Lavrov said the West was using convenient principles from the UN Charter

Western countries are pulling certain principles out of the United Nations (UN) Charter without fully complying with its provisions. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this on December 5 in response to a question from Izvestia correspondent Maxim Prikhody after a meeting of OSCE foreign ministers in Malta.

"The West pulls out, when it suits it, one or another principle and never observes the Charter in its entirety," Lavrov said.

The Russian Foreign Minister recalled that when the issue of Kosovo's independence was decided in 2008, Western countries relied on the rules of the UN Charter. However, when the same case occurred in Crimea in 2014, the West said that the actions of the peninsula residents violated the principles of territorial integrity.

"The most important principle of the Charter, that the UN is based on the sovereign equality of states. Never in any conflict or in the situation in the world that developed after World War II, after the creation of the UN, the West has not respected the principle of sovereignty," the Russian foreign minister said.

He noted that the West, in particular the American side of it, has already "swept" the NATO alliance and the European Union under itself. Lavrov also said that this does not make anyone better.

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Before that, during his speech at the Ministerial Council, Lavrov said that there were no spheres in which the OSCE could be useful in terms of its tasks. According to him, the organization could become a gathering point for the interests of the members of the European space, but "no one in this room will ever think of using 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.