Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday drew a chilling comparison between Russia’s “special military operation” and the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that, unlike NATO and US forces, Russian forces are not killing civilians in Ukraine.

He made the comments at a wide-ranging conference on Thursday, comparing the war launched by Vladimir Putin on February 24 to military operations in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and other conflict zones of the past.

“When the West killed Arabs immeasurably en masse in the same Iraq, in the same Libya, in the same Syria, Yugoslavia or Afghanistan, I do not remember such concern for the civilian population, that is, probably the people of another country. category, third, fourth,” he said, quoted by Lenta, one of the most popular news sites in Russia.

“But Ukrainians, who are descendants of the ancient Romans, as they themselves say, probably deserve special protection through Western institutions and structures,” the head of Russian diplomacy expressed his indignation.

Lavrov noted that the Russian military does not attack the civilian population, but only “disables energy facilities that allow Western countries to pump deadly weapons into Ukraine to kill Russians.”

Sergey Lavrov from diplomat to propagandist

Sergei Lavrov, who was considered a master of diplomacy, including in European circles before the war in Ukraine began at the end of February, made statements over the following months that were more and more distant from reality.

One of the most famous happened in March after the peace talks in which he participated in Turkey together with his Ukrainian colleague Dmytro Kuleba.

At the time, Lavrov said that Russia “did not attack anyone” and had no intention of resorting to such actions in the future. “We do not intend to attack other countries, we did not attack Ukraine either,” Serhiy Lavrov replied to journalists’ questions.

“I simply repeatedly explained to Ukraine that a situation has arisen that poses direct threats to the security of the Russian Federation. Despite our many years of notes, appeals, appeals, no one heard us,” he explained.

Another example of this came in October, when he said that despite Russia’s unprecedented international isolation, the “vast majority” of countries in the world were right when Russia recognized the results of the pseudo-referendums held in the territories of busy Ukrainian women, but that they were afraid to say so.

After his statements, only 5 countries voted in the UN against the resolution condemning the annexation announced by Putin on September 30: Belarus, North Korea, Nicaragua, Syria and Russia.

He was recently the victim of an embarrassing incident during the G20 summit held in Indonesia in mid-November following media reports that he had been hospitalized for heart problems.

The head of Russian diplomacy laughed at Bali

Later, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova released a video of Lavrov, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, standing on a terrace flipping through documents.

Sergey Lavrov himself denied the information originally published by the Associated Press agency, saying that Western journalists should write only the truth.

But investigative journalists at Bellingcat were able to geolocate the location where the recording was made and the photo shared by Lavrov, showing it was taken at a hospital annex in the Nusa Dua resort.

Although he is a veteran of diplomacy, having served as Russia’s foreign minister since 2004 after serving as Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations for 10 years, Lavrov’s statements increasingly seem intended for Russia’s domestic use rather than the international agenda.

In addition, on October 18, he also stated that he saw no point in maintaining Russia’s diplomatic presence in the West.

“It makes no sense, and we have no desire to maintain the same presence in Western countries. Our people work in conditions that can hardly be called humane. They face constant problems, with threats of physical attacks,” he said during a meeting with university graduates accepted to the diplomatic service.

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