Current:Home > MyRussian foreign minister lambastes the West but barely mentions Ukraine in UN speech-Angel Dreamer Wealth Society D1 Reviews & Insights
Russian foreign minister lambastes the West but barely mentions Ukraine in UN speech
View Date:2024-12-23 16:14:33
United Nations (AP) — Russia’s top diplomat denounced the United States and the West on Saturday as self-interested defenders of a fading international order, but he didn’t discuss his country’s war in Ukraine in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly.
“The U.S. and its subordinate Western collective are continuing to fuel conflicts which artificially divide humanity into hostile blocks and hamper the achievement of overall aims. They’re doing everything they can to prevent the formation of a genuine multipolar world order,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
“They are trying to force the world to play according to their own self-centered rules,” he said.
As for the 19-month war in Ukraine, he recapped some historical complaints going back to the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, and alluded to the billions of dollars that the U.S and Western allies have spent in supporting Ukraine. But he didn’t delve into the current fighting.
For a second year in a row, the General Assembly is taking place with no end to the war in sight. A three-month-long Ukrainian counteroffensive has gone slower than Kyiv hoped, making modest advances but no major breakthroughs.
Ukraine’s seats in the assembly hall were empty for at least part of Lavrov’s speech. An American diplomat wrote on a notepad in her country’s section of the audience.
Since invading in February 2022, Russia has offered a number of explanations for what it calls the “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Among them: claims that Kyiv was oppressing Russian speakers in Ukraine’s east and so Moscow had to help them, that Ukraine’s growing ties with the West in recent years pose a risk to Russia, and that it’s also threatened by NATO’s eastward expansion over the decades.
Lavrov hammered on those themes in his General Assembly speech last year, and he alluded again Saturday to what Russia perceives as NATO’s improper encroachment.
But his address looked at it through a wide-angle lens, surveying a landscape, as Russia sees it, of Western countries’ efforts to cling to outsized influence in global affairs. He portrayed the effort as doomed.
The rest of the planet is sick of it, Lavrov argued: “They don’t want to live under anybody’s yoke anymore.” That shows, he said, in the growth of such groups as BRICS — the developing-economies coalition that currently includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and recently invited Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to join next year.
“Our future is being shaped by a struggle, a struggle between the global majority in favor of a fairer distribution of global benefits and civilized diversity and between the few who wield neocolonial methods of subjugation in order to maintain their domination which is slipping through their hands,” he said.
Under assembly procedures that give the microphone to presidents ahead of cabinet-level officials, Lavrov spoke four days after Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Joe Biden.
Zelenskyy accused Russia of “weaponizing” food, energy and even children against Ukraine and “the international rules-based order” at large. Biden sounded a similar note in pressing world leaders to keep up support for Ukraine: “If we allow Ukraine to be carved up, is the independence of any nation secure?”
Both Lavrov and Zelenskyy also addressed the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday but didn’t actually face off. Zelenskyy left the room before Lavrov came in.
___
Associated Press journalists Mary Altaffer at the United Nations and Joanna Kozlowska in London contributed.
veryGood! (8)
Related
- The NBA Cup is here. We ranked the best group stage games each night
- Besieged by Protesters Demanding Racial Justice, Trump Signs Order Waiving Environmental Safeguards
- Facebook parent Meta will pay $725M to settle a privacy suit over Cambridge Analytica
- Warming Trends: A Baby Ferret May Save a Species, Providence, R.I. is Listed as Endangered, and Fish as a Carbon Sink
- US wholesale inflation picks up slightly in sign that some price pressures remain elevated
- There's a shortage of vets to treat farm animals. Pandemic pets are partly to blame
- H&M's 60% Off Summer Sale Has Hundreds of Trendy Styles Starting at $4
- Greenhouse Gas Emissions Plunge in Response to Coronavirus Pandemic
- Disney Store's Black Friday Sale Just Started: Save an Extra 20% When You Shop Early
- You'll Whoop It up Over This Real Housewives of Orange County Gift Guide
Ranking
- Eva Longoria Shares She and Her Family Have Moved Out of the United States
- Russian fighter pilots harass U.S. military drones in Syria for second straight day, Pentagon says
- Tree Deaths in Urban Settings Are Linked to Leaks from Natural Gas Pipelines Below Streets
- Republican attorneys general issue warning letter to Target about Pride merchandise
- Some women are stockpiling Plan B and abortion pills. Here's what experts have to say.
- Chris Pratt Mourns Deaths of Gentlemen Everwood Co-Stars John Beasley and Treat Williams
- Amid blockbuster decisions on affirmative action, student loan relief and free speech, Supreme Court's term sees Roberts back on top
- U.S. opens new immigration path for Central Americans and Colombians to discourage border crossings
Recommendation
-
Padma Lakshmi, John Boyega, Hunter Schafer star in Pirelli's 2025 calendar: See the photos
-
Britney Spears hit herself in the face when security for Victor Wembanyama pushed her hand away, police say
-
Ariana Madix Shares NSFW Sex Confession Amid Tom Sandoval Affair in Vanderpump Rules Bonus Scene
-
After a Ticketmaster snafu, Mexico's president asks Bad Bunny to hold a free concert
-
MLS playoff teams set: Road to MLS Cup continues with conference semifinals
-
The Postal Service pledges to move to an all-electric delivery fleet
-
Biden cracking down on junk health insurance plans
-
Close Coal Plants, Save Money: That’s an Indiana Utility’s Plan. The Coal Industry Wants to Stop It.