Foreign Minister Lavrov Says Contact With Europe Is No Longer A Priority, The Value Of UN Officials Is Pressured By The West And Becomes A Funnel For Fake News

Menteri Luar Negeri Russia Sergei Lavrov. (Wikimedia Commons/Kremlin.ru/Press Service of the President of the Russian Federation)

JAKARTA - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has again criticized the United Nations, saying that contacts with Europe are no longer a priority, as the war in Ukraine drags on and the spotlight on Moscow continues.

Foreign Minister Lavrov said Russia has always been in touch with the West and the East, but now contact with Europe is not Russia's priority, in a television interview.

"We have always worked with the West, the East, the North and the South. From the moment the West cut off all contact, we have objectively worked with the East, as before," he said in an interview on the NTV channel, quoting TASS June 17.

"We are expanding contacts with the East, as usual. But in absolute terms these contacts are growing, while relatively Europe has disappeared from our priorities, of course," he said.

In separate interviews with different television channels on the same day, Foreign Minister Lavrov said international officials, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, were subject to pressure from the West, and often acted as mouthpieces for fake news.

Foreign Minister Lavrov said Ukraine had not yet faced the Nazis and that Nazism was growing rapidly there.

Journalists who interviewed him responded to this, citing the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights as saying that Russian troops allegedly detained 360 people for 28 days in the Chernigov Region.

"International officials, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and, to my great regret, the UN Secretary-General and many other UN representatives, are subject to pressure from the West and often act as mouthpieces for fake news," Lavrov criticized.

Foreign Minister Lavrov emphasized that Russia is not ashamed to show itself as it is to the international community.

"Russia is not so clean. This is what it is. We are not ashamed to show ourselves as we are," he said.