Foreign Minister S.Lavrov’s President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, July 1, 2026

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remarks during talks with President of the International Committee of the Red Cross Mirjana Spoljaric, Moscow, July 1, 2026 Ms Spoljaric, We are delighted to once again welcome you in Moscow. I would like to congratulate you one more time on your election as President of the International Committee of the Red Cross. We have been maintaining regular contacts that go beyond the Foreign Ministry. I know that you have a packed agenda during your stay in the Russian Federation. These contacts enable us to fine-tune our interactions with an organisation that has our respect, and we want it to be even stronger. Of course, we want the ICRC to become stronger while adhering to the principles which have been at the core of its operations from the moment it was created. These principles primarily include independence and impartiality. We appreciate the fact that the committee’s executive team has been committed to asserting these principles for many decades now. This objective has taken on special significance in today’s world considering that our Western partners are not willing to respect the fundamental principles underpinning the ICRC’s operations, which is a huge disappointment. To put it in simple terms, they want to manipulate the committee in the pursuit of their vested political interests. These attempts have been especially apparent in the context of the Ukraine crisis with Western countries doing everything to whitewash the...