Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at a solemn event on the occasion of Diplomatic Worker’s Day, Moscow, February 10, 2025

Friends,

I suggest declaring the solemn event to celebrate Diplomatic Worker’s Day officially open.

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Every year, when we come together in this auditorium on this particular day, we honour our comrades who passed away during the past 12 months. This time, there were 77 of them, including Vladimir Titov who passed away not long ago. I propose honouring the memory of all those who parted way with us this year with a minute of silence.

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As is customary, we have received numerous congratulatory and greeting messages. It is a great honour for me to read out the message addressed by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin to the Ministry’s current and former employees.

In his congratulatory message, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin also mentioned the sizable contribution of our diplomacy to promoting and protecting national interests, and creating favourable external prerequisites for the country’s comprehensive domestic development and improving the standards of living.

We have also received congratulatory messages from Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill, the Federation Council Speaker, the State Duma Chairman, heads of parliamentary committees, heads of federal executive authorities, heads of constituent entities of the Federation, business leaders, cultural, scientific research, and political science figures, as well as the general public. We are grateful to everyone for the kind and heartfelt words they had to say about us.

Our work on carrying out the foreign policy is highly appreciated by the country’s leadership. In the past year alone, many of our comrades have been awarded state decorations and other forms of distinction by the President. On behalf of the ministerial staff, I would like to express appreciation for your unwavering attention to our activities, proposals, and needs. In our daily work, we always sense understanding and friendly support of our colleagues from the Presidential Executive Office, the Government Office, and ministries and agencies.

The trust in us places serious obligations on the Russian diplomatic service. Our duty is to do everything in our power to protect the interests of our country and people in the international arena. We are guided by the instructions issued by President Putin, who sets forth our country’s foreign policy principles. We rely on many centuries of traditions of domestic diplomacy, our own knowledge, experience and common sense.

Today, just like throughout its millennial history, our country is navigating complex international processes. The combination of daunting challenges and breathtaking opportunities is a hallmark of the current phase of international development. The new is battling the old, and Russia  - I think this high opinion is perfectly legitimate in these circumstances - is leading the way forward amid progressive forces advocating for international cooperation on a legal, mutually respectful and mutually beneficial basis in the best interests of common free development that is devoid of external diktat and coercion.

We are on the side of the World Majority. Just like us, it is no longer willing to turn a blind eye to the attempts of individual countries that consider themselves “exceptional” or “indispensable” to allocate modern civilisation goods in their favour, and to destroy the hard-won mechanisms for maintaining international security, to manipulate, in order to suit their needs, the rules and principles underlying coexistence of large and small countries and peoples that have been agreed upon in universal formats.

The push for imperial domination can be seen particularly clearly in the fact that international organisations are morphing into a hybrid warfare tool, and all efforts to achieve a fair reform of the global governance institutions, which were created, to begin with, according to the Western templates, are being blocked. I’m talking about to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation. In fact, the collective West is destroying with its own hands the system that it built to serve its own financial, economic and trade interests in the post-war period.

Considering these circumstances, we will revise our commitments to organisations which practice blatantly discriminatory approaches, do not respect the statutory principle of equal rights of the participants, and violate existing consensus procedures. This process is already underway. In some cases, these commitments will be revised dramatically.

A state of affairs where Russia adheres in good faith to all its obligations, at a time where the other party neglects its obligations cannot be considered good practice and must be corrected. If, for reasons beyond our control, we are unable to do so, there is no point for us to continue our membership in international bodies in which unfriendly governments call all the shots.

In no case should we freeze and hope that things will take care of themselves and everything will be like it used to be. We must look and move forward. Our active participation in the unions without “leaders” and “followers,” or “teachers” and “disciples” need to be the focus of our efforts. These unions include BRICS, which has expanded and got stronger in the wake of Russia’s 2024 presidency, and the SCO with its serious potential for strengthening cooperation to promote stability in Eurasia.

The voice of other associations in the CIS, Asia, Africa and Latin America that focus on integration can now be heard louder in international affairs. These associations include our natural allies and partners, whom we partnered with to eradicate modern practices of neo-colonialism and to build a multipolar world in accordance with the UN Charter and, above all, the fundamental principle of sovereign equality of states. We are acting in close coordination with our friends and associates from other executive branches, the Presidential Executive Office, the Government Office, United Russia, and other political parties.

In a collaborative effort with them, we will continue to create external pressure-proof mechanisms underlying international payments, transport and logistics, investment and insurance, banking and industrial cooperation, in a word, everything that is necessary for the countries to maintain good communication across all spheres of life. We will continue to give priority to relations with the countries which, just like Russia, have been subjected to unlawful unilateral sanctions, and our closest neighbours.

Forming a broad space of peace and development in Eurasia, which is the world’s largest, resource-rich and rapidly developing continent, should remain our key area of focus. These efforts are facilitated by the objective formation of the Greater Eurasian Partnership through expanding trade and economic ties, carrying out infrastructure projects, and harmonising integration processes, primarily within the EAEU, the SCO, ASEAN and China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

The Greater Eurasian Partnership is called to serve as a solid material foundation underlying architecture of equal and indivisible security across Eurasia. This initiative was launched on June 14, 2024 by President Vladimir Putin in his address to the Foreign Ministry.

I would like to emphasise, as the President did when presenting this idea, that our vision of the Eurasian security architecture implies its openness to all countries and associations of geographical Eurasia, meaning that European countries are welcome to participate in the continental cooperation, provided they abandon their hostile policies and bloc thinking that was largely behind the armed conflict in Ukraine.

The causes of Ukraine crisis run deep. We never tire of discussing them, and we are pushing for having them removed. Primarily, the issue is about creating threats to Russia’s security through NATO eastward expansion and the policy pursued by the Kiev regime, which came to power on the heels of an anti-constitutional coup, seeking to exterminate everything about Russia, including its language, culture, media, and canonical Orthodoxy. Complete and irreversible elimination of the root causes of the conflict is the only way forward if we want to put an end to it.

As President Vladimir Putin had made clear on many occasions, Russia is ready for talks which will secure our legitimate national interests, not at the expense of the interests of others, but in the context of an agreement on a comprehensive security system where everybody’s interests will be accounted for.

All we are talking about is putting into practice the principles of the UN Charter and the consensus-based agreements adopted by the OSCE, which have overridden all those decisions and are now in shambles. I’m not sure it can be saved.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of Victory in a different war which is the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War. Preserving historical memory of the Great Victory, and fighting uncompromisingly against the masterminds of neo-Nazi ideology and falsifiers of history is our sacred duty before the generation of heroes who liberated Kiev and Odessa, and Berlin and Prague. Fulfilling President Putin’s instruction to recognise crimes committed by Nazi invaders and their accomplices against the civilians as genocide of the peoples of the Soviet Union is among our top priorities.

This year, the Victory Parade will be attended by many heads of state and government. May 9 in Moscow will be one of the largest international events held in the country. In this context, the Foreign Ministry has great responsibility: we will employ all available resources to hold the celebrations at the top notch political and organisational level.

Colleagues,

The fateful changes in the international balance of power have determined the urgent need for structural and personnel reform in the ministry’s system. In 2024, we took the first important steps to align the structure and staff schedule of the Central Office and Russian missions abroad with the updated Concept of Russian Foreign Policy, approved in the spring of 2023 by President of Russia Vladimir Putin. It envisages a significant expansion of the Russian diplomatic presence in the countries of the Global Majority while also cutting resources in areas where our partners are driven not by reason or fundamental national interests, but by primitive Russophobia. We will wait and see if they come around. Right now, using resources there, above all human resources, is pointless. These transformations will continue non-stop. Please, analyse the results of the first stage of reforms. You know about them. They include an additional Department for African Partnership and a reduction of one European department. Please, submit proposals for the next stage.

In conclusion, I would like to say that ensuring the continuity of generations must remain our constant priority at historical inflexion points like the one we are having now. Passing experience from senior comrades on to young employees, who are just starting to work at the Foreign Ministry, is of particular importance.

Today, we saw representatives of the Council of Veterans and the Council of Young Diplomats at the wreath-laying ceremony in the lobby of our building. We know they have strong bonds between them. My deepest gratitude to veterans for finding time and also for their sincere desire to pass on this experience and to daily work with the youth.

I would like to once again call on all heads present here to not be afraid to promote talented young people, entrust recent university graduates with responsible tasks, and not to get stuck in bureaucratic requirements regarding tenure and rank. In mentoring, we can always rely on our veterans, on their knowledge and valuable advice. I would like to assure you, dear veterans, that your needs and requirements are always a priority for the Ministry’s leadership. We will continue to render you support you need.

I would also like to thank family members, relatives, and loved ones of our diplomatic workers for their patience and for sharing the hardships and joys of our service. Like in a well-known TV series, they can always “forgive and forget.”

I congratulate all employees of the Central Office and territorial representative offices of the Foreign Ministry, as well as foreign missions on Diplomatic Worker's Day. I wish you further success, health and good luck! We will need it.