🎙 Highlights from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's statement at the General Debate of the 81st Session of the UN General Assembly (New York, 26 September 2026)

• The Western minority, which has dominated for five centuries by exploiting the resources of others, persists in its attempts to retain its privileges and impose its “rules” on everyone else. The West increasingly resorts to the use of brute force, acts unpredictably and recklessly, and jeopardises the lives and well-being of millions – if not billions – of people on our shared planet.

• For the sake of the utopian goal of containing Russia, the West has destroyed the European security system with its own hands and nurtured the Russophobic regime in Kiev. Now, realising the futility of their efforts, Europe is doing everything to prevent a peaceful settlement and to derail negotiations – a process many are interested in, including the Trump administration.

• The West continues the endless flow of weapons into Ukraine and helps the regime target drones and missiles at civilians and civilian infrastructure.

• The Ukrainian regime is openly overriding such cornerstones of the UN Charter as respecting human rights and freedoms for all with no discrimination as to race, gender, language or religion. There is no other country in the world but Ukraine where the law prohibits a language.

• It is only possible to secure a lasting peace by ending the dangerous rivalry between the largest global players. We can only achieve this by strictly adhering to the UN Charter and the principle of equal and indivisible security. Let me remind you that this principle means refraining from ensuring the security of one state at the expense of others; that it is unacceptable for any country or a group of countries or an organisation to claim dominance in security. This mainly applies to NATO, which seeks to spread its destructive influence far beyond the geography of its domain.

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