Official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova spoke at the World Youth Festival

Official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova spoke on Tuesday with delegates of the World Youth Festival in Sirius. She assured them that Russia is open to the world and strives for constructiveness and equality, while reproaching the “collective West” for its adherence to completely different principles of building relationships. The young people, most of whom were from Third World countries, greeted Ms. Zakharova and her rhetoric with love and delight.

Maria Zakharova’s meeting with international youth opened with a solemn moment. A delegate from Bulgaria, having asked a formal question about how the diplomat sees a way out of the “lowest point” of relations between the two states, handed Mrs. Zakharova a “special pen” made for the Day of the Liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule (this happened on March 3, 1878 as a result of signing of the Treaty of San Stefano between the Russian and Ottoman Empires). “Politics is one thing, but the love and gratitude of the Bulgarian people is another matter,” said the happy guest in very decent Russian.

The opening served as a clear demonstration of the liberation-anti-colonial discourse set by Maria Zakharova, within which the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spent most of her speech.

According to her, the issue of improving relations between the Russian Federation and Western countries is, oddly enough, not a problem of these relations directly, but a question of “what is happening with the Western countries themselves.” Russia built relations with the world community on the principles of openness and cooperation, and Moscow’s approach was actively appreciated by all its participants, in addition to, in fact, the countries of the “collective West,” the diplomat pointed out: “Hence the conclusion: it is not our fault that these relations are not being built.” Each time, the obstacle to sustainable interaction was the reluctance of the Western powers to build equal relations (“when one respects the second, and the second respects the first”), it followed from the speech of Mrs. Zakharova, and this approach was typical “not only in relation to Russia” (a striking example is the colonial era).

Historically, Russia has resisted the imposition of such a paradigm. Thus, the USSR invested the “moral strength” gained as a result of the Second World War precisely in the anti-colonial struggle, a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recalled: “And political strength, and moral strength, and huge finances, and all the diplomatic work of the Soviet Union at that time, this is 50 -60 years, were concentrated precisely on this task.”

The current historical moment, the diplomat continued, is considered by the “collective West” “as revenge, revenge on us for the fact that we then led the movement of countries that wanted to be free.” “This is a new stage, which is a logical continuation of the unfinished era of the slave trade, the unfinished stage of the anti-colonial struggle,” explained Maria Zakharova, emphasizing that not only Russia, but the whole world is a participant in the confrontation in this context. Thus, it is “not our bilateral relations” that are failing, she concluded: “It is that very ideology, the bacillus, the infection of exclusivity, the dominance of only one point of view, which involves dividing the world, as Josep Borrell, the European Union’s high representative for foreign policy, said, into “beautiful garden” and “wild jungle.”

The audience, more than half represented by countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, greeted Ms. Zakharova’s conclusions with sincere applause.

Inspired by the diplomat’s rhetoric, a representative of Palestine, outraged by the US policy in Gaza, and a delegate from one of the African countries (she complained about the negative information background around her continent, supported in the Western media) put forward their theses, similar in spirit to those expressed above.

Representatives of the PRC also addressed Maria Zakharova with unusually warm smiles (and in Russian): “As a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, you are known to the Chinese people for your direct character and unique diplomatic style. We Chinese love you very much!” “And I am Russian, and I love you very much,” Mrs. Zakharova answered them in one of the dialects of the Celestial Empire.

Showing special respect to the Chinese guests, the diplomat discussed in detail (as part of the answer to the question about the economic relations of the powers against the backdrop of American sanctions) and about the threats to our two states. The main source of these, it followed from her words, is to a large extent the same Washington, which started a trade war against Russia and the whole world and is trying to control “everything related to Chinese development and progress.”

However, the main goal of the United States, oddly enough, is not Russia or China, the Foreign Ministry representative unexpectedly concluded: “I am absolutely sure that the ultimate goal of the United States of America and, by the way, Britain is the European Union.” The EU, according to Ms. Zakharova, suffered significantly as a result of anti-Russian sanctions, unable to withstand “this race”: “But this is the worst secret within the European Union, hidden behind seven seals.”

There was no representative of any EU country ready to evaluate this argument in the audience.

Grigory Leiba, federal territory “Sirius”