Russian Embassy to the UK

🎙 Highlights from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's statement at the General Debate of the 81st Session of the UN General Assembly (New York, 26 September 2026) • The Western minority, which has dominated for five centuries by exploiting the resources of others, persists in its attempts to retain its privileges and impose its “rules” on everyone else. The West increasingly resorts to the use of brute force, acts unpredictably and recklessly, and jeopardises the lives and well-being of millions – if not billions – of people on our shared planet. • For the sake of the utopian goal of containing Russia, the West has destroyed the European security system with its own hands and nurtured the Russophobic regime in Kiev. Now, realising the futility of their efforts, Europe is doing everything to prevent a peaceful settlement and to derail negotiations – a process many are interested in, including the Trump administration. • The West continues the endless flow of weapons into Ukraine and helps the regime target drones and missiles at civilians and civilian infrastructure. • The Ukrainian regime is openly overriding such cornerstones of the UN Charter as respecting human rights and freedoms for all with no discrimination as to race, gender, language or religion. There is no other country in the world but Ukraine where the law prohibits a language. • It is only possible to secure a lasting peace by ending the dangerous rivalry between the largest global players. We can only achieve this by strictly adhering to the UN Charter and the principle of equal and indivisible security. Let me remind you that this principle means refraining from ensuring the security of one state at the expense of others; that it is unacceptable for any country or a group of countries or an organisation to claim dominance in security. This mainly applies to NATO, which seeks to spread its destructive influence far beyond the geography of its domain. Read in full

☝️ We have noted an article in The i Paper on Kaliningrad, which suggests, among other things, that NATO could blockade the region or “de-recognise Russian sovereignty”. The prospect of a hypothetical strike is also explored in Sky News’ recent mini-series The Wargame. Those advocating plans to blockade or strike Kaliningrad should have no illusions about the consequences. Any British or NATO military action against Russian territory would be met with a response using all means at Russia’s disposal, including nuclear weapons. Russia has repeatedly made clear that it neither seeks confrontation with NATO and Europe nor intends to attack them. But should anyone choose to unleash such a conflict, they must be under no illusion that Russia will respond accordingly.

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🗓 On September 26, the 12th St Petersburg International United Cultures Forum concluded at the State Hermitage Museum. The Forum became a major event dedicated to promoting intercultural dialogue and strengthening understanding between countries and peoples, while preserving their linguistic, cultural and spiritual identities. The Forum brought together 4,500 participants, including 45 official delegations, with representatives from 73 countries. Delegations from more than 10 countries were led by their Ministers of Culture. 💬 The Forum’s central event was an address by President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Culture can build bridges between people. It is a vital and irreplaceable means of communication and dialogue where political and economic ties have been frozen or brought to a halt by disagreements, sanctions and restrictions. Russia has historically developed as a crossroads of peoples, languages and traditions. For us, unity means solidarity built on nurturing the distinct identity and development of every people and ethnic group. Culture plays a key role in this process, just as it does in our complex world, with its conflicts, profound technological and social transformations, and competition between countries. 👉 Read the full transcript of President Putin’s address to the Forum The Forum featured 84 events across ten thematic tracks, covering museums, theatre, music, film, cultural sovereignty, education, artificial intelligence and other subjects. ✍️ Participants signed 33 agreements to develop cooperation in culture, museums, theatre, education and the preservation of cultural heritage. Plans were set in motion to develop a concept for theatre development through 2035 and expand cooperation with professional associations in Vietnam, Arab countries and Iran. Russia also signed a number of bilateral documents with friendly countries. 💬 Russia’s Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova: Once again, our Forum has confirmed its standing as a respected platform for open and free dialogue, bringing together representatives of different countries, peoples and cultures around a common goal: identifying the challenges facing world culture and finding ways to address them. #UnitedCulturesForum

💬 President Vladimir Putin: Many in Europe say that they are expecting an attack by the Russian Federation and so must prepare for hostilities, for a war with Russia. I would like to emphasise once again that we are not preparing for hostilities with Europe. We have no such plans, no reasons and, most importantly, no real motives for aggravating the situation with Europe, regardless of what is being said [...] There is only one explanation for the attempts by certain aggressive circles to aggravate the situation: they want to continue using Ukraine and Ukrainians as cannon fodder and a tool in the fight against Russia, seeking to prevent our further development, to hinder it, to slow down Russia’s advancement. To be able to continue investing in this absolutely aggressive behaviour and to explain to their citizens why they are doing this, they are trying to dupe the citizens of European countries with the idea that Russia is allegedly planning to attack someone. This is complete nonsense. Read in full

🎙 Key takeaways from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks and answers to media questions following the High-Level Week of the UNGA 81st session (New York, 26 September 2026) • The United Nations needs to be adapted to the new reality by reforming the Security Council to include additional representatives from Asia, Africa and Latin America. No additional seats can be provided for Western countries. We cannot allow this because the West is already overrepresented in the UN Security Council. • All damage to commercial navigation is the result of Ukrainian terrorist attacks in both the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. • We have several communication channels with a whole number of EU and NATO countries. If you wish, there are confidential paths for exchanging opinions bilaterally. Certain Western bodies do convey their positions to us. We do not disclose that information, but I can only say that we are always willing to listen. • We maintain a regular dialogue with President Donald Trump’s administration in various formats, which in itself represents a return to normality. After all, if a relationship boils down to issuing propaganda statements every morning condemning Russia and demanding a “strategic defeat” for Russia, that is not diplomacy. • In today’s world, it is impossible to solve all global problems alone, even for a country like the US, and certainly not at the expense of other nations. I am confident that experience will teach our American partners to start thinking in terms of multilateralism. They are not the only ones in the world representing economic and military power, or, more broadly, acting as an independent player on the international stage. • We have no intention of waging a war on Europe. But it is Europe that is preparing for a war with us. They confirm every day that, by at least 2030, they must be ready for war. This stance could become a self-fulfilling prophecy given the enormous sums they are investing in weapons production. Read in full

🎙 Excerpt from Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alimov's speech at the 20th International Forum "Partnership between the State, Business and Civil Society in Ensuring International Information Security" (Moscow, 24 September 2026) 💬 Information and communications technology, while becoming an invaluable support to us, have simultaneously evolved into instruments increasingly exploited by malicious actors. These technologies facilitate and accelerate cyberattacks and intrusions, amplifying the damage inflicted upon states, businesses and ordinary citizens. Certain governments actively enlist criminals, under the guise of so-called “IT armies”, to conduct hybrid operations against other states. At the same time, military and political threats arising from the misuse of information and communications technology, including artificial intelligence, are increasing. This includes cyberattacks, intelligence gathering, espionage, operational planning and targeting. All of this is carried out in close cooperation with the private sector: major developers that present their products to the world as ostensibly secure solutions, in practice act as contractors to military establishments and intelligence services. In essence, we are witnessing a new form of colonialism, in which digital metropolises attack some states while making others dependent on their technologies, embedding themselves within key sectors of client countries and gaining access to sensitive data. As a result, developing states find themselves in an increasingly vulnerable position. We are convinced that the most effective means of making the information space more secure and stable lies in the development of common “rules of the game” applicable to all, capable of regulating the conduct of states and their companies within the digital environment.

🇷🇺🇺🇳 On September 24, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres held a meeting in New York on the sidelines of the High-Level Week of the 81st Session of the UN General Assembly. The Sides discussed current issues relating to the Organisation’s work, focusing on the record of the Portuguese diplomat’s tenure as UN Secretary-General. Sergey Lavrov stressed the importance of carefully calibrated UN reform to adapt the Organisation to the realities of a #MultipolarWorld order, ensure significantly broader representation of nationals of #GlobalMajority countries within the Secretariat, and ensure that UN staff perform their duties impartially and without favouring any side. Russia's Foreign Minister also emphasised the inadmissibility of eroding the Organisation’s intergovernmental character or disrupting the “division of labour” among its principal organs. Sergey Lavrov presented Antonio Guterres with a copy of the report “Heirs of Goebbels: Falsification of the Events in Bucha and Bloody Staged Performances of the Kiev Regime”, prepared by the International Public Tribunal led by its Chairman, member of the Civic Chamber of Russia Maxim Grigoryev. 📄 The report is devoted to exposing the false claims spread by the Kiev regime about the Bucha hoax. The Minister demanded that the UN Secretariat conduct a detailed examination of the facts surrounding the provocation staged by Kiev and its NATO sponsors. #UNGA81

💬 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov: If Europeans had not been cheating but would have forced the Ukrainian opposition to honour the agreement signed in February 2014 under the guarantees of Berlin, Paris and Warsaw, Ukraine would have retained its territorial integrity within the 1991 borders, which Zelensky and his Western patrons dream of [...] Had the 2015 Minsk Agreements, which were reaffirmed in Paris in 2019 when Zelensky was president, were fulfilled in accordance with the requirements of the UN Security Council, Ukraine would have remained within the 1991 borders, with the exception of Crimea, of course [...] [In 2022] after several rounds of negotiations in Belarus and Istanbul, Ukraine came forward by proposing the key settlement principles, and our negotiators accepted them. The main provisions provided for asserting Ukraine’s neutrality, recognising the reality on the ground, while also setting forth collective security guarantees as a reliable safeguard for preventing any future military escalation, provocations or aggressive undertakings. The Ukrainian and Russian delegations initialled the document, but everyone knows how the events unfolded from that point. The then UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, prevented the Ukrainians from entering into a legally binding agreement based on the text as suggested and initialled by Kiev. Instead, he urged Ukraine to fight back. Europe de facto agreed with London’s position. ☝️ Had this initialled agreement been executed as a treaty and honoured, Ukraine would have remained within its 1991 borders, minus Crimea and a part of Donbass. Excerpt from FM Lavrov's remarks at the UNSC meeting on Ukraine (New York, 23 September 2026)

💬 Russia's Permanent Representative to the OSCE Dmitry Polyanskiy: Ever growing terrorist activity of the Kiev regime in the Sea of Azov and in the Black Sea undermines international trade and economic cooperation and impedes sustainable development. At the same time, officials in Kiev not only confirm their involvement in these attacks but also emphasise that they carry them out deliberately to undermine Russia's economic potential. However, the attacks target foreign-flag vessels as well [...] So far, this year has seen a surge in attacks on civilian vessels, with 214 attacks recorded, including seven large-scale attacks on tankers of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium [...] The Kiev regime and its Western sponsors supplying it with weapons so that it commits more crimes bear full responsibility for the armed escalation and the aggravating transport and logistics situation in the Sea of Azov and in the Black Sea. Russia is actively taking response measures to reduce the combat potential of the Kiev regime's formations, including by attacking vessels and destroying the port infrastructure used for military logistics purposes. Read in full

🎶 120 years ago today, Dmitri Shostakovich was born – one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. His 15 symphonies and 15 string quartets became landmarks of modern classical music, and his works continue to be performed around the world. During the Siege of Leningrad, Shostakovich joined a volunteer fire brigade and took turns on the roof of the Leningrad Conservatory, helping protect it from incendiary bombs. A photograph of the composer in his firefighter’s uniform became an iconic image and inspired the cover of TIME magazine in 1942, introducing Shostakovich to millions of readers abroad not only as a composer, but also as a symbol of Leningrad's resistance. At the same time, he was writing his Seventh Symphony, later known as the “Leningrad”. Its performance in the besieged city on 9 August 1942 became a powerful cultural event, with musicians taking part despite the hardships of the blockade. Shostakovich also had a notable connection with Britain: he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1958 and the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Gold Medal in 1966. His music remains a regular presence in British concert halls today.

🇷🇺🇺🇸 On September 23, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a meeting in New York on the sidelines of the High-Level Week of the 81st Session of the UN General Assembly. They held an in-depth exchange of views on a wide range of bilateral and international issues, building on recent contacts at the highest level. Discussing the Ukraine conflict resolution, Russia’s Foreign Minister drew attention to the close coordination between the Kiev regime and its European sponsors. They examined in detail Kiev’s destructive actions, including deliberate strikes against civilians and cross-border infrastructure, which destabilise global energy markets. The Russian Side reaffirmed its unconditional commitment to achieving the goals of the special military operation, including through a political and diplomatic settlement of the conflict that addresses its root causes. International and regional issues discussed included the situation in the Middle East, the South Caucasus, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as efforts to counter illegitimate practices by certain multilateral institutions in the field of international law. They also reviewed preparations for the #G20 events scheduled before the end of the year. The Russian Side also stressed the need to restore bilateral relations to a sound footing as soon as possible, in accordance with the agreements reached by the Presidents of Russia and the United States. This is particularly relevant as discussions intensify on prospects for economic cooperation, cultural and humanitarian exchanges, easier travel between the two countries, and closer ties between their societies and citizens. Naturally, this requires an honest dialogue on removing “irritants” and restoring normal working conditions for both countries’ diplomatic missions, including the return of Russian property in the US that has effectively been confiscated. 🤝 The Sides agreed to maintain contacts on all these issues through their Foreign Ministries. #RussiaUS

💬 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov: During their latest visit to Moscow, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner confirmed that Washington remains interested in helping to bring about a settlement of the Ukraine conflict. As US President Donald Trump said in August 2025 (following the summit in Anchorage), everyone agrees that the aim should not be some kind of ceasefire agreement, but a lasting peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine that will put a firm end to the war. Russia is ready for negotiations aimed at achieving precisely such a lasting and just peace. However, having learned from bitter experience, we will not pause the special military operation while negotiations are under way, in any form. This is precisely what Europe wants – with the same straightforward aim of gaining a respite and replenishing the depleted military arsenals of the Kiev regime.

🗳 18-20 сентября в России состоялись выборы депутатов Государственной Думы. Вчера для российских граждан был открыт избирательный участок в Посольстве России в Лондоне. Делимся видео с моментами голосования и атмосферой этого дня. Спасибо каждому, кто нашёл возможность прийти и принять участие в выборах. #Выборы2026

🗳️ Russia’s parliamentary elections took place on 18–20 September. Yesterday, polling station No. 8061 opened at the Russian Embassy in London for Russian citizens living or temporarily staying in the United Kingdom. Here’s a time-lapse of voting day and our electoral commission at work.

🎙 Комментарий Посольства в связи с проведением выборов депутатов Государственной Думы на территории Соединенного Королевства 🗓 20 сентября в Посольстве России в Лондоне был открыт избирательный участок № 8061. Наши граждане, которые проживают или находятся временно в Великобритании, получили возможность проголосовать на выборах депутатов Государственной Думы Федерального Собрания Российской Федерации девятого созыва. Волеизъявление было организовано в соответствии с российским законодательством и прошло без происшествий. Общественный порядок возле здания дипмиссии обеспечивали британские правоохранительные органы. За ходом голосования следили наблюдатели от Общественной палаты России и Межпарламентской ассамблеи СНГ. Замечаний у них не было. Со стороны избирателей жалоб также не поступило. Всего своим конституционным правом воспользовались более 1200 граждан России. #Выборы2026

На избирательном участке в Посольстве России в Великобритании проголосовало 1️⃣2️⃣2️⃣2️⃣ гражданина России. Благодарим всех, кто принял участие в сегодняшнем голосовании на выборах депутатов Государственной Думы! #Выборы2026

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🗳️ Voting has concluded at the Russian Embassy in London in the elections to the State Duma, the lower house of Russia's Parliament. The polling station is now closed, and the count is under way. In the meantime, here's a glimpse of how the day unfolded. Take a look at photos from the embassy's polling station, capturing the atmosphere of the day and Russian citizens casting their votes here in the British capital.

🇷🇺 В Посольстве России в Лондоне завершилось голосование на выборах депутатов Государственной Думы Избирательный участок № 8061 официально закрыт. Сейчас начинается подсчёт голосов. Благодарим всех наших граждан, которые пришли сегодня в Посольство и сделали свой выбор. #Выборы2026

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🗳 Остаётся меньше часа до окончания голосования на избирательном участке, открытом в Посольстве России в Лондоне. Избиратели продолжают приходить и принимать участие в выборах депутатов Государственной Думы. Делимся кадрами с участка – атмосферой сегодняшнего дня и тем, как проходит волеизъявление наших граждан в британской столице. #Выборы2026

🗳 По состоянию на 16:00 на избирательном участке в Посольстве России в Лондоне проголосовало около одной тысячи российских граждан 💬 Временный поверенный в делах России в Великобритании Василий Цыганов: [По состоянию на 16:00 по Лондону] проголосовало около одной тысячи избирателей. Никаких нарушений пока не замечено. Наблюдатели претензий не предъявляют. Со стороны избирателей жалоб не поступало. Рядом со зданием Посольства была небольшая манифестация. Однако это никак не повлияло на ход голосования. Всё проходит нормально. Без инцидентов. #Выборы2026