects for which were "overturned" by Kiev and its patrons as a result of the 2014 state coup, the disruption of the 2015 Minsk agreements, and the 2022 Istanbul arrangements.

The unprecedented level of arrogance and aggressiveness of Western policy toward Russia not only reduces to naught the very idea of "global cooperation" promoted by the Secretary-General, but is also increasingly blocking the functioning of the entire system of global governance, including the Security Council. This is not our choice, and it is not for us to bear responsibility for the consequences of such a dangerous course. However, if the West does not stop, everyone will feel the heavy costs.

It is obvious to the world majority that confrontation and hegemonism will not solve a single global problem. They only artificially restrain the objective process of forming a multipolar world order, which will rest on the equality of rights of large and small nations, respect the value of the human person, the equality of men and women, and the right of peoples to determine their own destiny. All of this is also a quotation from the UN Charter. As is the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states, confirmation of which, to the shame of UN members, was blocked by the US and its satellites at that very same "Summit of the Future" during the adoption of the corresponding "pact."

Speaking on September 18 of this year before participants of the IV Eurasian Women's Forum in St. Petersburg, President V.V. Putin emphasized the need to unite efforts in the name of sustainable development and universal, equal, and indivisible security. The most complex problems facing all of humanity can only be solved together, taking into account each other's interests. The West must recognize this and abandon its neocolonial habits.

The Global South and East are increasingly loudly declaring their rights to full participation in decision-making processes across the entire spectrum of the international agenda — which is becoming ever more relevant in a situation where the West is systematically destroying the very model of globalization that it itself created.

The role of interstate associations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America is strengthening. Among them are the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the African Union, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the League of Arab States, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and many others.

Contacts among regional integration structures are being established, both among themselves and with the global association — BRICS, which creates opportunities for harmonizing approaches to coordinating mechanisms of mutually beneficial cooperation and development that are not subject to negative external influence and dictate.

All these objective processes will also have to be taken into account in the work of the "Group of Twenty," where the "Seven" can no longer "call the tune."

We must take a fresh look at ways of ensuring security in various regions, drawing lessons from the sad experience of the functioning of NATO-centric models or models of Euro-Atlantic security, which the West has put in the service of its expansionist designs.

Russia has put forward an initiative to form an inclusive architecture of equal and indivisible security in Eurasia, open — I want to particularly emphasize this — to all states and organizations of our common continent that are ready to work together in search of generally acceptable solutions, using the interconnectedness and natural competitive advantages of the unified Eurasian space. An international conference in Minsk, opening on October 31 of this year, will be devoted to this topic.

We are not closing ourselves off from dialogue with the West. In July of this year, at Russia's proposal, open debates of the Security Council were held on the issue of building a more just and sustainable world order. We consider it important to continue the discussion that has begun, both in the UN and in other venues.

A more just world order certainly presupposes an expansion of the representation of the Global South in the UN Security Council. We confirm our position in support of the candidacies of Brazil and India, together with a simultaneous positive decision on the well-known initiatives of the African Union. At the same time, of course, there can be no talk of additional seats for Western countries, which are already excessively overrepresented in the composition of the Security Council.

In May 2025, the 80th anniversary of the Victory in World War II will be marked, in the course of which tens of millions of people fell victim to the genocidal policy of the Third Reich, including 27 million citizens of all the peoples of the Soviet Union. Such crimes have no statute of limitations, just as there is no moral justification for those who today attempt to whitewash the Nazi executioners, collaborators, and their present-day followers, be it in Ukraine, the Baltic states, Canada, or other countries.

Today the world is once again facing the most serious challenges, which require the pooling of efforts, not confrontation and a thirst for global dominance.

Russia will always stand on the side of collective work, on the side of truth and law, of peace and cooperation, in the interests of reviving the ideals laid down by the founding fathers. This is what the work of the Group of Friends in Defense of the UN Charter, created on the initiative of Venezuela, is aimed at. Its goals and principles fully retain their relevance. What matters most is that everyone, without exception, should be guided by these principles not selectively (picking from a "menu"), but in their full completeness and interconnection, including the principle of the sovereign equality of states. Then, working in favor of forming a fair balance of the legitimate national interests of all countries, we will be able to bring to life the purpose of the UN as written in the Charter: "To be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations."