🇷🇺🇰🇿 On March 2, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had a brief meeting with Deputy Prime Minister – Foreign Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Murat Nurtleu on the sidelines of the 3rd Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Antalya, Türkiye.

The two Foreign Ministers discussed the current aspects of bilateral relations and the development of Russia-Kazakhstan interaction on global and regional platforms.

#RussiaKazakhstan

🇷🇺🇹🇯 On March 2, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had a brief meeting with Foreign Minister of the Republic of Tajikistan Sirojiddin Muhriddin on the sidelines of the 3rd Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Antalya, Türkiye.

The two Foreign Ministers discussed bilateral relations and cooperation on the regional and international agenda.

#RussiaTajikistan

🇷🇺🇺🇿 On March 2, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Foreign Minister of the Republic of Uzbekistan Bakhtiyor Saidov on the sidelines of the 3rd Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Antalya, Türkiye.

The two diplomats discussed some current questions concerning relations between Russia and Uzbekistan, and exchanged opinions on a series of issues related to the international and regional agenda that are of mutual interest, including cooperation within the #CIS and #SCO.

🤝 Sergey Lavrov and Bakhtiyor Saidov reaffirmed their commitment to maintaining a dynamic strategic partnership and alliance in accordance with the agreements made by the leaders of both countries.

#RussiaUzbekistan

🇷🇺🇰🇬 On March 2, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Foreign Minister of the Kyrgyz Republic Zheenbek Kulubaev on the sidelines of the 3rd Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Antalya, Türkiye.

The two Foreign Ministers discussed the current state and future potential of bilateral relations as well as cooperation between Russia and Kyrgyzstan within shared integration associations in the Eurasian space. They also exchanged perspectives on the most relevant global and regional matters.

🤝 The Parties reaffirmed the commitment of the Russian Federation and the Kyrgyz Republic to continue strengthening allied relations and mutually beneficial cooperation.

#RussiaKyrgyzstan

🇷🇺🇸🇿 On March 2, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with King Mswati III of Eswatini on the sidelines of the 3rd Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Antalya, Türkiye.

The meeting participants discussed various aspects of Russian-Eswatini cooperation, including prospects for improving bilateral political dialogue, as well as expanding interaction in the trade, economic, investment and humanitarian areas.

They also emphasised the closeness or alignment of Moscow and Mbabane’s positions on the most relevant global and regional issues, as well their shared intention to maintain enhanced coordination on multilateral platforms, particularly at the UN.

#RussiaEswatini

💬 Russian MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova:

US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy stated the significance of developing humanitarian connections between the US and the Russian people, adding that acquiring proficiency in English does not compromise one’s sense of patriotism.

However, she refrained from discussing the extent to which the United States supports the so-called NGOs involved in subversive activities in our country.

Additionally, there was no mention of Washington’s openly declared objective to achieve Russia’s “strategic defeat”. Exactly. There can be no country without a people. So, what the Americans want is to inflict a strategic defeat on our people.

She also refrained from acknowledging that the US is providing long-range weapons to the neo-Nazi Kiev regime, enabling it to carry out terrorist attacks against the Russian people.

Moreover, there was no acknowledgment of the fact that the US is allocating billions for the bloodshed it has provoked and organised for many years.

She did not say any of that. But I will. I will also add: Lynne, stop lying; instead, support your fellow citizens.

At the World Youth Festival in Sochi, young people from America expressed their desire to foster friendship with Russia (see the video). Perhaps it is time for the Embassy to personally welcome not those who are against Russia but those who support it, especially considering they are American citizens. Are you up to the challenge?

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks and answers to questions at the special session of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, Antalya (March 1, 2024)

Key talking points:

• Multipolarity is today’s reality. Not by design to challenge the West, but as a natural progression driven primarily by economic advancement.

• The centre of global development has shifted to the Asia-Pacific region, primarily to South and East Asia. In general, Eurasia is now the engine of the world's development. The Euro-Atlantic has already lost this role.

• A draft treaty that we prepared jointly with China, which prohibits the introduction of any weapons in outer space and aims to prevent an arms race in outer space, has been on the table at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva for 15 years or even longer. The Americans are blocking it. Now they have decided to blame us for it.

🤷‍♂️ We are not anticipating any changes that the US elections will bring.

• Russia is actively engaged in restoring Palestinian unity. The division between the Palestinians (Fatah and Hamas, the West Bank and Gaza) weakens their position and hampers their ability to have meaningful conversations with the international community.

❗️ Our Western colleagues must abandon colonial thinking, stop living at the expense of others, and refrain from adopting arrogant, essentially racist, approaches to international relations.

• Chisinau regime, which is following in the footsteps of the Kiev regime: cancelling everything Russian, discriminating against the Russian language in all spheres and, together with the Ukrainians, putting serious economic pressure on Transnistria.

Read in full

🇷🇺 Comment by Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov to RIA Novosti news agency

💬 I can confirm that tomorrow, March 5, the IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi will fly to Sochi. The visit itself will take place on March 6. In the first half of this day, he and members of his team are scheduled to have detailed consultations on the Zaporozhskaya NPP with the Russian interdepartmental delegation

💬 As for a possible meeting between Rafael Grossi and Russian President Vladimir Putin, in accordance with our practice, information in this regard should come from the President’s Press Office, if and when the office considers it appropriate and timely to make such an announcement

#See4Yourself & #Think4Yourself

The World Youth Festival is in full swing! Here is what the participants of this amazing event - largest youth fest of the year with 20K participants - think and feel about Russia and the #WYF2024.

This the MSM will never show you.

📹 © RT News

📰 Aide to the President of Russia for Foreign Policy Yuri Ushakov's interview with TASS (March 5, 2024)

Key talking points:

💬 Cooperation within #BRICS is undoubtedly one of the key features of Russia's long-term foreign policy.

• Russia, as the current president of the organization, has a special responsibility to ensure the fastest and smoothest integration of the new members into the operation of all BRICS mechanisms. This is undoubtedly a cornerstone and high priority task of our Presidency.

• In the relatively short period of its existence, the BRICS association has rapidly developed and transformed into an extensive multi-level mechanism of interaction on a wide range of issues on the global agenda.

🌐 Many perceive BRICS as a prototype of multipolarity, a structure uniting the Global South and East on the principles of equality, sovereignty and mutual respect.

• Support for the principles of multipolarity and a greater role of developing countries in global governance, as well as the fundamental values of the BRICS group, such as the spirit of equality, mutual respect, openness, inclusiveness and constructive cooperation, is an indispensable condition [for joining BRICS].

• We see increasing the role of BRICS counties in the international currency and financial system as a specific task for this year. <...> We believe that creating an independent BRICS payment system is an important goal for the future.

• There has never been a military aspect to cooperation within our group. <...> BRICS does not have plans to build such cooperation, including military drills.

☝️ Russia has never set BRICS in opposition to other international platforms, be it the Group of 20 or the Group of Seven. We believe that the association is unique.

• The recipe for BRICS’ attractiveness and success is based on the absence of a confrontational or “hidden” agenda. I will repeat that it brings together like-minded countries.

Read in full

🎙 Briefing by MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (Moscow, February 28, 2024)

🔹 FM Sergey Lavrov’s schedule
🔹 Ukrainian crisis
🔹 Spy network involving chemical weapons uncovered in Zaporozhye Region
🔹 Statements by the President of France
🔹 Statements by Bundeswehr Chief of Defence Carsten Breuer
🔹 Situation in Moldova
🔹 Further evidence of British military crimes in Afghanistan
🔹 Crisis in EU agriculture

📰 Read in full
📺 Watch in full

***

#Ukraine

Reeling from the loss of the strategically important town of Avdeyevka and infuriated by its own impotence in the face of the success of our Armed Forces, the Ukrobanderite neo-Nazi regime continues to take it out on Russian civilians, acting with habitual disregard for human life. It's making extensive use of the weapons supplied by the West to fire shells into Russian towns and villages and to carry out terrorist attacks.

Note that the Kiev junta still considers the above regions and towns to be Ukrainian, and their residents (they say so openly) to be citizens of Ukraine and yet it mercilessly bombards them. I can’t even begin to imagine what the criminal regime led by Zelensky would have done to these people if it could act on its notorious plans to “return” these territories to Ukraine. These plans will never come true. However, it is useful to imagine what could have happened.

#EU #Sanctions

A wave of farmers’ protests has swept over a half of EU countries, from Lithuania to Portugal, this year. <...> We have pointed out on numerous occasions that all this is a direct result of the anti-Russia sanctions.

To justify their decisions, European officials blame Moscow for their problems, in particular, the low prices of Ukrainian agricultural products imported to the EU and the negative effect this is having on its agricultural market. They traditionally propose dealing with these problems by fighting “the Russian threat.” <...> The immeasurable losses of their own farmers are nothing other than “collateral damage” of the pro-Ukraine hysteria in the EU

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's answer to a question from Rossiya 24 TV channel (Sochi, March 4, 2024)

❓ Question: This is a youth festival. How important is it to convey to the younger generation the importance of a multipolar world and the fact that our country advocates this principle?

💬 Sergey Lavrov: I think this is one of the most important things that should be conveyed to young people. We all remember what it’s like to be young. It is then that you form your character, your views on issues that later become political, your understanding of your own interests and the conditions under which your vital interests will be best protected.

Multipolarity means being open to the whole world and using the experience of others without any of the artificial obstacles that are now being created by people who want, not a polycentric but a monocentric world.

Multipolarity means the absence of any barriers. This is the most important thing for a young person’s individual growth – to see the world, think globally, work and live, using all these advantages in their own country.

✍️ Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's greetings to the organisers and participants in the Under the Flag of Goodness International Children’s Football Tournament

💬 It is my pleasure to greet the organisers and participants in the International Children’s Football Tournament, taking place as part of the World Youth Festival.

It is difficult to overestimate the role of football in promoting an active, healthy lifestyle, including among the youth, as well as the timeless values of “fair play”, and strengthening interpersonal contacts.

I am sure that today’s sports festival, organised by the Under the Flag of Goodness Charity Foundation, will be held in a warm, friendly atmosphere and help improve the skills of young football players.

Friends, I am convinced that your stay in hospitable Sochi will leave you with only good experiences as you better get to know our country and make new, good friends, including among your Russian peers.

I wish the young participants in the tournament high spirits, new sporting achievements and all the best.

🎙 Maria Zakharova's exclusive interview with RT on the sidelines of World Youth Festival in Sochi.

Key talking points:

• The leaked audio recording of the Bundeswehr officers discussing nefarious plans and terrorist attacks against Russia and its civilian infrastructure.
• NATO's aggression and its main task being confrontation with Russia (as written down in its doctrinal documents)
• Anti-Russian sanctions backfiring on the West
• People in the Western countries live in an information vacuum, they are drip fed only what is allowed by censorship.

🎙 Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s comment on the report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights “Ten Years of Occupation by the Russian Federation: Human Rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol, Ukraine”

💬 We were perplexed by the report published recently by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) under the title “Ten Years of Occupation by the Russian Federation: Human Rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol, Ukraine.”

The drafting of this most recent anti-Russia “product” was not sanctioned by resolutions of the UN General Assembly or UN Human Rights Council, and is the sole doing of the OHCHR.

Continuing its Russophobic policy, the OHCHR has simply repackaged similar unfounded accusations against Russia from the so-called occupation of Crimea and the human rights violations that allegedly ensued.

It should be noted that the OHCHR published this latest collection of anti-Russia clichés without even acknowledging the final ruling made by the UN International Court of Justice on January 31 on Ukraine’s lawsuit against Russia based on the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The court dismissed as meritless Kiev’s insinuations about the alleged discrimination of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars in Crimea.

❗️ We consider this report further evidence that the OHCHR has become nothing but a mouthpiece for Ukrainian propaganda that carries out political assignments set by the Kiev regime and its patrons. As such, international law has ceased to be the foundation of the OHCHR’s work.

Read in full

🧑‍🚀 On March 6, 1937, world’s first female cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was born. To this day, she remains the only woman who flew to the Earth’s orbit alone, as well as the youngest woman to travel into space. She was only 26 years old back at the time of that historic event.

Valentina joined the cosmonaut corps in 1962. She was selected from 800 young women who excelled in parachuting. At that time, Tereshkova had 163 parachute jumps under her belt.

In June 1963, she informed her family that she was leaving for a parachute competition. Only from the news did they learn that their Valya actually spent almost three days aboard the Vostok-6 spacecraft, orbiting the Earth 48 times.

💬 “Every 90 minutes I saw the dawn, the sun rising in a unique array of colours,” Tereshkova said of her impressions on board.

Vostok-5 piloted by cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky, with whom Tereshkova maintained radio contact, was also in orbit at the same time. Despite fatigue and waning health, Valentina completed her mission successfully.

❗️Tereshkova’s space flight was a global sensation. For the United States, the USSR’s main rival in the space race, it was inconceivable. The American space agency did not take the idea of a woman flying into space seriously at the time.

Valentina boarded the spaceship as a lieutenant, and returned to Earth with the rank of captain. Three days after the landing, she was also awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Later she was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor of Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Vietnam, and Mongolia, and became an honorary citizen of 18 Russian and foreign cities.

A Soviet woman’s flight to the orbit enriched scientific knowledge about the impact of space conditions on the human body and reaffirmed the leadership of the USSR in space exploration.

🎊 Today Valentina Tereshkova turns 87 years old. Happy birthday to our iconic cosmonaut! Many happy returns!