#Opinion
✍️Dmitry Trenin, a research professor at the Higher School of Economics and a lead research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, member of the Russian International Affairs Council.
Europe will eventually have to choose between the US and BRICS
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Key points:
💬 Rather than setting out to organize a genuine multipolar system based on mutual recognition of each nation’s core interests, <...> the US proceeded to enhance its exclusive and comprehensive dominance.
• This year, at the #BRICS Summit in Russia’s Kazan, the group will for the first time include the leaders of Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Another major Eurasian institution is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (#SCO) <...> to be admitted soon. A number of other Eurasian countries, from Turkey to Thailand and from the Malpes to Mongolia, have voiced their intention to join either BRICS or SCO.
• To counter that trend among the members of what we increasingly call the World Majority, Washington has raised the profile of NATO in the Indo-Pacific; strengthened its Cold War-era bilateral and trilateral alliances in the Western Pacific, and founded a new one, #AUKUS, in the South Pacific.
❗️ All these multiple arrangements are completely dominated by the US and are aimed at containing and deterring Washington’s designated primary adversaries: China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea – with one overriding goal of defending America’s hegemonic position.
• In contrast to that, neither BRICS nor the SCO is dominated by a single power, or a tandem/triumvirate of nations. BRICS’s recent expansion also suggests that it does not aspire to become a version of the West’s G7, as an elitist steering group, or directoire, for the non-Western world.
• Neither BRICS nor the SCO is overtly anti-American or anti-Western: their main focus is internal rather than external, and they have their work cut out for them.
• The emerging mutual security space within the SCO will make the continent – minus Western Europe, for the time being – far more stable, whether in terms of strategic stability in major-power relations, regional security systems, or the risks of terrorism.
☝️ Eventually, the countries of Western Europe – or far western Eurasia, if you like – will have to make a choice between staying in the US orbit as America’s power continues to shrink, or reaching out east to a vast and vibrant new world next door.
#Opinion by Ambassador Gennady Gatilov
▪️ It has been exactly 10 years since the terrible tragedy in Odessa, which is referred to as the "Odessa Khatyn". As in 1943, people, driven into the Trade Unions House by Ukrainian nationalists in the spirit of Hitler's punitive squads, perished in the flames of the burning building. Despite abundant documentary evidence from the scene, no one has faced punishment for the murder of 48 people.
▪️ Calls for a "thorough investigation of the incident" from Washington, the Council of Europe, the European Union and other patrons of the violent 2014 coup in Ukraine, were made just for show for obvious reasons. No one seriously expected the "masters" of the current Kiev regime to be genuinely interested in publicly punishing their subordinates.
▪️ Another issue is more puzzling. The response of the UN, including its human rights mechanisms, as well as other international organizations to the tragedy in Odessa was so casual and "inert" that it only exacerbated the situation. Such an "indulgence of violence" effectively gave Kiev a sense of impunity, which led to the beginning of full-scale military actions against its own citizens (at the time) in Donbass, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties.
▪️ This anniversary gives reason to once again reflect on the nature of the Kiev regime. The Odessa massacre clearly exposed the true face of the Ukrainian authorities and "opened the eyes" of many, above all - the residents of Donetsk and Lugansk, to the grim fate for defending their history, faith, culture and native language.
❗️ I strongly believe that justice will prevail, and the perpetrators will not escape the punishment they deserve. Just as justice caught up with Nazi war criminals, so too will it reach the Ukrainian Banderites committing crimes against humanity today.
#Opinion by Maria Zakharova
💬 Zelensky said that Kiev was hostage to the election process in the US.
So... were there no elections in the United States before 2024? Or is that the absent Ukrainian presidential elections have been moved to the US?
I get it. Zelensky wants to believe he’s one of a kind and everything revolves around him, but this is not the case. He is just a line in a long list of victims of US “elections,” or, to be precise, the American system. He is one of those who were 100 percent sure the United States was their ally.
South Vietnamese got it back in the 1960s.
There was a girl once upon a time, who was South Vietnam’s greatest beauty, Tran Le Xuan. She was popularly called Madame Nhu because she was married to Ngo Dinh Nhu, the younger brother and chief advisor of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem.
Ngo Dinh Nhu and Ngo Dinh Diem, the two South Vietnamese leaders, were supported by the Americans.
Even at the height of the Vietnam War, a bloody and ugly child of the French colonial system, Washington promised Ngo Dinh Nhu and Ngo Dinh Diem its full assistance. The Americans were working hard to ensure the tragic split into the South Vietnam and North Vietnam seeking to benefit from a war in the former French colonies.
Can’t Zelensky see parallels?
The US was so delicate with South Vietnamese leaders that US Vice President Lyndon Johnson visited Saigon in 1961. Later, he, then the US President, would send hundreds of thousands of Americans to die in Vietnam. During his visit, Johnson called Diem the “Churchill of Asia.” In much the same way, the US has promoted an ambitious drug addict crowning him “the leader of a Free Ukraine”.
So, what happened to the Washington allies, Ngo Dinh Nhu and Ngo Dinh Diem? They were killed. General Duong Van Minh, considered one of the most loyal military commanders, led a coup on November 1, 1963 in which South Vietnam’s top brass were arrested and shot on the putschists’ orders.
It was only by chance that Ngo Dinh Nhu’s wife, Tran Le Xuan, wasn’t killed, because she was abroad. It was then that Madame Nhu uttered the much-remembered phrase: "Those who have the United States as an ally need have no enemies". And that phrase turned out to be prophetic. In 1975, it turned out that the Americans knew of the impending coup. They could have warned their allies, saved the South Vietnamese president and his team, but just as the French did not prevent the genocide in Rwanda, the Americans "found it inexpedient" to stop the military putsch. Some sources claim that the degree of involvement of the Americans was even greater in that they inspired the coup and used the military to remove the president.
But let’s return to the American elections. Here are just a few quotations from comments, statements and interviews by the Russian Foreign Ministry leadership on this subject.
Sergey Lavrov: “This is not the first time that serious international issues that concern many members of the world community are being held hostage to US electoral cycles. However, this is a short-sighted approach.” (September 21, 2018)
Sergey Lavrov: “It is sad when these endless election cycles are starting to make virtually everything else a hostage to the domestic US political struggle. Elections take place every two years, and it is necessary to do something during them, so that the enemy will feel defeated.” (December 22, 2019)
Sergey Lavrov: “When the issue concerns a country that boasts the most powerful military and economy, and is the most influential country in the world, which holds political elections every two years, it very often occurs that the most important international issues become hostage to electoral motives of the existing US authorities, which want to ensure that their every move in the international arena scores big for their party candidates.” (December 30, 2015)
We warned them. It’s just that Mr Nhu refused to realise this or was simply unable to. Reread the first sentence of the post: now it started dawning on him.
🇷🇺Excerpts and key points from Russia's President Vladimir Putin's answers to questions at the plenary session of the 22nd annual meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club
📍October 2, 2025, Sochi
💬President Vladimir Putin:
• Modern institutions experienced degradation precisely during the period when certain countries, or the collective West, sought to exploit the post-Cold War situation by declaring themselves victors. In this context, they began imposing their will on everyone – this is the first point. Second, all others gradually, at first mutedly, then more actively, began to resist this.
• What was the OSCE created for? To resolve complex situations in Europe. And what did it all boil down to? The entire activity of the OSCE reduced to becoming a platform for discussing, for example, human rights in the post-Soviet space.
• We gradually came to realise that we needed to create institutions where issues are resolved not as our Western colleagues attempted to resolve them, but genuinely based on consensus, genuinely based on aligning positions. This is how the #SCO – the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation – emerged. This is how #BRICS emerged
• We are fighting this war and producing our own military equipment. But on the other side of the line, we are effectively at war with the collective might of NATO. They are no longer even hiding this fact. We see this in the direct involvement of NATO instructors and representatives from Western countries in the hostilities. A command centre has been established in Europe for the purpose of coordinating our adversary’s war effort: providing the Armed Forces of Ukraine with intelligence, satellite imagery, weapons, and training. And I must reiterate: these foreign personnel are not only involved in training; they are directly participating in operational planning and combat operations themselves.
❓ Yet if we are combating the entire NATO alliance, advancing thus with unwavering confidence, and are deemed a “paper tiger” – what does that make NATO itself? What manner of entity is it then?
• In September, the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine amounted to about 44'700 people, nearly half of them irretrievable losses. In the same period, they forcibly mobilised slightly more than 18'000 people. Approximately 14'500 people have returned to the army from hospitals. If we add up these figures and subtract the total from the number of casualties, we will see that Ukraine lost 11'000 in one month. In other words, the number of its troops on the frontline was not replenished and is decreasing.
• They say: the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact – an atrocity, colluding with Hitler, the Soviet Union conspired with Hitler. Well, no, not at all. And you yourselves had conspired with Hitler shortly before and carved up Czechoslovakia. As though that never occurred. Propagandistically – yes, one can hammer these false equivalences into people’s heads, but in essence, we know how it truly was. That was the first act of the Ballet de la Merlaison.
• They began not merely equating Stalin’s and Hitler’s regimes – they attempted to erase the very outcomes of the Nuremberg Trials. Bizarre, given that these were participants in a shared struggle, and the Nuremberg Trials were collective, held precisely so that nothing similar would recur. Yet they began doing that. They started tearing down monuments to Soviet soldiers and so forth, those who fought against Nazism.
• The situation in Gaza is one of the most tragic events in recent history. It is also well known that the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has publicly admitted – and he often reflects Western views – that Gaza has become the largest children’s cemetery in the world. What could be more tragic? What could be more painful?
🎙Excerpt from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks at the General Debate of the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (New York, September 27, 2025)
WATCH the full speech (eng subs) ▶️
💬 Kiev regime, which seized power as a result of an anti-constitutional couporchestrated by the West in 2014, is pursuing the dismantling of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and eradicating the Russian language by law from all areas of life, including education, culture and media.
❌ Ukraine is the only country in the world that has a law suppressing the native language of nearly half of its population.
Arabic is not banned in Israel and Hebrew is not prohibited in the Arab countries or Iran. But Russian is banned in Ukraine. I would like to remind you that Article 1 of the UN Charter states that it is necessary to promote “respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.”
Europe remains silent, obsessed with its utopian goal of delivering a “strategic defeat” on Russia. Therefore, the Kiev regime can do anything it wishes to do, including terrorist attacks against politicians and journalists, torture and extrajudicial killings, indiscriminate bombing of civilian facilities, and reckless sabotage targeting nuclear power plants.
As President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed, since the very beginning, Russia has been and remains open to negotiations aimed at eliminating the root causes of the conflict. Russia’s security and vital interests must be reliably guaranteed. The rights of Russian and Russian-speaking people on territories remaining under the control of the Kiev regime must be restored in full.
☝️ This is the basis on which we are willing to discuss Ukraine’s security guarantees.
At the moment, neither Kiev nor its European sponsors show any sign of realising the gravity of the moment. <...> We pin certain hopes on continuing the Russian-US dialogue, especially since the Summit in Alaska.
***
This December marks the 65th anniversary of the General Assembly’s adoption of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. <...> The peoples of Africa and Asia refused to live under colonial oppression – a sentiment echoed by the populations of Crimea, Donbass and Novorossiya after the 2014 coup in Ukraine in their refusal to submit to the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev.
❗️ This regime, which came to power through illegitimate means, not only failed to represent their interests but also unleashed a war against them.
Today, Africa and the wider Global South are experiencing a renewed awakening as they strive for full independence – a process from which the UN must not stand apart. In December 2024, the General Assembly approved the Resolution on the Eradication of Colonialism in all its Forms and Manifestations.
As a next step, we call for a decision to declare December 14 the International Day against Colonialism. We welcome the role of the Group of Friends in Defence of the UN Charter in consolidating efforts to counter neocolonial and other discriminatory practices against the Global Majority.
The Global Majority is now asserting its rights with a powerful voice. In this context, the #SCO and #BRICS play a prominent role as key mechanisms for coordinating the interests of the Global South and East.
These new realities have yet to be adequately reflected in the institutional architecture of our Organisation. The reform of the UN Security Council remains a particularly pressing issue.
✅ Russia advocates for its democratisation through broader representation of countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America. We support the candidacies of Brazil and India for permanent membership in the Security Council, as well as the redress of the historical injustice against Africa, based on parameters agreed upon by the continent’s countries themselves.
Putin in the Labyrinth: how Moscow can avoid losing in the Middle East - International Affairs
⚡#opinion
https://en.interaffairs.ru/article/putin-in-the-labyrinth-how-moscow-can-avoid-losing-in-the-middle-east/
#Opinion by Russian MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova
Nuclear DisInfo (Read in full)
Mechanisms for information attacks with a new thesis that target the public space have been launched in the West at the highest level in a transboundary and trans-format manner. The premise is primitive and completely horrifying: the Russians are threatening a nuclear war, and the Russians are waving the nuclear stick.
⁉️ Do I even need to say that this thesis is absolutely incorrect and false? Apparently, I do.
They are pushing this exact thesis because it plays on basic human fears, the experience of the older generation, which throughout the second half of the 20th century was bracing for the Third World War against global communism, and Western youth, for which their respective governments have come up with a new mechanism called “cancel culture” (cancelling everything Russian this time). Moreover, the West absolutely does not care what Moscow really says, and the meaning of words is distorted and outwardly perverted.
Let’s consider the specifics.
Two days ago, in his answer to a question by Dimitri Simes during an interview, Sergey Lavrov said literally the following 👉full quote
What are the takeaways?
1. It was Russia that, with great difficulty, convinced the United States during lengthy talks to reaffirm the Gorbachev-Reagan formula that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.
2. It was Russia that persuaded the group of five nuclear nations to adopt a statement with the same content.
3. There are risks; they should not be blown out of proportion or underestimated.
We did everything possible to prevent a nuclear war, to create all the necessary obstacles on the way to slipping into this scenario (fortunately, they justified themselves during the Cold War and are working today), because we understand the real risks and threats posed by irresponsible behaviour in this area. We cannot allow the very thought of a nuclear war.
Now acting in the worst traditions of disinformation, Western officials are feeding the media, in a coordinated effort, fake news about Moscow’s alleged nuclear threats. The foreign ministries from the NATO countries started convincing the people in their countries that the Russians were “rattling their weapons.”
<...>
Notice how clumsy this was in terms of media work. First, all the put-up quotes against our country were repeated by the journalist, and then they were again mentioned by Ned Price. A presentation designed for a not too sophisticated public. No one even paid attention to what the Foreign Minister said about the risks and Russia’s attempts to prevent the unthinkable.
It’s unthinkable to us, but, mindful of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is, unfortunately, possible for our colleagues from overseas.
The next day, the media started mass brainwashing. The British tabloids (the Daily Mail and others) and the high-quality analytical US press, French television and German tabloid magazines started talking with one voice that Moscow was threatening with a Third World Nuclear War. And this was already being discussed in Europe; French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that the Russian Foreign Minister’s words were the “rhetoric of intimidation.”
I would like to ask this Frenchman whether he at least saw what Sergey Lavrov said? We have translated the interview.
Our country is against any nuclear war, and this is exactly what the Russian Minister said, and this is what guides our diplomacy in its work.
Could it be that the Western capitals read the interviews as presented by the Western media? This is the only thing that can justify their words. To avoid that, one should simply DON'T turn off alternative sources of information, and listen to what Russia has to say close to the original text, rather than as interpreted by your media under NATO guidelines.
💬⚡️#Opinion by Maria Zakharova
💬 Boris Johnson has urged the Russian government to treat the Briton detained in Mariupol while fighting on the side of the Ukrainian government forces “humanely and compassionately.”
Here is what we have to say in this respect.
Boris, we know that you personally and your Government have disavowed the British subjects who have fallen victim to British propaganda and went to Ukraine as mercenaries to kill people there.
Don’t pretend to be worried. You are utterly unconcerned about the fate of Britons in trouble. They didn’t drink champagne with you at Downing Street, and so they can wait for your protection till kingdom come.
I would like to tell the following to those Britons who are concerned about their compatriots: Don’t worry, Russia is taking care of them. They are given food and drink, as well as any other assistance they may need, just as the other foreigners who have surrendered or have been detained.
Unlike the Ukrainian fighters who brutally kill prisoners and torture civilians, the Russian Armed Forces are committed to humanitarian law. If there were no media censorship in Britain, everyone there would know this.
At the same time, we urge the British authorities to treat the citizens of Ukraine “humanely and compassionately,” as Boris Johnson said, by stopping the delivery of weapons to Ukraine. The more weapons London is sending to Ukraine, the more citizens of Ukraine die as a result. But the BBC will never tell Britons about that.
#Opinion by Maria Zakharova
Medvedchuk’s spouse Oksana Marchenko appealed to the British government and people: “I appeal to the relatives and friends of Aiden Eslin and Sean Pinner: Angela Eslin, Nathan and Shannon Wood, Derby and Evan Pinner. It's in your power to ask the Prime Minister of your country, Boris Johnson, to influence the Ukrainian leadership and achieve the release of Aiden and Sean by exchanging them for the Ukrainian opposition politician detained by the Kiev authorities, my husband Viktor Medvedchuk.”
💬 Maria Zakharova: UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who recently went to Kiev, must be aware of the developments with Her Majesty’s subjects. He is sure to reply, isn’t he?
Meanwhile, Liz Truss might take the opportunity to reveal what exactly the British nationals were doing there [in Mariupol, with Neo-Nazis] anyway.
🇷🇺🇨🇳 Russia's President Vladimir Putin and President of China Xi Jinping made a media statement following Russia-China talks (May 16, 2024)
💬Vladimir Putin: The talks we have just finished highlighted the great significance that Moscow and Beijing attach to the development and strengthening of comprehensive Russia-China partnership and strategic interaction. This partnership can certainly set an example of ties between neighbouring states.
Key talking points:
• This state visit takes place in the year of the 75th Anniversary of our diplomatic relations. Our country was the first to recognise the People’s Republic of China on October 2, 1949, the day after its declaration.
• I want to note the significance of the Joint Statement we have adopted, which sets new objectives and long-term directives for advancing the entire spectrum of Russian-Chinese relations.
📈 In 2023, bilateral trade surged by a quarter, reaching a new milestone of $240 billion, as reported by Chinese statistics. While there may be a slight variance in figures, the overall total is entirely accurate. <...> Currently, there are over 80 priority projects valued at approximately $200 billion in progress or in preparation for implementation through the respective intergovernmental commission.
• Our talks have reaffirmed that Russia and China have similar or identical views on many international and regional issues. Both countries have an independent and sovereign foreign policy. We are working together to create a fairer and more democratic multipolar world order.
• We have agreed to further improve communication between credit and banking institutions of Russia and China, while actively employing national payment systems to support our economic operators.
🤝 Russia and China are fruitfully working together in #BRICS and the #SCO. <...> Our countries are resolved to continue working to align integration processes underway within the framework of the #EAEU with China's Belt and Road Initiative.
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🛬 Președintele Rusiei, Vladimir Putin, în vizita la capitala Kazahstanului, Astana, pentru a participa la o reuniune a Consiliului șefilor de stat ai Organizației de Cooperare de la Shanghai (#SCO).
📍3 iulie 2024