Lavrov: Moscow’s New Foreign Policy Concept Calls Out US as Main Instigator of Anti-Russian Crusade

The Russian Security Council earlier stressed that the country’s new foreign policy concept reflects a new approach to Moscow’s relations with the West.

President Vladimir Putin announced on Friday that he had penned a decree adopting Russia’s new foreign policy concept.

“Today, I signed a decree approving the updated concept of the foreign policy of the Russian Federation,” Putin said at a meeting with the permanent members of the Security Council.

Putin said that the Russian Foreign Ministry along with other departments had worked hard to bring the new foreign policy concept in line with modern realities.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for his part underscored that the document directly calls the US the main instigator of anti-Russian politics in the world.

“The existential nature of the threats to our country’s security and development, created by the actions of unfriendly states, has been recognized. The US has been directly named as the main instigator of this anti-Russian line, and on the whole, the West’s policy, aimed at weakening Russia in every possible way, is characterized as a new type of hybrid war,” Lavrov told a Russian Security Council meeting on Friday.

He added that the logic behind Russia’s new foreign policy concept reflects the revolutionary changes in international affairs.

“The logic of the document […] reflects the changing geopolitical realities, in fact, revolutionary advances on the outer contour, which received visible acceleration with the start of a special military operation,” Lavrov underlined.

He also said that Moscow’s new foreign policy concept suggests using the military to fend off or prevent an armed attack on Russia and its allies.

“Thus, we unequivocally declare that we will defend the right of the Russian people to [their] existence and free development,” the foreign minister maintained.

New Russian Foreign Policy Concept

According to Putin’s decree, “the new foreign policy concept is a document of strategic planning that represents a system of views on Russia’s national interests in the foreign policy sphere, as well as basic principles, strategic goals, and priority areas for the Kremlin’s foreign policy.”

“The concept is legally based on the Russian Constitution, generally recognized principles and norms of international law, as well as Russia’s international treaties, federal laws and other normative legal acts that regulate the activities of federal government bodies in the field of foreign policy.”

What is Russia’s Foreign Policy Based on?

“Russia pursues an independent and multi-faceted foreign policy course in line with its national interests and the awareness of its special responsibility for maintaining peace and security globally and regionally.

The Kremlin’s foreign policy is peaceful, straightforward, predictable, as well as consistent and pragmatic in nature, based on respect for the universally-recognized principles and norms of international law, and the desire for equal international cooperation in resolving common problems and promoting shared interests.

Moscow’s attitude towards other states and international associations is determined by the constructive, neutral or unfriendly nature of their policy towards Russia.”

Russia’s Foreign Policy-Related National Interests, Strategic Goals and Main Tasks

“Taking into account the long-term trends in global developments, Russia’s national interests of in the foreign policy sphere are:

• the protection of Russia’s constitutional order, sovereignty, independence, state and territorial integrity from destructive foreign influence;
• maintaining strategic stability and strengthening international peace and security;
• boosting the legal foundations of international relations;
• protecting the rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of Russian citizens as well as defending Russian organizations from foreign illegal encroachments;
• developing a secure information space, and protecting Russian society from destructive foreign information and psychological impact;
• safeguarding the Russian people, cultivating human potential, and improving the quality of life and welfare of citizens;
• promoting the Russian economy’s sustainable development on a new technological basis;
• strengthening traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, and preserving the cultural and historical heritage of the multinational people of Russia;
• environmental protection, conservation of natural resources, rational environmental management and adaptation to climate change.

Proceeding from Russia’s national interests and strategic national priorities, the country’s foreign policy activity is aimed at achieving the following strategic goals:

• ensuring Russia’s security, territorial integrity and sovereignty in all spheres;
• creating favorable external conditions for Russia’s development;
• strengthening the positions of Russia as one of the responsible, influential and independent centers of the modern-day world.forming a just and sustainable world order;
• maintaining international peace, security and strategic stability, as well as ensuring peaceful coexistence and progressive development of states and peoples;
• contributing to the development of the international community’s effective complex responses to common challenges and threats, including regional conflicts and crises;
• bolstering mutually beneficial and equal cooperation with constructively-minded foreign states and their associations, as well as ensuring that Russian interests are taken into account with the help of the mechanisms of multilateral diplomacy;
• countering the anti-Russian activities of foreign states and their associations, and creating conditions to stop such activities;
• developing good neighborly relations with neighboring states, and assisting in preventing and eliminating hotbeds of tension and conflicts on their territories;
• providing support to Russia’s allies and partners to promote common interests, and ensuring their security and sustainable development, regardless of whether allies and partners receive international recognition or membership in international organizations;
• boosting the potential of multilateral regional associations and integration structures, of which Russia is a member;
• strengthening Russia’s position in the world economy, achieving the country’s national development goals, ensuring economic security, and fulfilling the economic potential of the state;
• ensuring Russia’s interests in the World Ocean, outer space and airspace;
• creating an objective perception of Russia abroad, and strengthening its position in the global information space;
• strengthening Russia’s clout in the global humanitarian space, boosting the Russian language’s position in the world, and promoting the preservation of historical truth and memory of Russia’s role in world history abroad;
• the comprehensive effective protection of the rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of Russian citizens and organizations abroad;
• developing relations with compatriots living abroad and providing them with full-fledged support in exercising their rights, as well as ensuring the protection of their interests and preserving the all-Russian cultural identity.

Russia seeks to create such a system of international relations that would ensure reliable security, as well as the preservation of cultural and civilizational identity, and equal development opportunities for all states, regardless of their geographical location, territory, demographic, resource and military potentials, as well as political, economic and social structure.

In order to meet these criteria, the system of international relations must be multipolar and based on an array of principles, including:

• the sovereign equality of states, and respect for their right to choose models of development, social, political and economic structure;
• the rejection of hegemony in international affairs;
• cooperation based on a balance of interests and mutual benefit;
• non-interference in internal affairs;
• supremacy of international law in regulation of global relations, as well as all states rejecting the policy of double standards;
• the indivisibility of security in global and regional aspects;

In order to facilitate the adaptation of the world order to the realities of a multipolar world, Russia intends to pay priority attention to:

• Eliminating vestiges of the dominance of the US and other unfriendly states in world affairs, and paving the ground to prompt any state to refuse neo-colonial and hegemonic ambitions;Improving international mechanisms to ensure security and development at the global and regional levels;
• restoring the UN’s role as a central coordinating mechanism in line with the interests of the UN member and their actions to achieve the goals of the UN Charter;
• strengthening the potential and enhancing the international role of BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), RIC (Russia, India, China) and other country-to-country associations and global organizations, as well as mechanisms with Russia’s significant participation;
• supporting regional and sub-regional integration within the framework of friendly multilateral institutions, as well as dialogue platforms and regional associations in the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East;
• increasing the stability and progressive development of the international legal system;
• ensuring fair access for all states to the benefits of the world economy and the international division of labor, as well as to modern technologies in the interests of fair and equitable development (including the resolution of the problems pertaining to global energy and food security);intensifying cooperation in all spheres with Russia’s allies and partners, and suppressing attempts by unfriendly states to prevent such cooperation;
• consolidating international efforts aimed at ensuring respect and protection of universal and traditional spiritual and moral values (including ethical norms common to all world religions), neutralizing attempts to impose pseudo-humanistic and other neoliberal ideological narratives, leading to the loss of traditional spiritual and moral values by humanity;
• developing a constructive dialogue, partnership and mutual enrichment of different cultures, religions and civilizations.

On Strengthening International Peace and Security

Russia proceeds from the indivisibility of international security (in global and regional aspects) and seeks to ensure it equally for all states on the basis of the principle of reciprocity.

In this connection, Moscow is open to joint actions to form a renewed and more stable international security architecture with all interested states and international associations. In order to maintain and strengthen global peace and security, Russia plans to pay paramount attention to:

• using peaceful means, primarily diplomacy, negotiations, consultations, mediation and good offices, to resolve international disputes and conflicts on the basis of mutual respect, compromises and a balance of legitimate interests;
• developing comprehensive cooperation in order to neutralize attempts by any states and country-to-country associations to achieve global dominance in the military sphere […];building up political and diplomatic efforts aimed at preventing the use of military force in violation of the UN Charter […];taking political and diplomatic measures to counter interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states, primarily aimed at complicating the domestic political situation, unconstitutional change of power or violation of the territorial integrity of states;
• ensuring strategic stability and removing preconditions for unleashing a global war, and the risks of using nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction;
• creating a renewed international security architecture, preventing and resolving international and internal armed conflicts, countering transnational challenges and threats in certain areas of international security.

On Use of Armed Forces

Russia proceeds from the fact that its armed forces can be used in accordance with the generally recognized principles and norms of international law, as well as Moscow’s international treaties and Russian legislation.

Moscow considers the UN Charter’s Article 51 as an adequate legal basis, not subject to revision, for the use of force in self-defense.

Also, the Russian armed forces can be used to repel and prevent an armed attack on Russia and (or) its allies, as well as to resolve crises, to maintain (restore) peace in accordance with the decision of the UN Security Council, and [….] to ensure the protection of Russian citizens abroad and to combat international terrorism and piracy.