Lavrov's Speeches to Russia's Legislative Bodies on the Approval of Laws on the Ratification of Treaties Between the Russian Federation and the DPR, the LPR, the Zaporizhzhya and Kherson Regions and the Formation of New Subjects within the Russian Federation
On October 3 & 4, Lavrov delivered the Kremlin's message regarding the desire to welcome these territories into Russia. On the third, the Duma was addressed; on the fourth, the Federation Council. As you'll read, the speeches are markedly different. The Duma Speech is copied from its English transcript; the Federation Council's, machine translated from Russian. There's much that could be commented upon, but I have refrained, although one should think hard about what the Outlaw US Empire has become if it's the “Master” of Nazis. I added Lavrov's media encounter after today's speech in my edit.
Duma Speech:
Esteemed Mr Volodin,
Esteemed members of the State Duma,
Colleagues,
I am submitting for your consideration the draft laws on the ratification of the treaties between the Russian Federation and the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Lugansk People’s Republic and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions on admitting them to the Russian Federation and on the creation of new regions in the Russian Federation.
This process has logically continued the reunification of Russian territories, which started with the return of the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol in 2014. At that time, we saved the population of the peninsula from the mortal threats coming from Ukraine’s Maidan authorities after an armed coup d’etat in Kiev in February 2014. These eight years have not taught the Kiev regime anything. With the connivance and direct support of its Western overseers, Kiev trampled underfoot international agreements, including the Minsk agreements that had been unanimously approved by the UN Security Council.
Ukraine’s armed forces and militants in nationalist groups have been killing the people of Donbass and the neighbouring regions with impunity only because they refused to share the neo-Nazi aspirations of the country’s new leadership and decided to uphold their rights as guaranteed by the Constitution of Ukraine, including the right to the free use of their native Russian language.
For a long eight years, Kiev has been purposefully destroying the civil infrastructure of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics. It has imposed a financial, transport and energy siege on Donbass. It cut off the residents of these regions from their social benefits, pensions, salaries and wages, banking services, communications, education and healthcare. It deprived them of the elementary civil rights that are guaranteed, in part, by the 1966 international covenants on economic, social and cultural rights and on civil and political rights.
In the spring of 2014, the people of Donbass created independent people’s republics to preserve their own civilisational identity and their lives. Due to Kiev’s refusal to grant them special status, as required by the Minsk agreements, and the preparations by Ukraine’s armed forces to seize their territory, we were left with no other choice but to recognise their independence on February 21, 2022 within the borders fixed in the constitutions of these republics. At these republics’ request, a special military operation was announced to be conducted to protect the people of the republics under their right to self-defence as sealed in the UN Charter.
Ukrainian nationalist-radicals continue sowing lawlessness as regards the Russian and Russian-speaking population in other areas of Ukraine as well. Real threats to the lives and safety of people are on the rise. This applies to crude and massive human rights violations, including discrimination and persecution based on ethnic origin, language, religion and political conviction. During these years, the Kiev regime has been waging a comprehensive campaign against the Russian language, pervasively cancelling Russian culture, harassing the canonical Orthodox Church and falsifying Russia and Ukraine’s common history. The Kiev regime has been destroying books and monuments to those who liberated Ukraine from German occupation and who forged glory for the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the USSR. Laws encouraging Nazi theory and practice were adopted at the same time. Due to all these actions, the regions where the Russian language, culture and history are part of the peoples’ national identity found it impossible to exist in the framework of the Ukrainian state.
Accusing Russia of an unprovoked aggression against Ukraine, the United States is hypocritically noting that we are allegedly using an imaginary threat to justify our attack on a neighbouring country, which, they say, has embarked on the path of democracy. Washington has never hesitated to use force under fabricated pretexts anywhere in the world, using false claims to justify its actions such as the need to protect the lives and well-being of US citizens. This was the case in 1915 in Haiti, half a century later in the Dominican Republic, when all they did before starting an invasion was publicly declare abstract threats to individual US citizens. Before the occupation of Panama, then US President George H.W. Bush, in his address to the nation in December 1989, told the dramatic story about one fatally shot American soldier, another one arrested, and yet another one beaten, whose wife, allegedly, underwent rough interrogation and was threatened with rape. This was enough to invade these countries and install governments that suited Washington.
Not to mention the many years of a bloody war in Vietnam, in which the United States became embroiled after a provocation that they themselves staged in the Gulf of Tonkin. I’m not even talking about the attack on Grenada in 1983 to allegedly ensure the safety of American students studying there.
The United States ignored the UN General Assembly resolutions that condemned these and other aggressive actions; it just let them go unheeded. Then there was Yugoslavia, which the United States and NATO tried to bomb into democracy, the destroying of Iraq, where weapons of mass destruction were never found, and Libya that was plunged into chaos.
The moment of truth has come. We are not responding to imaginary threats in distant countries, but are defending our borders, our Motherland, all our people from real genocide perpetrated by the descendants and followers of Nazi henchmen, who are now at the service of their overseas masters. The United States has subjugated almost all of the collective West and mobilised it in order to make Ukraine a tool of war against Russia just like, in his time, Hitler called to arms most of the European countries to attack the Soviet Union. The current plans of the West will not come to fruition just like they didn’t back then. President Vladimir Putin was clear about that when speaking at the Kremlin on September 30.
The people of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions liberated from the oppression of the neo-Nazi Kiev regime, have independently determined their future, which is to be with Russia. Following in the steps of the DPR and LPR, these regions declared independence, which was recognised by presidential executive orders dated September 29. Following that, the DPR and LPR, as well as Zaporozhye and Kherson regions asked Russian leadership to accept them as part of our state. These requests were based on free will as expressed by the people in the referenda. We respect these results, which are consistent with international law, including the principle of the sovereign equality of states, equality, and the right of peoples to self-determination enshrined as a goal in the UN Charter.
In accordance with the Federal Constitutional Law on the Procedure of Admission into the Russian Federation of a New Entity and the Formation of a New Entity Thereof, the President of the Russian Federation notified the Federation Council, the State Duma, and the Government of the Russian Federation about the proposals of the said republics and regions, and signed the relevant agreements with them.
According to the established procedure, the Constitutional Court of Russia verified the correspondence of the agreements to the Constitution of the Russian Federation and delivered a positive conclusion.
The agreements legally seal the accession of the said republic and regions to Russia and provide for the creation of new constituent entities of the Russian Federation: the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Lugansk People’s Republics, the Zaporozhye Region, and the Kherson Region. The agreements entitle the permanent residents of these territories to Russian citizenship with all the ensuing rights.
On behalf of the President of the Russian Federation, I address the State Duma with a proposal to adopt the said draft laws.
I am convinced that their approval will benefit the entire multi-ethnic people of our country, and the citizens of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Lugansk People’s Republics, the Zaporozhye Region, and the Kherson Region will now rightly become part of this people within the Russian Federation.
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Sergey Lavrov: I would like to congratulate the representatives of the four new constituent entities of the Russian Federation. I am convinced that the next package of constitutional laws will also be adopted.
Vyacheslav Volodin: This is exactly what everyone expected of you. You are a diplomat and diplomats always read what is written between the lines. Everyone “read” what was required.
Sergey Lavrov: Nothing is written between the lines in this case. Everything is absolutely clear. Colleagues, my congratulations once again!
Executive Council Speech:
Dear Valentina Ivanovna,
Distinguished Senators,
On instructions from President Vladimir Putin, I am introducing for your consideration federal laws on the ratification of treaties between the Russian Federation and the Donetsk People's Republic, the Lugansk People's Republic, the Zaporizhzhya region and the Kherson region on their admission to the Russian Federation and the formation of new subjects within the Russian Federation.
You are well acquainted with the content of these bills. During their preparation, the President of Russia held the necessary consultations, including with the Federation Council. The day before yesterday, the opinion of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation was received. Yesterday, ratification took place in the State Duma.
The submitted documents clearly set out the procedure for the integration of the four independent states into Russia and guarantee the rights of their residents, as citizens of the Russian Federation, in all spheres, including language, culture, traditions, social security, and economic development.
Decisions on the admission of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions to the Russian Federation are based on the will of their peoples during the referendums on September 23-27 this year. Through the right to self-determination, the citizens of these republics and regions made their informed choice.
Such a step is fully consistent with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, which is enshrined in the UN Charter, in the 1970 Declaration "On principles of international law concerning friendly relations and cooperation among states in accordance with the UN Charter" and in many other documents. The declaration, unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly, states: "Every state is obliged to refrain from any violent action that deprives peoples of ... their rights to self-determination, freedom and independence." Under the Declaration, these peoples are empowered also to take action against such violent acts and to receive the support of the international community in this regard. Today there is a lot of talk (they are conducted in a public sphere) about the fact that the principle of the territorial integrity of states, enshrined in the UN Charter, also has, allegedly, absolute priority over the right to self-determination. In this regard, I would like to once again draw the attention of all those who are interested in the fact that the above-mentioned Declaration of the UN General Assembly of 1970 contains a clear answer to the supporters of this point of view. It enshrines the obligation to respect the territorial integrity of States "respecting the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples ... and consequently having Governments representing ... all the people living in the territory."
There is no need to prove that the Kiev regime does not meet the above criteria in any way, for many years grossly and massively violating the above requirements of the UN. It has long become a stranger and hostile to all residents of Ukraine who cannot imagine their lives without involvement in Russian civilization and, from whom President Zelensky a year ago demanded to "go to Russia". It is abundantly clear that this regime does not and cannot represent the millions of citizens against whom it has waged war.
Radical nationalists who seized power in Ukraine as a result of a coup d'état in February 2014 pursued a policy of suppressing the Russian and Russian-speaking population of Ukraine throughout the subsequent period. Residents of Donetsk and Luhansk regions who did not recognize the criminal "Maidan" authorities were declared terrorists. The armed forces of Ukraine and neo-Nazi battalions brutally avenged the Donbass residents, shelling their cities and villages almost daily, killing and maiming people, destroying civilian objects, trying to strangle them with an inhuman blockade. Kiev openly and with impunity sabotaged the implementation of the Minsk agreements, approved by the UN Security Council. The West, on the other hand, cynically turned a blind eye to the actions of Ukrainian radicals to solve the "Donbass problem" by force – the so-called "Plan B". Moreover, the West, in fact, encouraged such a scenario. President Vladimir Putin spoke in detail about the true intentions of the United States and its satellites to use the Zelensky regime for the war against Russia in detail in the Kremlin on September 30 this year.
Ukraine itself has actually turned into an aggressive totalitarian state, where discriminatory laws are adopted, forced Ukrainization is carried out, Russophobia is encouraged, and linguistic, educational, cultural and other human rights are massively infringed upon. With the support of the authorities, the ideology of Nazism and ethnic and religious intolerance are being imposed by law. The country's officials are no longer shy about their neo-Nazi nature, openly calling for the murder of Russian people everywhere in the world.
Russia could not but come to the aid of the long-suffering population of Donbass and not stand up for the protection of the residents of Zaporozhye and Kherson regions from this inhuman regime.
The decisions taken at referendums in two republics and two regions are a response to the excesses of neo-Nazi Ukraine and the realization of the people's long-standing aspirations for reunification with the historical Motherland.
On behalf of the President of the Russian Federation, I propose that the Federation Council approve these laws.
Lavrov spoke to media after today's speech:
Question: What about people who now live de jure on Russian territory, but de facto under the occupation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine?
Sergey Lavrov: The topic of borders is set out in the Constitutional Court's opinion. This issue is one of the key issues now that the discussion of constitutional laws on the adoption of these four new regions into the Russian Federation has begun. Read the opinion of the Constitutional Court. Everything should be clear from it. This topic was also commented on by Senator Alexander Klishas, who is speaking now. We can discuss it with him in more detail.
Question: Do we understand correctly that there will be a transition period until 2024?
Sergey Lavrov: If you have read the laws that are being adopted now, they mention 2026 as the end of the transition period.
Question: Is it important for other states to recognize joining the Russian Federation?
Sergey Lavrov: Absolutely, it is not important. Of course, it would be more correct for all countries of the world to realize the new reality that has become inevitable. A huge number of legal arguments have been given, including references to the UN Charter, which enshrines the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to the Declaration of the UN General Assembly, which clearly explains: everyone must respect the territorial integrity of states that have governments that recognize the right to self-determination and represent all the people living on the territory of a particular country.
It is clear that the regime of V.A. Zelensky, and before him the regime of P.A. Poroshenko, did not meet these criteria, but most grossly violated them. The people of Donbass would never and will never agree that the current people who illegally seized power in Kiev represent their people living in this region, as well as in other parts of Ukraine, whose inhabitants inextricably associate themselves with Russian civilization.
From the point of view of international law, it would be important for all countries to take a responsible approach and recognize this obvious, objective reality. We see how charged the West is in its anti-Russian frenzy, how clearly, sensing the lack of convincing arguments for its position, it is trying to intimidate all other countries, primarily developing countries (Asia, Africa, Latin America), with threats and blackmail to demand that they condemn Russia. This once again underscores the weakness of the West's line. If you feel that you are right, state what you think about this or that international event, and let everyone else, as adults, independently determine in this case whose arguments are more convincing: Russia and those residents of Donbass, Ukraine who do not want to remain under the neo-Nazi regime or the arguments of the "collective West", which proclaimed Kiev a "beacon of democracy" and swore to fight to the last Ukrainian, in order to weaken, if not dismember, the Russian Federation as much as possible.
I guarantee that most of the countries are well aware of our rightness. Not everyone has the courage and strength to speak objectively about it directly. The overwhelming majority refuses to join the steps taken by the West in the economic sphere and in the sanctions pressure on the Russian Federation.
I am convinced that the truth will make its way, whether the West wants it or not. Now a scenario dictated by life itself and based on the free expression of the will of people is being realized. Any other moves, artificial escalation of confrontation, mobilization of anti-Russian forces, threats, blackmail – all this is ahistorical and will disappear into oblivion. And the will of the people will remain forever.