On April 8, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will host his Armenian counterpart, Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ararat Mirzoyan, who will be in Russia on a working visit.
The foreign ministers are expected to discuss in detail steps on further promoting bilateral cooperation in all areas, intensifying concerted efforts in the countries’ common integration associations – the EAEU, the CSTO and the CIS, and within other international associations. In addition, the ministers will conduct an extensive exchange of views on implementing the agreements reached by the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian leaders on November 9, 2020, January 11 and November 26, 2021.
We hope the forthcoming talks in Moscow will facilitate allied cooperation with Yerevan and promote peace and stability in the South Caucasus.
Update on Ukraine
The special military operation continues in Ukraine. Its goals and tasks are to free the DPR and the LPR, demilitarise and denazify Ukraine and remove threats to Russia from Ukrainian territory where neo-Nazis are committing atrocities. The Russian military are doing all they can to avoid civilian victims. They are not striking civilian facilities and they are opening humanitarian corridors for people to leave dangerous areas every day.
Against this backdrop, the Kiev regime is shelling residential neighbourhoods, destroying its own people and is leading the country into a humanitarian disaster with support from its American and European curators that are building up lethal arms supplies to Ukraine.
Recently, Ukrainian nationalists have been focusing on provocations, disinformation and fabricated episodes that are aimed at accusing Russia of war crimes. We saw similar staged shows in Syria several years ago and not just in Syria and not just several years ago.
On April 3, 2022, the world saw another crime by the Ukrainian authorities in Bucha where they faked the alleged murder of civilians by the Russian military. After checking the relevant reports and comparing information the Russian Defence Ministry promptly came up with a detailed rebuttal. Until March 30, 2022, when Bucha was controlled by the Russian military and up to and including April 3 when they left, local residents freely moved around the city and used mobile phones.
They could have complained about any action by anyone, including the Russian military but there was nothing to complain about. The Russian military delivered to the people of Bucha and other places in the Kiev Region 452 tonnes of humanitarian aid. Not a single civilian was hurt by a violent attack while Bucha was under the control of the Russian armed forces. There has been no information to this effect. The roads from Bucha to other places, including Kiev, were not blocked. In the process, Ukrainian troops shelled around the clock the southern outskirts of the city, including its residential areas (as they always do everywhere). They used large caliber artillery, tanks and multiple rocket launchers for this purpose.
On March 31, 2022, Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk of Bucha, who said in a video address that Russian forces had pulled out of the city, did not mention any executed residents. I suggest that you watch this video before it is deleted from YouTube, Twitter and other US platforms that are accomplices in this crime. By spreading fake news and blocking the truth, alternative views, investigation material and straight talk, these platforms have become accomplices in this terrible tragedy in Bucha, which is the result of Kiev’s crimes. Assuming these crimes were not directly ordered by Kiev, we must state that they were committed by forces which have broken off from President Zelensky’s control, or that he never controlled.
I am accusing Western and primarily the US media of not only spreading fake news and disinformation, but of being an accomplice in the massacre in Bucha. Newspapers, television and analysts are accomplices in this punitive act. I also know that this is not the first time they did this.
The world has seen similar operations before. Regrettably, it was in Europe. In October 1944, the Soviet army fighting in Germany occupied the city of Nemmersdorf and held it for several days. When the Soviet troops had to retreat, German propaganda specialists entered the city, including the head of the NSDAP Propaganda Department for East Prussia, Karl Gebhardt. After a bloody two-day information campaign, the Nazi newspaper Volkischer Beobachter published an article on the “fury of the Soviet beasts.” Times have changed, but they are still working very fast, when they need to. Does this remind you of anything? Even the headlines are almost identical; they didn’t even bother to write a new one. They are just copying items from the period the revival of which we are now fighting. That article ranted about the “horrors” and “mutilation” of Nemmersdorf civilians by Soviet soldiers, writing in detail about “torture” and “murder” evidence for which the Nazis allegedly found in the city.
The Third Reich organised an international commission to investigate the massacre and invited representatives of rubber-stamping governments, including Estonia. Barely a week later, the commission of Hjalmar Mae, published a report putting the blame on Moscow. I mentioned the almost identical headlines. As for the international reaction, it was the same as well. Within moments the world was reading statements by various representatives, officials and heads of European countries who drew conclusions and appointed criminals just by looking at the photographs.
The “international commission” organised by the Nazis passed the verdict. The Mae commission report was the most frequently cited document, and a favourite weapon of the Goebbels’ propaganda machine in late 1944. Foreign language copies were forwarded to many international news agencies. Berlin issued instructions to use the “Nemmersdorf case” as proof of the atrocities allegedly committed by the Red Army.
Many historians investigated the massacre after the war. German military historian Bernhard Fisch, who took part in the battles of Nemmersdorf, wrote that the German authorities did not try to identify the bodies found in the city and that the victims in the published photographs were brought to the city from several East Prussian villages. Wasn’t it the same in Srebrenica? Or in Aleppo and Douma in Syria? Absolutely the same. Who is paying for this? The sponsors are Washington, London and the collective Brussels.
The German Foreign Ministry admitted in the 21st century that the Nemmersdorf fake was prepared by Lieutenant Pfeiffer from the secret military police of the German Wehrmacht and circulated via Berlin. It looks as if the ideologists and PR experts who reared the Bucha massacre knew about that. But how did they do it? Did they collect the bodies somewhere, or did the Ukrainian forces ordered the shooting right in the city? This must be investigated. But the methods, forms and goals are identical. The signature is the same. Evidence of the Russian forces’ innocence is so numerous that the accusations against them must be lifted, and charges must be brought directly against the Kiev regime and all those who assisted it or who inspired this massacre.
Western media can block us on Twitter all they want. They can cut things out, apply labels and threaten users that certain information is supposedly “hazardous to human health.” They are spreading fake stories and presenting them as fact. They can do this as long as they like but they must remember that history always dots its i’s and crosses its t’s. The truth will always prevail. It will in this case, too. Just a few days passed and even the most rabid accusers have fallen silent. They realised the scale of what was done in Bucha by Ukrainian extremists, neo-Nazis, security forces, or non-people – whatever you want to call them.
So, on April 3, 2022 after employees of the Security Service of Ukraine and, probably, the special services of other countries as well (this will have to be established) arrived in the city, the evidence of what was left in the city was revealed. In fact, it was not left but committed after militants controlled by the Kiev regime (or not controlled by it) arrived in the city.
Without making a single attempt to verify anything (are the photos fake or authentic?), Western politicians and media instantly passed a verdict of guilty on Russia. Is this anything new? For many years, they have done the same: passed a verdict and made good on their threats without bothering to check anything. The President of France, the Federal Chancellor of Germany and the US Secretary of State instantly demanded that the Russian authorities answer for their crimes. All these people are personally responsible for supporting the crime committed by the Kiev regime and the forces it associates with, whether it controls them or not.
I was asked why Moscow did not start refuting these accusations as soon as they appeared in the media. It is necessary to figure out what happened first, and this requires time. This is what they were counting on. They used the element of surprise, with this huge fabrication, to elicit comments. But no one should go along with it. It is impossible to make official comments without preliminary verification, which has now been done. It was hard to believe that fakes like this could spread to such an extent. Despite the complete absurdity of these statements and accusations, they were checked.
Following the check, Russia immediately requested a meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss this situation and probably to share information if someone had additional evidence. It was also important to call a spade a spade – a criminal provocation had to be called a criminal provocation. However, the British Presidency of the UN Security Council brushed aside our initiative twice in one day. A meeting on the situation in Ukraine was held only yesterday but it was planned before as part of the programme. We have the right to an emergency meeting, considering how far and wide these fabrications were spread, how zealously the countries mentioned demanded that these fakes be countered, and what accusations were made. But the main thing is what we saw in the photos. We know London – it does not need a single fact to support its accusations, issue a verdict and carry it out, all it needs is just the desire and decision to act.
We used the UN Security Council meeting to share our facts with the world and remind everyone about Kiev failing to deliver on its promises to end the war in Donbass and to respect the rights of the Russian-speaking people. The Russian side called on everyone to at least keep in mind the fact that the issue is about civilians. Ukraine and its people should stop being pawns in someone else’s game that has been played within its borders for many years now by countries that do not even share borders with it. They do not have deep, vital, or real interests in that country. They are simply playing out another geopolitical scenario of global chaos.
We used the UN Security Council meeting to draw the international community’s attention to the ongoing flooding of Ukraine with weapons of all kinds. It was flooded with weapons to the point that their warehouses became empty and there was nothing left to supply to Ukraine. This is not about humanitarian aid, bread, grain, or medicine. It’s about weapons so that people keep crippling themselves. According to Berlin officials, they have sent so many weapons that they have nothing more to send. Can you imagine? This flooding continues. The same is being done in eastern, central and northern Europe.
The course of the discussion at the UN Security Council showed that our Western colleagues refused to consider the glaring inconsistencies in the footage from Bucha, which was aired by their media. As a matter of fact, they were not going to discuss anything in those videos. They made their accusatory statements and were done with it. It has always been that way, hasn’t it? Was it any different after the provocation in Syria? Or after the faked scenes in Salisbury or Amesbury? Has there been at least one investigation that has been brought to conclusion, based on the law, or that was done within the legal field? Never. Nothing. Everything has always been left hanging in the air. On the other hand, political accusations backed up by the expulsion of diplomats and sanctions are a tradition which was invariably maintained.
Obviously, this terrible and criminal fake was fabricated in order to justify yet another pre-planned package of sanctions, including mass expulsions of Russian diplomats from a number of Western countries, and to complicate (if not completely thwart) the talks in which Kiev began to show signs of taking a realistic approach. The third, most important factor is to once again heighten tensions not only in the region, but around the world as well. They have to provide explanations to the people affected by the sanctions that the West imposed on Russia, which either backfired or ricocheted around the world.
They need to explain why sanctions continue to be imposed. People all over the world are taking to the streets and demanding that their representatives, officials and political circles explain why these countries are being impacted or are supporting sanctions on Russia and why the people of the countries that are not involved in the situation around Ukraine or in the problems of Europe in general continue to be impacted by these restrictions.
I think that these countries and political forces were asked to provide at least some explanations to the public in their respective countries as to why they are leaving it with record high fuel prices, food crises and supply chain problems due to flight cancellations, border closures, etc. There has to be some explanation. If it doesn’t follow from the logic of the events, it has to be invented which they did. They just took the 1944 script off the shelf and reenacted it.
That is why we are calling these people in Ukraine neo-Nazis and death squads. They preach the same logic. There is nothing about them that makes them any different from the people who were back then called fascists and Nazis. They glorify that ideology, revel in it, and believe that it is an effective tool for settling scores and intimidating and destroying people who do not share their ideology or do not join them under their banners. We are fighting against this. The Ukrainian regions rebelled against this. For many years now they have been upholding their rights, surviving and dying unbroken by the neo-Nazi machine. It can only be accepted once. This “blackness” sucks everyone in and then there is no way back.
There are matters of crime and punishment. Humans are neither angels, nor saints. Everyone can make a mistake, do something bad like break the law and be punished for it. But this is something else. It is not about crime and punishment but about dehumanisation. This process may not be reversible. People are completely infected with this ideology. It is an all-encompassing ideology for humans. It does not allow for any exceptions.
Ukrainian nationalists continue perpetrating war crimes against the backdrop of these horrible, blood-stained fabrications. One more example is yesterday’s explosion of chemical containers in the city of Rubezhnoye in the Lugansk People’s Republic. They were blown up taking into account the wind direction to make sure the poisonous cloud moved eastward, deep into of the LPR. This is yet another act of genocide against the people of Donbass.
New neo-Nazi atrocities are becoming public knowledge as Russian forces liberate Mariupol and evacuate civilians from it. City residents are talking about them. Monstrous crimes were revealed in the secret prison known as “the library” in Mariupol Airport where Ukrainian nationalists tortured and killed people for years. There exists evidence of this but none of it breaks through to the Western media.
Now it is clear why American social media platforms declared their policy of blocking such footage and started carrying it out. This is information genocide. It comes in different forms, such as deleting information that is objective and essential for the people representing the nation and the country. This deletion amounts to information genocide.
You won’t see reports about death squadrons of Ukrainian Nazis that drove through the streets of Kharkov in cars taken from civilians. They fired at random at residential buildings to intimidate the population. There are just a few journalists out of hundreds of thousands who are able to describe this. But they will be bound in tape and stuck to the Western pillar (like what is happening now in Ukraine) and ostracised if they dare say even one word against the official mainstream line.
They won’t say anything about mass disappearances in this city of those who were suspected of sympathy for Russia or for sticking to their views. The animal barbarism and sadism with which Ukrainian Nazis treat Russian POWs have no justification and are beyond comprehension. There was footage on the internet not of beatings, torture or murder but of sacrifices to evil. We are talking about the 21st century, which put an end to the monstrous era of fascism and Nazism with its gas chambers and experiments on live people. If only. It is all starting over.
I talked to my colleagues. They warned me not to view this footage. I didn’t watch everything. Some things are too much to bear. I am not talking about enduring torture but about enduring this footage: eyes being gouged out and people being dismembered alive in the very heart of Europe. Who are you defending Mr Di Maio and Mr Macron? I won’t mention the Brits. It’s useless. But you are Europeans, you come from the countries that established not only democracy but also the current legislation of Europe and the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, Westerners do not see this, not because there is no information, but because they don’t want to. They have chosen the other side of history. Just like eight years ago, when they shut their eyes to Kiev’s war crimes in Donbass. They simply didn’t want to see them. They knew about them but did not want to admit it.
As regards the inhuman atrocities committed by the Ukrainian security forces against our military, I would like to say that we are working with the information received. The Foreign Ministry of Russia and our offices abroad are collecting evidence. We are closely coordinating our efforts with our colleagues from the Defence Ministry, the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General’s Office with a view to sending this information to international agencies. Of course, we have no hope of a response. We are seeing how world institutions are discrediting themselves one after another. This is not because their structure is wrong.
The founding fathers of the United Nations did a good job of making it universal. But the people represented there, the decision-makers are now discrediting the UN with their inaction and agenda-pushing.
The leaders of our country and our law-enforcement agencies that investigate crimes have made their position very clear: all those involved in such crimes against Russian servicemen will be located and brought to justice – the manner will be determined later, but they will get what’s coming to them.