Lavrov issues call for new Eurasian ‘security architecture’

Quoting President Vladimir Putin, Mr. Lavrov said “the dictatorship of a single hegemon has run amok and is simply dangerous for everyone around it,” arguing that a fairer, multipolar order was emerging as countries of the Global South and East asserted themselves as “sovereign centres of development.”

Mr. Lavrov condemned the United States’ seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife earlier this year, and their “extrajudicial detention” in the US, calling for their immediate release.

He also denounced the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with members of his family and military and political leadership, as “another unacceptable manifestation of coercive diktat.” 

He said the wider US-Israeli campaign had also struck Iranian nuclear facilities under the IAEA safeguards, causing “irreparable damage” to the non-proliferation system overseen by the UN-backed nuclear energy watchdog.

Middle East

On Gaza, Mr. Lavrov said the Security Council-endorsed 20-point US peace plan had not delivered peace, with older people, women and children still being killed while the humanitarian situation remains “critical.”

Turning to the West Bank, he warned, “If this continues, it will become impossible to establish a Palestinian state. There will simply be no land left for it.”

He called for urgent and “unconventional” international action on Palestine as well as Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia and South Sudan – and repeated Russia’s call to lift the tightened US blockade of Cuba.

Ukraine and the West

Mr. Lavrov accused European governments of arming Ukraine and helping it strike civilians, saying they were working to obstruct peace talks that “many are interested” in, including the Trump administration in Washington.

Marking 80 years since the Nuremberg trials concluded following the defeat of Nazi Germany, he said the lessons had not been learned by all, accusing European Union governments of tolerating what he called “Ukrainian Nazism” while restricting the Russian language. 

“Our struggle for truth and justice will be carried through to the end,” he said. “The objectives of the special military operation will be achieved, threats to Russia’s security will be eliminated, and peaceful life will be restored.”

Security Council and AI

Mr. Lavrov said reform of the Security Council should not create new seats for Germany or Japan, which he said had “embarked on a path of militarisation and revanchism,” backing permanent seats instead for Brazil and India alongside greater African representation.

He welcomed the UN Convention against Cybercrime, developed at Russia’s initiative and opened for signature in Hanoi last October, and the new global mechanism set up to implement it. On artificial intelligence, he pointed to the Global Dialogue on AI Governance and a Chinese-led proposal, backed by Russia, for a world AI cooperation body.

A multipolar future

Mr. Lavrov said lasting peace required “strict adherence” to the principle of equal and indivisible security, accusing NATO of extending its reach into Southeast and northeast Asia.

He announced that Russia, Belarus and “like-minded partners” had adopted a statement in New York launching work on a Eurasian Charter on Diversity and Multipolarity in the 21st Century, inviting others to help build what he called “a new continent-wide architecture of peace and development.”