🎙 Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko’s interview with Russia Today (May 28, 2026)

Key points:

• President Putin warned them back in 2007. The 2008 NATO Bucharest decision that Georgia and Ukraine would become NATO members was a time bomb planted in the architecture of European security.

• The atmosphere of political psychosis in the West began taking shape even before 2013. We already felt it somewhere around 2010, 2011, 2012, when both NATO and the EU radically shifted their approach towards Russia. NATO cannot exist in peaceful conditions – it is like a fish out of water. And after the fiasco in Afghanistan, NATO needed the image of a major enemy.

• Russia had no hostile intentions toward the West. On the contrary, we invested in constructive relations with the EU, NATO and the OSCE.

• European leaders demand a place at the negotiating table and speak about security guarantees for Ukraine. Yet none of them speaks about security guarantees for Russia. Creating security against Russia is nonsense. Real security can exist only with Russia’s participation.

• The key question is how to ensure that Ukraine can never be used against Russia’s legitimate interests. Any action taken against those interests means Russia will defend itself.

• Russia raised the Starobelsk terrorist attack committed by the Kiev regime militants not only at the UN Security Council, but also within the OSCE. Armed with the facts, our Ambassadors spoke about this horrific crime, which from the standpoint of international law is unquestionably a war crime, for which there can be no forgiveness or justification.

• The West’s reaction – or, more accurately, its silence – came as no surprise to us. The West has long unleashed a hybrid war against Russia, and the information and propaganda campaign is one of its central components. These horrific events became yet another example of Western hypocrisy.

• This is hardly the first time the West has turned reality upside down – calling black white and white black. We saw the same pattern of Western propaganda trying to shift the blame for Ukrainian crimes onto Russia: the Mariupol drama theatre, Kramatorsk railway station, sabotage of Nord Stream pipelines, etc.

• The Odessa tragedy in 2014 remains one of the most shocking examples of the West turning a blind eye to Ukrainian atrocities – 50 people were burned alive in the Trade Unions House, and no one has been punished.

• The Baltic Sea region used to be probably the calmest region in Europe. There were no frozen conflicts, no simmering conflicts and no military-political tensions. A broad network of confidence-building measures, transparency mechanisms, regional institutions and cross-border cooperation formats existed there.

• Before the Baltic states joined NATO, no one was saying Russia was about to attack them. After joining NATO in 2004, they immediately began speaking of vulnerability and the need for protection. The Baltics are now an example of how aggressive policies can turn a peaceful region into a source of confrontation.

• NATO has made superiority in all operational environments its priority – on land, at sea, in the air, in cyberspace and in outer space. In line with these concepts, the Baltic Sea is being turned into an arena of confrontation.

• I believe that people in NATO, especially in the military circles, understand very well that any attempts to isolate or take over Kaliningrad would have 👉 the most severe consequences for those who harbor such plans.

🎙 Statement by Vassily Nebenzia at a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine (New York, May 28, 2026)

Read in full
Watch the full meeting

💬 What is particularly striking is the hypocrisy and cynical reaction of European delegations, which are usually quick to level accusations against Russia whenever politically convenient, but in this case chose to effectively ignore the tragedy in Starobelsk and shift the blame onto Moscow.

But we were not surprised then, and we are not surprised now. What human compassion can we expect from them when the blood of the children of Starobelsk is on their hands as well?

⚠️ For many years, their countries have been supplying the terrorist Zelensky regime with money, intelligence, weapons and ammunition, encouraging it to commit new crimes against civilians, and then shielding it by portraying it as a victim.

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The UN Secretariat, so prompt in some cases, has unfortunately once again limited itself to general rhetoric and the vaguest possible wording, avoiding a direct assessment of Kiev’s actions. It claims there is no access to the site of the tragedy and no possibility to verify the data.

We have repeatedly stated that UN representatives can visit the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions via Russian territory. Yet UN officials do not make use of these opportunities.

❓ Why does the UN Secretariat so easily find the words when it needs to support the Western version of events, yet struggle so painfully to choose its wording when it must call a Ukrainian strike on children a crime?

Why do some victims deserve immediate compassion, while others do not? Why does the death of minors in one place prompt loud statements and condemnations, while the deaths of children in Starobelsk are met with silence?

☝️ Here is yet another glaring manifestation of the West’s double standards and hypocrisy.

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The events of the past week have clearly shown that neither the leader of the Kiev regime nor his sponsors seek any substantive dialogue with our country on the prospects for a peaceful settlement. On the contrary, they are doing everything to escalate the confrontation.

❗️ Routine calls for an unconditional ceasefire are merely a cover for Kiev to continue its terror.

The so-called leaders of Europe are only encouraging Zelensky’s already reckless and suicidal mindset. The tone of their comments leaves no doubt that they have finally and irreversibly written Ukraine off, once again trying to buy time for their insane preparations for “war with Russia”.

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The Western propaganda machine works day and night for one purpose only – to shift responsibility for the latest actions of “civilised” states in Ukraine onto our country.

Let me say this at once: they will not get away with it. They will inevitably be held accountable for their reckless and predatory actions against both Russia and Ukraine.

👉 It is obvious that without military pressure, no calls for real diplomacy will work. Russia's Armed Forces will continue fulfilling the objectives of the special military operation to denazify and demilitarise Ukraine until the security threats emanating from its territory are fully eliminated.

🎙️ Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s response to a media question concerning the possibility of Moscow appealing to the International Court of Justice over Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia’s refusal to abandon policies that infringe upon the rights of Russians

❓ Question: How would you comment on the possibility of Moscow appealing to the International Court of Justice in response to Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia’s continued refusal to discontinue policies that infringe upon the rights of Russians?

💬 Maria Zakharova: The mandatory pre-litigation phase of the dispute with Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia concerning these countries’ serious violations of the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination is currently approaching completion. The Baltic states’ refusal to engage in negotiations and their unconstructive response to Russia’s legitimate claims leave little alternative but to refer the dispute to the International Court of Justice. We cannot exclude the possibility that such a step may be taken before the end of this year.

In general, the subject matter of our claims against all three Baltic republics is largely the same: systemic discrimination against Russians, the suppression of the Russian language in all spheres of public life, including education, and the glorification of Nazism. At the same time, each state is, of course, accused of its own specific violations.

Given the seriousness of the allegations and the comprehensiveness of the evidence submitted, it is unlikely that the authorities of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia will be able to avoid legal proceedings. Based on the established practice of the International Court of Justice, such proceedings could take several years.