Lavrov points to Western countries' non-compliance with the UN Charter

The West does not yet need to form new international political institutions, as everything necessary is already in the United Nations Charter (UN Charter), which Western governments have never fully complied with. This was stated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on December 5 when answering Izvestia's question at the end of the plenary session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Malta.

"In principle, everything that is necessary for humanity's prosperity and development is laid down in the UN Charter. The West pulls out one or another principle from this Charter when it suits it and never respects the Charter in its entirety," the diplomat stated.

Lavrov added that the Russian side has repeatedly cited the example when the UN declared Kosovo's independence in 2008. Then everyone agreed that it follows from the principle of the charter, according to which everyone should respect the right of the nation to self-determination.

"A few years later, when the Crimeans, in response to the illegal coup and to the aggression of the putschists who came to power [in Ukraine], declared their independence and joined Russia, they immediately said that this violated the principle of their territorial integrity. And there are many such examples. The most important principle of the charter states that united nations are based on the sovereign equality of states," the Russian Foreign Minister said.

At the same time, the West has not respected the principle of sovereign equality of states in any conflict that has developed in the world since World War II. Approximately the same way it acts in the OSCE, the foreign minister pointed out.

"The United States has never respected the European Union (EU), which is already becoming an appendage of NATO. <...> The UN itself in many ways suffers from this policy of domination as well. To a large extent, the West has privatized the secretariat of the world organization, and citizens of NATO countries are now represented there in almost all positions," Lavrov said.

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Earlier, during his speech at the Ministerial Council, Lavrov said that there are no spheres in which the OSCE can be useful in terms of its tasks. According to Lavrov, the organization could become a gathering point for the interests of the members of the European space, but "it will not occur to anyone in this room to use the OSCE for these purposes."

Lavrov arrived in Malta to participate in the OSCE Ministerial Council earlier on December 5. He is scheduled to meet with the foreign ministers of several countries. At the same time, the Russian side intends to draw special attention to the non-issuance of visas to representatives of Moscow.

Later in the day, it was reported that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sibiga defiantly left the plenary session hall of the OSCE Ministerial Council when Lavrov started his speech at the forum. According to the Ukrainian daily Strana.ua, the Ukrainian minister called his Russian counterpart a war criminal. Together with Sibiga, the foreign ministers of Poland and the Czech Republic also left the hall.

The Foreign Ministry reportedabout Russia's plans to take part in the OSCE Ministerial Council meeting in Malta in early October. In November, it was reported that Poland and its partners could not agree on their reaction to Lavrov's participation in the meeting.