(Al Jazeera Media Network) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called the West an “empire of lies” and accused it of adopting a neo-colonial mindset in its overtures to the Global South to win backing for Ukraine in the war.

Speaking after a week of intense global diplomacy at the annual gathering of world leaders at UN headquarters in New York, where Ukraine and its western allies sought to drum up support for Kyiv as it fights against Russia’s invasion, Lavrov said a “global majority” was being duped by the West.

“The U.S. and its subordinated collective continue to fuel conflicts which artificially divide humanity into hostile blocks and hamper the achievement of overall aims,” Lavrov said.

“They are trying to force the world to play according to their own self-centred rules.”

James Bays, Al Jazeera’s diplomatic correspondent, said Lavrov’s speech was part of a “tour around the world of Russia’s views” that contained no real mention of Ukraine and few indications of Moscow’s plan one year into the conflict.

During a news conference following the speech, the foreign minister dismissed a 10-point proposal put forward by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as the latest UN proposals to revive the Black Sea grain initiative.

“It is completely not feasible,” he said of the peace blueprint promoted by Kyiv. “It is not possible to implement this. It’s not realistic and everybody understands this, but at the same time, they say this is the only basis for negotiations.”

He also said the UN proposal would not fly because the West did not deliver on its promises to Moscow, including removing sanctions on a Russian bank and reconnecting it to the global SWIFT system.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/23/empire-of-lies-russias-lavrov-slams-west-in-un-speech