‘Russia does not consider itself to be at war with NATO, but NATO does,’ Lavrov tells Al-Arabiya 

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Updated 01 May 2022
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‘Russia does not consider itself to be at war with NATO, but NATO does,’ Lavrov tells Al-Arabiya 

  • Remarks made in exclusive interview given by Russian FM to the news channel’s UN bureau chief, Talal Al-Haj 
  • Lavrov said the problem with humanitarian corridors is that “they are being ignored by Ukrainian ultranationalists” 

DUBAI: Moscow does not consider itself to be at war with NATO, but NATO does, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has told Al-Arabiya in an exclusive interview.

He brushed aside UN chief Antonio Guterres’ proposals for humanitarian assistance and evacuation of civilians, saying: “There is no need for anybody to provide help to open humanitarian corridors. There is only one problem … humanitarian corridors are being ignored by Ukrainian ultranationalists.

“We appreciate the interest of the secretary-general to be helpful … (We have) explained … what is the mechanism for them to monitor how the humanitarian corridors are announced.”

Asked about the risks of war spilling into Moldova after a series of explosions rattled a breakaway border region within the country, Lavrov said: “Moldova should worry about its own future … because they are being pulled into NATO.”

In an hour-long interview with Talal Al-Haj, Al-Arabiya news channel’s New York/UN bureau chief, which aired on Friday night, Lavrov offered the Russian government’s perspective of the Ukraine conflict, which is now into its third month, having already claimed tens of thousands of lives, civilians as well as soldiers, on both sides.

“Unfortunately, NATO, it seems, considers itself to be at war with Russia,” he said. “NATO and EU leaders, many of them, in England, in the US, Poland, France, Germany and of course EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell, they bluntly, publicly and consistently say, ‘Putin must fail, Russia must be defeated.’ When you use this terminology, I believe you think that you are at war with the person who you want to be defeated.”

The Russian government has said its “special military operation” in Ukraine is aimed at protecting Russia’s security and that of Russian-speaking people in the eastern Donbas region. Western nations have accused Russia of invading a sovereign country and of committing war crimes.

Since the invasion began on February 24, the US, UK and EU have sanctioned more than 1,000 Russian individuals and businesses and wealthy businessmen, with the US banning all Russian oil and gas imports.

The financial measures are designed to damage Russia’s economy and penalize President Vladimir Putin, high-ranking officials, and people who have benefited from his rule.

Lavrov said: “To believe that this latest outrage and the wave of sanctions, which eventually showed the real face of West which, as far as I now understand, has always been Russian-phobic, to believe that this latest wave of sanctions is going to make Russia cry uncle and to beg for being pardoned, those planners are lousy and of course they don’t know anything about foreign policy of Russia and they don’t know anything about how to deal with Russia.”

The conflict has prompted NATO members and allies to pledge billions of dollars in military support to Ukraine. Weapons systems being supplied to Ukrainian forces include surface-to-air missiles, heavy artillery and surveillance equipment.

The Biden administration has agreed with Western allies to hold monthly meetings to assess the needs of the government in Kyiv, raising fears that the war in Ukraine will, as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg put it, “drag on and last for months and years.”

NATO says it will do all that it can to support Ukraine while ensuring that the war does not spill over beyond its borders into neighboring countries.

But Lavrov said that NATO’s cooperation with Ukraine was little more than “an instrument to contain Russia and deter Russia and irritate Russia.”

He said that Russia knew the routes being used to supply Ukraine with arms, and “as soon as these weapons are reaching Ukrainian territory, they are fair game for our special operation.”

Lavrov said Russia has put forward many proposals to end the war in Ukraine but drawn a blank so far. Ukraine was at fault for the stalled peace talks, he said, blaming what he said was the government’s changing negotiating positions.

Russia has accused the Pentagon of funding and developing biological weapons in a number of laboratories across Ukraine. In January this year, the US denied the accusations and claimed that the laboratories are there to “reduce the threat of biological weapons proliferation.” Lavrov categorically rejected the US assertions.

Lavrov also accused the West of sabotaging the peace attempts, claiming that negotiations in Istanbul last month had been progressing on issues of Russian territorial claims and security guarantees until Ukrainian diplomats backtracked at the behest of the West.

“We are stuck because of their desire to play games all the time,” he said. “Because of the instructions (the Ukrainian representatives) get from Washington, from London, from some other capitals, not to accelerate the negotiations.” 

Lavrov reiterated the Putin government’s position that Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine is aimed at protecting the two self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in Donbas.

“The goal of our operation, it was announced openly, is to protect these two republics and to make sure that no threat will ever emanate from the Ukrainian territory to the security of these people and to security of the Russian Federation,” he said.

In late February, President Putin recognized the region, allowing Russian troops to be present in those territories. Russia has been aiming to protect the two republics because “they have been under attack from the Ukrainian regime for a long, long eight years,” Lavrov said.

“When the coup happened in 2014, they said they don’t want to have anything to do with these people who came to power illegally and they said, ‘leave us alone, we want to understand what is going on.’ They never attacked the rest of Ukraine.”

Lavrov was referring to the overthrow of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 after months of protests in Kyiv’s Independence Square, or Maidan, against his refusal to sign an agreement that would have integrated Ukraine more closely with the EU.

Around the same time, Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine and threw its support behind the Donbas insurgency. Since then, Donetsk and Luhansk have been controlled by separatist governments backed by Moscow.

“The (leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk republics) were (proclaimed) terrorists, an anti-terrorist operation was launched by the butcher leader who came to power by force through illegal means, and for eight long years they have been victims of Ukrainian aggression, killing like 13,000 or 14,000 civilians, destroying civilian infrastructure and many, many other crimes were committed by the Ukrainian regime against them,” Lavrov said.

He said that Russia’s “special operation” was a “response to what NATO was doing in Ukraine to prepare this country for a very aggressive posture against the Russian Federation.”

Referring to the Ukraine government he said: “They were given offensive arms, including the arms which can reach the Russian territory, military bases were being built, including on the Sea of Azov, and many dozens of military exercises, many of them on Ukrainian territory, were conducted under NATO auspices.

“Most of these exercises were designed against the interests of the Russian Federation, so the purpose of this operation is to make sure that those plans do not materialize.”

Tracing the roots of the Ukraine conflict, Lavrov said: “During all these years we have been initiating draft treaties, draft agreements with NATO, with countries of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe and lately in December last year we proposed another initiative to the US and to NATO to conclude treaties with both of them on security guarantees to all countries in the Euro-Atlantic space without joining any military alliance.”

 

He was referring to the OSCE, the regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization with observer status at the UN whose mandate includes issues such as arms control, promotion of human rights, freedom of the press, and free and fair elections.

“Every time we initiated these steps, they were basically rejected with more or less polite behavior. In 2009, we proposed the European Security Treaty which NATO refused to consider and the treaty actually was about codifying something to which all OSCE countries subscribed at the top level.”

According to Lavrov, Russia had suggested that countries be given the right to choose their alliances and not to strengthen their security at the expense of the security of another country, meaning that “no single organization in Europe can pretend to be a dominant player in this geopolitical space.”

Lavrov said NATO responded to Russia by saying that there would be no legally binding security guarantees outside NATO, which he believes makes the OSCE “just lip service.”

He said that the last such attempt by Russia took place in December 2021, before launching the operation in Ukraine, as a response to the “increasing tension and confrontation” over the years.

This Russian initiative, according to Lavrov, was rejected by NATO because it did not want to sacrifice its “open doors policy,” which “does not exist in the Washington Treaty (which forms the basis of NATO)” and used as a “cover to promote NATO expansionist plans.”

“NATO, despite its promises and promises of its leaders, was moving closer and closer to the Russian border and they were telling us, ‘Don’t be afraid, we are a defensive alliance and we will pose no threat to your security.’”

He acknowledged that NATO was a defensive alliance when there was a Berlin Wall and a “geopolitical wall between NATO and the Warsaw Pact” after World War II.

But “when the Warsaw Pact disappeared, when the Soviet Union ceased to exist, NATO decided that the line of defense should be moved to the east and they did move this line of defense five times.”

“Foreign Secretary of Britain Liz Truss one of these days stated that NATO must be a global player so we can listen for so many times about the defensive nature of this alliance but this is a lie.”

Lavrov accused the Ukraine government of “cancelling everything Russian,” including “the language, education, media and day-to-day use of the Russian language was made an administrative offense.”

Elaborating on the accusation, he said: “The Ukrainian regime intensified, at the end of last year and early this year, shelling of the eastern territories of the country in Donbas, in the worst violations of the Minsk Agreements which were signed in February 2015 and endorsed by the Security Council resolution. When they were targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, schools, hospitals, kindergartens, we didn’t have any other choice.”

Lavrov cautioned that his remarks that the risks of a nuclear conflict should not be “underestimated” if the US and its allies continued to arm Ukraine should not be taken out of context.

“We were never playing with such dangerous things. We all should insist on the statements made by the P5 (UN Security Council permanent members), that never ever there could be a nuclear war. But to make sure that this is the case, the West must discipline speakers like our Ukrainian and Polish colleagues, who see no danger in playing with such very, very risky words.”

Lavrov said Western media outlets were misconstruing his words but “we are used to it.”


Blast kills a woman in Greek city of Thessaloniki

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Blast kills a woman in Greek city of Thessaloniki

ATHENS: A 38-year woman was killed after an explosion in northern Greek city of Thessaloniki early on Saturday, police officials said, adding that a criminal investigation is under way.
“It appears that she was carrying an explosive device and planned to plant it a bank’s ATM,” a senior police official told Reuters
“Something went wrong and exploded in her hands,” the official added.


Vatican workers install Sistine Chapel stove where ballots are burned during conclave to elect pope

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Vatican workers install Sistine Chapel stove where ballots are burned during conclave to elect pope

VATICAN CITY: Vatican workers have installed the simple stove in the Sistine Chapel where ballots will be burned during the upcoming conclave to elect a new pope.
The Holy See released a video Saturday of the preparations for the May 7 conclave, which included installing the stove and a false floor in the frescoed Sistine Chapel to make it even. The footage also showed workers lining up simple wooden tables where the cardinals will sit and cast their votes on Wednesday, and a ramp leading to the main seating area for any cardinal in a wheelchair.
On Friday, fire crews were seen on the chapel roof attaching the chimney from which smoke signals will indicate whether a pope has been elected.
The preparations are all leading up to the solemn pageantry of the start of the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis, history’s first Latin American pope, who died April 21 at age 88.
Wednesday morning begins with a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica celebrated by the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, after which the cardinal electors are sequestered from the rest of the world. In the afternoon, they will process into the Sistine Chapel, hear a meditation and take their oaths before casting their first ballots.
As of now, 133 cardinals are expected to take part in the conclave. If no candidate reaches the necessary two-thirds majority, or 89 votes, on the first ballot, the papers will be burned and black smoke will indicate to the world that no pope was elected.
The cardinals will go back to their Vatican residence for the night and return to the Sistine Chapel on Thursday morning to conduct two votes in the morning, two in the afternoon, until a winner is found.
After every two rounds of voting, the ballots are burned in the stove. If no pope is chosen, the ballots are mixed with cartridges containing potassium perchlorate, anthracene — a component of coal tar — and sulfur to produce black smoke out the chimney. If there is a winner, the ballots are mixed with potassium chlorate, lactose and chloroform resin to produce the white smoke.
The white smoke came out of the chimney on the fifth ballot on March 13, 2013, and Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was introduced to the world as Pope Francis a short time later from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica.
The preparations are underway as the cardinals meet privately in more informal sessions to discuss the needs of the Catholic Church going forward and the type of pope who can lead it.


Two women shot on campus of small technical college near Los Angeles

Updated 03 May 2025
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Two women shot on campus of small technical college near Los Angeles

  • The Los Angeles Police Department said officers detained a male subject from a car matching the description of a vehicle linked to the shooting
  • The school went on lockdown for at least an hour after the shooting

INGLEWOOD: Two female employees of a Southern California technical college were shot on campus Friday and taken to the hospital in an incident that authorities attributed to workplace violence.
The shooting occurred around 4 p.m. in an office at the Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology campus in Inglewood, where Mayor James Butts said the suspect was believed to be a former employee.
Aerial TV video showed a heavy police presence outside the campus in the city, which abuts Los Angeles to the southwest.
One of the victims was in critical condition, Butts said. The Los Angeles County Fire Department confirmed on the social platform X that two people were taken to the hospital.
A person was taken into custody after initially leaving the scene, Butts said.
The Los Angeles Police Department said officers detained a male subject from a car matching the description of a vehicle linked to the shooting, which had been sent to local law enforcement agencies by the Inglewood Police Department. The Inglewood police did not immediately respond to a request for more information.
The school went on lockdown for at least an hour after the shooting.
Chris Becker, president and chief administrator of the campus, told KABC-TV that the campus is patrolled regularly and, as an aviation school, safety is one of its primary focuses.
“It’s a peaceful campus,” Becker said. “It’s a nice community of students and teachers and staff.”
The Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology has campuses across the country. The college’s Inglewood location, about a mile (about 1.5 kilometers) from the Los Angeles International Airport, accommodates 500 students and offers training programs focused on aviation maintenance technology, according to its website.


Gunman kills three in Thailand’s conflict-hit south

Updated 03 May 2025
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Gunman kills three in Thailand’s conflict-hit south

  • Violence frequently rocks the kingdom’s southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala
  • In 2004, Thai security forces shot into a crowd of protesters outside a police station in Tak Bai, killing seven

BANGKOK: A gunman has shot dead three people including a child in Thailand’s insurgency-hit south, police said Saturday, as authorities pursued the suspect.
The attacker opened fire late Friday in a residential area of Tak Bai district in Narathiwat province, one of three Muslim-majority provinces in Thailand’s far south gripped by a decades-long separatist insurgency.
Three people were killed, including a nine-year-old girl and a 75-year-old man, police said.
“One victim died at the scene, and two others succumbed to their injuries at the hospital,” local police officer Watthana Thurarat told AFP, adding that two more people were wounded.
Police believe the suspect, who remains at large, is linked to a rebel group, Watthana said.
Violence frequently rocks the kingdom’s southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala, where separatists seeking greater autonomy for the religiously distinct region have killed more than 7,000 people since 2004.
However, attacks on unarmed civilians in residential areas remain relatively rare, with most targeting security personnel.
In 2004, Thai security forces shot into a crowd of protesters outside a police station in Tak Bai, killing seven.
Subsequently, 78 others suffocated in the back of military trucks after they were arrested — a deadly crackdown widely seen as a trigger for the southern unrest in the Buddhist-majority country.
Last year, a Thai court dismissed the long-delayed Tak Bai case, brought by victims’ families against seven officials, when the statute of limitations expired.
Analysts have warned the decision could further inflame tensions in the region.


Worshipers stampede at a temple in western India, killing 6 and injuring dozens

Updated 11 min 5 sec ago
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Worshipers stampede at a temple in western India, killing 6 and injuring dozens

  • Stampedes during large Hindu religious gatherings are routinely reported in India

NEW DELHI: At least six people are dead and dozens injured after a stampede at a religious gathering in the western Indian state of Goa early Saturday, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
The stampede broke out as thousands of devotees thronged narrow lanes leading to a temple in Shirgao village, some 40 kilometers from the state capital of Panaji, the agency quoted police as saying.
Tens of thousands of devotees from Goa and neighboring states of Maharashtra and Karnataka attended the annual Hindu festival at Sree Lairai Devi temple.
The stampede was caused as people standing on a slope near the temple fell over, pushing more people to fall onto each other, Director General of Police Alok Kumar said, according to the news agency.
The injured were taken to nearby hospitals for treatment. Authorities ordered a probe into the incident.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was saddened by the loss of lives and expressed condolences to the victims’ families.
“The local administration is assisting those affected,” Modi said on social media.
Deadly stampedes are relatively common around Indian religious festivals, where large crowds often gather in small areas.
In January, at least 30 people died and many more were injured in a stampede as tens of thousands of Hindus rushed to bathe in a sacred river at India’s massive Maha Kumbh festival, the world’s largest religious gathering.
In July, at least 116 people died, most of them women and children, when thousands at a religious gathering in northern India stampeded at a tent camp in Hathras town.