- A crowd laughed at Russia’s top diplomat when he said the war in Ukraine was “launched against us.”
- A member of the audience at the G20 summit in India shouted “quick!” of Sergey Lavrov during the event.
- He answered a question about Russia’s energy strategy going forward.
Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s top diplomat and a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said at a conference in India Thursday that the war in Ukraine was “launched against us,” prompting the crowd the people to burst out laughing.
Lavrov was a speaker at the G20 Summit in India in New Delhi, leading a session that is part of a series “Raisina Dialogue 2023”. He spoke with Sunjoy Joshi, Chairman of the Observer Research Foundation in India, and took questions from the audience.
A member of the audience asked Lavrov: “How does the war affect Russia’s energy strategy, and will it mark a privilege towards Asia?
“You know, the war, which we are trying to stop, which was launched against us, using…” Lavrov began, before being cut off by loud laughter from the crowd.
“… The Ukrainian people, uh, of course, were influenced…” Lavrov tried again, before being cut off by more laughter and a shout of “Come on!” from the crowd.
He went on to say that the war has influenced Russia’s energy policy and that they “don’t trust any partners” going forward.
—max seddon (@maxseddon) March 3, 2023
Contrary to Lavrov’s claim, Russia launched an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and sparked the biggest military conflict in Europe since World War II.
The Kremlin offered several justifications for the invasion, including the false claim that Ukraine was led by neo-Nazis. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost his family during the Holocaust.
Russia has also blamed NATO, suggesting that the alliance’s expansion fueled the conflict. But Ukraine is not a member of NATO and was not on track to join the alliance when Russia invaded.
Experts widely agree that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine out of a desire to restore Russia as an imperial power. Putin, who once described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century, likened himself to Peter the Great while defending Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
The Russian leader falsely claims that Ukraine is not a real country, offering a distorted view of history to justify Russia’s brutal campaign to conquer its next-door neighbor.
Much of Ukraine was controlled by the Russian Empire before it became part of the Soviet Union. But Ukrainians in 1991 overwhelmingly voted for independence from the USSR, making it clear that they did not want to submit to Moscow.
Russia has been condemned around the world for invading Ukraine, and faces widespread allegations of war crimes.