š“š“š“š“ MULTI SUBTITLES š“š“š“š“
Moscow, June 30, 2023.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrovās briefing on a wide range of international issues, including humanitarian aspects in the context of developments in Ukraine.
"Question: Recently, there was a parliamentary investigation in Russia into the US biological laboratory activities in Ukraine. Today, senators and deputies will hold the first meeting of the parliamentary commission to investigate the Ukrainian governmentās activities. Whatās your take on the importance of this investigation, and what efforts are Russian diplomats taking now and will take next to make sure the results of these investigations reach the rest of the world?
Sergey Lavrov: We believe this is an important initiative launched by our parliamentarians.
The first initiative you mentioned ā the investigation into the Pentagonās biological programmes in Ukraine ā was widely covered and attracted public attention. We presented this report at the UN and held a special Security Council meeting with Chinaās support. Other Security Council members from developing regions showed serious concern and mentioned it, to varying degrees, in their statements. This issue is not closed yet. The Russian Defence Ministry continues to provide the international community with materials that raise serious questions and lead us to believe that the Pentagon has been developing what is commonly referred to as biological weapons in laboratories in Ukraine. According to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, this is what it is. It is no coincidence that the Americans, who have āscatteredā such laboratories across numerous regions (including several laboratories in neighbouring countries like the PRC, in Central Asia and the South Caucasus), are single-handedly blocking an initiative that we have been promoting for a long time now to adopt a mechanism for verifying compliance by all countries with the Biological Weapons Convention. This does not sit well with them, which is further, albeit indirect, proof of the fact that the plans of the US biological programme in foreign countries are by no means harmless or innocent. According to the Americans, it is all civilian activity and has no military dimension, but if thatās the case, why not conduct this ācivilian researchā in your own country? One of the reasons for this being done outside the US (besides creating risks for the countries in question) is that the Americans donāt feel like conducting dangerous experiments at home and want to be on the safe side.
With regard to the second recently announced parliamentary study, it will be led by Deputy Federation Council Speaker Anna Kuznetsova. Of course, we are worried about the children in conflict zones. Many of our foreign partners have raised this issue with us. They noted numerous and loud accusations coming from Kiev and its Western sponsors.
I can confirm what President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated to the effect that all the children currently residing in Russian territory are known, and no one is hiding their names or whereabouts. If these children have parents or close family, they have every right to take them home. This has been done many times: scores of children have returned to their relatives when they turned up. Some children ended up in Russia because they were staying in childrenās homes and there were no relatives nearby. We did evacuate childrenās home residents from the war zone along with staff and teachers. We are not hiding this, and our Western colleagues should not try to make a crime out of it. There are none on our side, but there are quite a few big issues on the Ukrainian side concerning children and other war crimes that I mentioned earlier.
Since they are dealing with the children who are being allegedly forcibly held in the Russian Federation, the Europeans would benefit from seeing what is happening to Ukrainian children in Europe. We have received many complaints from Ukrainian citizens who left for Europe as refugees about children being forcibly taken from them by the guardianship authorities.
I think our parliamentary commission will look into this issue as well. Our Western partners should stop pretending that the Kiev regime is impeccable. It has a clearly racist and Nazi nature. Publicly, through the president, ministers, and other officials, this regime has declared its goal of outlawing and killing Russians. Has any European democratic figure ever questioned this? I donāt want to offend anyone, but I havenāt read anything about it in the Western media."
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