Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks following the ceremony of laying flowers at the Foreign Ministry’s commemorative plaques on Diplomatic Worker’s Day, February 10, 2023

Friends,

Today, on Diplomatic Worker’s Day, it is our tradition to pay tribute to the memory of our predecessors – the staff of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, our colleagues from the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade, who fell on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, diplomats who died in the discharge of their duties or from political reprisals.

At all times, the foreign policy service has faithfully served our Fatherland. Historical eras have followed each other as have political and socioeconomic systems. But diplomats have always performed the duties they were assigned with faith and fidelity in the interests of the people of Russia. Today, the ceremony in memory of our great predecessors is being held not only in Moscow and Russia, but also abroad, wherever they were laid to rest.

I would like to thank the heads and staff of the Historical and Documents Department, who have prepared an important and helpful exhibition devoted to those whose memory we are revering today. 

Later this year, we will mark the 225th birth anniversary of Chancellor of the Russian Empire Prince Alexander Gorchakov, one of the greatest heads of our foreign policy service. The ministry lobby has a multimedia exhibit on his life and career. We invite everyone to visit it. Alexander Gorchakov left us concepts and principles that we still largely rely on in our daily work today. He invariably proceeded from the premise that foreign policy activities should be aimed at creating maximally favourable external conditions for the country’s internal development.

Today, this is as pertinent as ever. Those, who are attempting to control the entire international agenda, global economic relations, and all of international politics, who have decided to force a strategic defeat on Russia and go through the bitter experience of Napoleon and Hitler, these people have openly declared their goal of destroying Russia or weakening it as much as possible. There are increasingly louder calls for dismembering our homeland.

It is clear that we will not only stand our ground but also derive more strength from this confrontation and emerge even more convinced that it is necessary to build international relations on a just and equitable basis, as required by the UN Charter. Our Western colleagues are attempting to undermine this and impose “rules” of their own making on the world, instead of international law in its universal application.

We will work to establish a multipolar system and to create equal external conditions for the development of all, including our country.

We have many supporters and like-minded allies in the matter of sustaining the objective process whereby a multipolar world system is being formed. I am referring to our partners in the CIS, the CSTO, and the EAEU. The Union State of Russia and Belarus possesses great untapped potential as well. We have partners at the SCO and BRICS+, as well as in many countries of Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Latin America, and the Caribbean. It is they who form the Global Majority that has a vested interest in justice. I am confident that everyone will defend this justice to the best of their abilities and thus make international relations more democratic. 

I would like to thank our friends from the CIS and other international organisations, who are working in our common space, for attending this ceremony. This is happening for the first time, and I think it is the start of a good tradition.   

Once again, I congratulate all the employees of the central office, our ambassadors, who give interesting interviews to the media, all the staff at Russian embassies, general consulates, and other consular offices, as well as the staff of our missions in Russia’s regions.

Let me offer special congratulations and words of gratitude to our veterans.  We are happy that they are still active and help to relay their invaluable experience to the next generations that will have to tackle crucial tasks involved in our country’s development.

Happy holiday!