Moscow Unfiltered (3)

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and how he and some others, too, see the world

Note: This text is part of my informal “Unfiltered” series, in which I seek to provide a counterbalance to the Western mainstream media’s biased and often ignorant coverage of Russian politics. It’s longer than my average text, but I hope that readers will see why that makes sense.

On the eve of what will be – one way or the other – very important talks between Russia and the US regarding if and how to end the Ukraine War (and more, of course), a number of noteworthy statements have come out on the Russian side, certainly deliberately. And as usual, they are either entirely neglected or selectively misrepresented in the West’s mainstream media.

The most extensive one is a long interview (hereafter simply, the interview) that foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has recently given to three American interlocutors, the well-known bloggers and journalists Andrew Napolitano, Mario Nawfal, and Larry Johnson. At the same time, literally within a few days, Lavrov has also addressed the official Business Council under the Foreign Ministry and made several pertinent statements on the occasion of a visit to Moscow – the first in 4 years – by the new head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

In the interview, Lavrov did most of the talking. His answers were long and comprehensive, and while they were crammed with noteworthy points, claims, and arguments, a few key themes stood out: Lavrov, in effect, offered three theories (in the original, simple sense of the word: a systematic and explicable way of looking at things): A theory of normality, a theory of multipolarity, and a theory of (political) pragmatism.