Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s speech to the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 16.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s speech to the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 17.
The fact that so many in Europe’s elite keep letting Russian fiction go unchallenged shows just how spineless they have become.
The latest outrages took place during the Munich Security Conference, where on Feb. 17, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov continued to spout the Kremlin nonsense about the state of the world.
And, for the most part, his attempts to portray Russia as the victim of a Russophobic West, rather than as the rogue dictatorship it is, not only continued to go unchallenged, but conference chairman Wolfgang Friedrich Ischinger was at his obsequious best.
After ignoring Lavrov’s lies about Ukraine, Ischinger lobbed a softball question after Lavrov’s speech about the Middle East: “What would it take from the Russian point of view … to organize a regional security architecture?”
And then, at the end of the 21-minute performance, Ischinger warmly clasped Lavrov’s hands and said: “Thanks for coming each year, you’re really a very loyal supporter.”
Of course, why wouldn’t he come every year if he gets his ass kissed so nicely?
Lavrov’s claims in the speech were essentially the opposite of the truth in many cases.
“We wanted to do our best to create equal and indivisible security” in Europe. “We have significantly reduced our military capabilities on the western front… We are strengthening support of pan-European institutions such as OSCE.”
False, false and false.
The Kremlin is seeking to divide and conquer Europe, undermine its democratic values and interfere in its elections — as it did in the United States in 2016.
Russia has not reduced its military capabilities on its western front, it has increased them along the border. And what about the troops in eastern Ukraine and Crimea?
As for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Russia has used its influence and the need for unanimity among the 57 member states, to turn the international organization into a powerless talking shop, much like the Munich Security Conference, only on a permanent basis.
Lavrov, of course, saved his biggest lies for Ukraine.
He accused the European Union of forcing a choice on six Eastern Partnership countries, including Ukraine: the West or Russia.
The choices were actually forced on the countries by the Kremlin. Three obeyed — Azerbaijan, Armenia and Belarus. And three decided to go integrate more closely with the EU: Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.
“Beleaguered by an internal conflict, Ukrainian in the context of preparing its EU accession agreement faces a false choice – either you are with the West or with Russia,” Lavrov said, returning to a favorite Russian myth that the EuroMaidan Revolution that drove Kremlin stooge Viktor Yanukovych from power on Feb. 22, 2014, was a “coup d’etat.”
“Deplorably the EU, which was the guarantor of an agreement between the opposition and the government on Feb. 21, 2014, was actually unable to implement it and they have supported the coup d’etat.”
Lavrov, Yanukovych fled after 100 days of public protests which he tried to stop by shooting 100 demonstrators, most of them on Feb. 18 and Feb. 20, 2014. This was a popular uprising, something Vladimir Putin is deathly afraid will destroy his 18-year dictatorship.
Then he spoke condescendingly about Ukraine.
“Now the country with the great livelihood potential, with the great people, are unable to manage their own country. Russia, as nobody else, wants to resolve the intra-Ukrainian crisis. The legal framework is in place, those are the Minsk measures developed by Germany, Russia, Ukraine, France and adopted by the United Nations Security Council. We should firmly adhere to that. Now the efforts are sabotaged by Kyiv and now at the official level, they’re talking about a military scenario. Attempts are ongoing to make this country, a neighbor of Russia and the EU, to choose between the West and the East.”
Give Lavrov points for efficiency. It’s hard to imagine so many lies packed so neatly together.
Ukraine, despite its raucous political debates, manages itself better than Russia, where there is only one opinion that counts — Putin’s. I think most people would prefer a messy, fledgling democracy to a dictatorship any day.
As for the Minsk agreements, Russia has done nothing to live up to them: live up to a cease-fire, withdraw its weapons, forces and financial support from its proxies in the eastern Donbas, return control of Ukraine’s eastern border to Kyiv and allow unfettered access by international monitors.
Until that happens, Russia’s war will go on.
Journalist Edward Lucas, noting the indictment on Feb. 16 of Russians for interfering with the American presidential election, got a laugh when he asked Lavrov if the Kremlin got “a good return” on its investment in troll farms and other propaganda tactics? Lavrov essentially called the accusations nonsense.
Michael Gahler, the standing rapporteur on Ukraine in the European Parliament foreign affairs committee, was toughest when he accused the Kremlin of forcing the EU-or-Russia choice on the border states. “If somebody doesn’t sign a treaty with us, we are not sending tanks,” Gahler observed.
The day before, on Feb. 16, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in a speech urged the West into action to challenge Russia’s hybrid war against democratic values and to stiffen sanctions against the Kremlin. “The hybrid war being waged by Russia is gradually turning into a full-fledged world hybrid war,” Poroshenko said.
Lavrov went on to complain about attacks on the Russian Orthodox Church and the banning of the use of the Russian language. I don’t know of any such bans, but I do know czarist Russia banned the Ukrainian language from 1804-1917, and repressed its use in different Soviet periods, even shooting people heard speaking Ukrainian.
Judging by the weak treatment of Lavrov by the likes of Ischinger, the Western world will not heed Poroshenko’s call.
And that creates two inevitabilities: Ukraine will face years ahead of a protracted war in a bid to regain its Russian-occupied territories, and the Kremlin has the green light to keep interfering in democratic elections, which they detest anywhere on the planet, especially in Russia.
