🎙 Statement by Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vassily Nebenzia at UNSC debate on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question

🔸 For seven months now, the Middle East has been engulfed in a violent conflict that has already claimed the lives of more than 34,000 civilians in Gaza. The escalation is spiraling daily, spreading to other countries of the region, for whom the threat of a full-scale armed confrontation has started to loom for the first time in decades.

🔸 It took Washington six months to finally realize that it had lost all leverage over Israel and ended up in a situation where "the tail was wagging the dog" - when Tel Aviv was actually dictating its terms, demanding unconditional American support for any of its reckless decisions.

🔸 Israel's cleansing of Gaza has already set a historic anti-record for the death toll of UN humanitarian personnel - more than 240 people have been killed. <...> Israeli military has been hitting humanitarian convoys, blocking access, slowing down the passage of supplies. Western countries criticize them fiercely only if such actions kill Western citizens.

🔸 The disdainful attitude of the West towards certain states and their rights, dividing the world into friends, who stand above the law, and foes, whose legitimate interests can be ignored, has brought the Middle East to the brink of a major war.

🔸 The international community has failed (because of the position of one State, which has blocked all our efforts) to protect the Palestinians from the Israeli slaughter. Nor has it been able to alleviate their humanitarian suffering. Nor has it been able to stop the spiral of violence.

🔸 We are convinced that recognizing the status of Palestine as equal to Israel will contribute to a long-term settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the basis of the well-known international legal framework approved at the United Nations and reinforced by the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002.

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🎙 Explanation of vote by Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vassily Nebenzia after UNSC vote on a draft resolution on admission of Palestine to full UN membership

💬 This day could have made history as the day when after three quarters of a century the global community finally made the right step towards improving the years-long historical injustice as regards Palestine and legitimate aspirations of its heroic people.

It was essentially a simple question whether the Palestinians deserve to be part of the world family and to participate fully in all decisions of international life. A question to which we have consistently responded “yes”, both when we admitted Israel to the United Nations and when we admitted dozens of states liberated from colonial oppression.

❌ However, our American colleagues see things differently. By exercising their veto power for the fifth time since the beginning of the escalation in Gaza, they have once again demonstrated their true attitude towards the Palestinians. For Washington, they do not deserve an independent state of their own.

They are only an obstacle to the implementation of Israel's interests. That is why the US is ready to turn a blind eye to Israel's crimes against the civilians of Gaza to the last, to ignore the illegal settlement activity of Israel in the West Bank.

The goal is to break the will of the Palestinians, to force them to unconditionally submit to the occupying power, to turn them into servants and second-class citizens and, perhaps, to expel them from their homeland. <...>

Indulging in the most reckless actions of its ally, unwillingness to seek just solutions within the existing international legal framework is a direct way to the abyss of war that could engulf the entire region. <...>

❗️ We call on the US to listen to the voice of reason, think about the consequences of its decisions, and urgently join the efforts of the other members of the Security Council to establish an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

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📸 Dmitry Polyanskiy

🗓 On April 19, 1783, Empress Catherine the Great signed a manifesto on the accession of Crimea, Taman Island and Kuban region into the Russian Empire.

Prince Grigory Potemkin, Governor-General of Novorossiya, played one of the key roles in the accession and development of Crimea. In June 1783, on top of Mount Aq Qaya, he personally received the oath of allegiance to Russia from the Crimean nobility and common people.

The results of the 2014 all-Crimean referendum once again confirmed the desire of Crimeans to remain part of our country and led to the long-awaited reunification of Crimea with Russia.

#CrimeaIsRussia

🎥 © Russian Military Historical Society / Commemorative Dates

🎙 Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov's interview with TV BRICS (April 18, 2024)

Key talking points:

• [When several new members joined BRICS] it was unclear how the adjustment process would go and what would come out of it. After [four months of Russia's Chairship] our cooperation has gained momentum and we are moving forward towards success at an increasing pace.

• During the BRICS Chairship, Russia will continue its work in three key areas: politics and security, economy and finance, humanitarian cooperation. <...> I am glad that all the members of the association collaborate in a friendly manner, striving for best results.

• The Leaders [of the BRICS countries] have taken a decision that made the Group unequivocally stronger. The association asserted itself as <...> a key link in the emerging multipolar world.

• We assume that each of the new members will bring something new <...> to the group. The rich history and cultural traditions of the newcomers speak for themselves. It enriches BRICS.

• Our "group of ten" is beginning to demonstrate solidarity at international platforms. The BRICS countries recently adopted a joint statement at the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi. The members of the association are asserting themselves in a constructive manner on the broadest possible agenda.

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🇷🇺🇱🇨 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Minister of External Affairs, International Trade and Civil Aviation and Diaspora Affairs of Saint Lucia Alva Romanus Baptiste exchanged congratulatory messages to mark the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries (April 19, 2004).

✉️ Highlighting the advancing mutual cooperation between Moscow and Castries, Sergey Lavrov emphasised the trust-based relationship and shared approaches to addressing contemporary challenges. He expressed Russia’s readiness to improve bilateral relations across political, trade, economic, cultural, and humanitarian areas, as well as to intensify interaction within international organisations.

Alva Romanus Baptiste, in response, praised Russian-Saint Lucian relations, particularly highlighting cooperation in the education sector. He affirmed his readiness to bolster ties with Russia and reiterated Castries’ dedication to exploring new opportunities for economic cooperation. He also expressed a commitment to advancing initiatives aligned with the mutual interests of both nations.

🤝 The two Ministers expressed a mutual enthusiasm to promptly finalise an agreement aimed at eliminating visa requirements between the Russian Federation and Saint Lucia to enhance tourism and foster cultural exchanges between the two nations.

#RussiaSaintLucia

✍️ Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s greetings to the organisers, participants and guests of the BRICS Film Festival

💬 Films represent the entire range of civilisations and societies in the association. This diversity keeps in the spirit of #BRICS: an open multilateral organisation, where equal member states are seeking effective solutions to today’s topical problems and national development together.

Your Film Festival serves as a great illustration of constructive dialogue and mutual enrichment of cultures. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this undertaking in today’s conditions. I am confident that it will succeed and become an unforgettable event in the life of Moscow, and also reimage the cultural component of Russia’s chairship in BRICS.

🤝 I wish you successful work together, great and unforgettable impressions, and all the best.

🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with the Sputnik, Govorit Moskva, and Komsomolskaya Pravda radio stations (April 19, 2024)

💬 Sergey Lavrov: President of Russia Vladimir Putin is constantly reminding everyone that we always prefer talks to fights and wars.

We already had some experience. After the Ukrainians realised that they had overdone it, while shelling Donbass and promoting direct genocide methods against the Russians on their own territory (as they had believed), they suggested launching talks two or three weeks after the special military operation began. We immediately agreed.<...>

At this stage, we always repeat the following <...> whenever anyone asks whether we are ready for talks. First, President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky has forbidden himself to negotiate with Russia. As Russia's President Vladimir Putin said answering this question, he should at least take the first step and repeal that order.

Secondly, they cannot be trusted. We have been trying to make ourselves trust them for too long.

☝️ And yet, we are ready to negotiate. But unlike the Istanbul story, we will not pause the military actions for the period of negotiations. The process must go on. In addition, the realities on the ground have changed significantly. These realities must be taken into account.

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#See4Yourself & #Think4Yourself

🎬 Operation Ukraine: Terror on Demand — an RT Doc Film.

Synopsis: In August 2022, Russian journalist Daria Dugina was killed in a car bomb attack organised by the Ukrainian authorities. Two months later, an explosion rocked the Crimean Bridge that links the Crimean peninsula to Russia’s mainland. The massive blast was attributed to Ukrainian sabotage groups. April 2, 2023, war correspondent Maxim Fomin, also known as Vladlen Tatarsky, was killed in a bomb blast in St Petersburg.

❗️ According to the officially released data, Russian security services regularly foil dozens of subversive acts, terrorist attacks and acts of sabotage.

The documentary takes a close look at methods used by Ukraine’s Security Service, tracing their roots back to the 1940s. It also sheds light on ties between Ukrainian nationalist leaders and American intelligence agencies.

Declassified documents revealed details of the "Operation Aerodynamic" by the US, , through which Washington funded and directed Ukrainian nationalists' fight aka campaign of terror against the Soviet Union. In the documentary, historians draw parallels between nationalists past and present.

#NoStatuteOfLimitations

🇷🇺 Interview by Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov to «RT» (with English subtitles)

⚪️ Main topics:

🟢 Situation around the Zaporozhskaya NPP

🟢 Extraordinary session of the IAEA Board of Governors

🟢 Middle East

🎙 Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s answer to a media question about US Congress approving financial aid to Ukraine

❓ What can you say about US Congress voting to allocate funds to Ukraine and other US clients?

💬 We have no interest whatsoever in the noise coming from the House of Representatives over approving aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, which goes hand in hand with the tug-of-war between the White House and the Republicans who, with the upcoming presidential campaign in mind, were also pushing for funding the efforts to put an end to illegal border crossings from Mexico.

One thing is clear: regardless of their party affiliation, the US ruling elites are willing to flood the Kiev regime with weapons for it to continue to fight to the last Ukrainian and to continue, among other things, to carry out terrorist attacks targeting civilian sites in Russia, to perpetrate acts of sabotage, and to kill journalists. For this purpose, Washington is resorting to the trivial theft of frozen Russian assets, for which Congress has given the green light to the Biden administration.

Interestingly, amid these internal squabbles, the White House is no longer banking on an ephemeral victory by the Kiev regime under its control. All it wants is for the Ukrainian armed forces to hold out at least until the November voting without damaging Biden’s image. Actually, this is why the agony of Zelensky and his inner circle is being dragged out, and ordinary Ukrainians are being forcibly driven to slaughter as cannon fodder. The Republicans who are lobbying the interests of the US defence industry, which will receive the bulk of allocations to Ukraine, have a stake in this as well.

Considering this, we confirm that Washington’s actions as an active party to the conflict will be rebuffed unconditionally and decisively, and its increasingly deeper plunge into the hybrid war against Russia will end up in a fiasco for the United States as scandalous and humiliating as in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

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#See4Yourself & #Think4Yourself

Operation Ukraine: Bandera's Dark Shadow — an RT Doc Film.

Synopsis: In today's Ukraine, that of the Kiev regime and Neo-Nazis, Stepan Bandera is a national hero. That was far from the case, his name loathed and crimes denounced. Yet those who came into power following the violent 2014 coup rename streets after him, organize processions in his honor, teach false historic narratives to kids in school, glorifying Nazism and banderovites.

Bandera is for certain far from a decent role model. As a young man, Bandera trained his will and ruthlessness through sadistic acts towards defenceless animals. In his early youth he joined the Ukrainian nationalists' underground terrorist organisation, the OUN, and ended up controlling the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

Together with his followers, Bandera collaborated with the Nazis and was responsible for the genocide of Polish and Jewish civilians during WWII.

Historian of Secret services Nikolay Dolgopolov:

This is believed to be one of the most brutal episodes of extermination of Jews during the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union. It was done by the very same OUN advance units that marched along with the German Wehrmacht

The documentary explains why Bandera’s atrocities are disregarded in modern Ukraine. It also tracks the way Hitler's collaborator was elevated to the rank of national hero by the Ukrainian authorities. As well as highlights the West's involvement in supporting, supplying and financing the Banderovites throughout the decades, nourishing the rise of the modern Ukrainian Neo-Nazism.

Russia's Embassy to the Central African Republic:

🕯 We express deepest condolences to the families of victims of a boat accident on the Mpoko River on April 19 and wish speedy recovery to those injured.

We grieve with you 🙏

🎙 Comment by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on the murder of Russian military correspondent Semyon Yeryomin

On April 19, Izvestia’s military correspondent Semyon Yeryomin perished in a well-aimed drone attack in the Zaporozhye Region. The attack was launched by armed units of the Kiev regime, while he was performing his professional duty.

He died from wounds inflicted by an artillery shell dropped from a Ukrainian drone in a second deliberate attempt on his life.

❗️ We regard this premeditated and coldblooded murder as yet another confirmation exposing the ugly, terrorist nature of the Zelensky regime, which has declared open season on Russian media persons, military correspondents and public figures, whose reports, comments and publications reveal the truth to the international community and furnish undeniable evidence of crimes committed by the Kiev regime’s thugs.

It was Semyon Yeryomin who published documentary evidence of the Armed Forces of Ukraine designating Russian frontline correspondents as priority targets for annihilation.

The murder of Semyon Yeryomin, this bloody crime, cannot be seen as anything other than an act of vengeance for his honest performance of his journalistic duty.

We urge the related international organisations and human rights bodies to immediately and resolutely denounce yet another cruel murder of a Russian journalist. By their habitual silence, they are encouraging the Kiev clique to new, ever more horrible terrorist attacks against media representatives, something that makes them accomplices in these crimes.

☝️ Double standards are totally unacceptable in a situation involving the media rights and efforts to create a safe environment for media professionals.

🎙 Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova's response to a question from the Rossiya Segodnya news agency regarding Polish President Andrzej Duda's statement on the readiness to deploy US nuclear weapons on Polish territory

❓ Question: In an interview with Fakt, Polish President Andrzej Duda said that the Polish authorities are ready to accept the deployment of US nuclear weapons on their territory. How would you comment on this?

💬 Maria Zakharova: Such provocative statements by the Polish leadership are not new. The Polish authorities have long made no secret of their ambitions to "snuggle up" to the US nuclear weapons deployed in Europe and have been actively weaving them into their deeply hostile policy towards Russia.

It is clearly not enough for Poland that it is already a member of NATO, which arbitrarily positions itself as a "nuclear alliance." Moreover, Warsaw is intensively involved in the practice of the so-called "joint nuclear missions" of the North Atlantic bloc as a state that provides direct support to such operations.

All this together leads to the fact that in our own military planning we treat Poland with special attention and in view of the threats that arise for Russia with the involvement of this country. The Polish factor was certainly also taken into account by us and our Belarusian friends in taking additional measures to strengthen the security of the Union State.

☝️ However, Warsaw seems to be maniacally seeking to attract even more attention from military planners in the Russian General Staff. It is not difficult to assume that in the event US nuclear weapons appear on Polish territory, the relevant facilities will immediately be added to the list of legitimate targets for engagement in a situation of direct military confrontation with NATO.