The Russian foreign minister spoke at length on pressing foreign policy issues

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has given a wide-ranging 90-minute interview to Sputnik, Moscow Speaks, and Komsomolskaya Pravda. The conversation centered on the Ukraine conflict, talks with Kiev in the spring of 2022, and tensions between Iran and Israel.

Ukraine is untrustworthy

Russia has no intention of ceasing hostilities with Ukraine even if the two countries engage in peace talks, as Kiev has proven to be untrustworthy, Lavrov said.

He stressed that while Moscow is ready to negotiate, it will not allow the situation of spring 2022 to be repeated, when both sides appeared to make progress during talks in Istanbul, with Russian forces withdrawing from the outskirts of Kiev as a goodwill gesture.

However, Moscow later accused Ukraine of backtracking on the progress achieved in Türkiye, saying it lost trust in Kiev’s negotiators. Russia said the talks collapsed after then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson advised Ukraine to keep fighting.

Security guarantees for Kiev

During the Istanbul talks, Russia and Ukraine discussed “very serious security guarantees” for Kiev which did not apply, however, to Donbass and the Crimean Peninsula, Lavrov said.

According to the foreign minister, another provision stipulated that Ukraine would not host any foreign military bases, while setting limits on how many weapons and troops Kiev could have. “It also said that Ukraine would not hold military drills with the participation of third countries,” he added, noting that this rule could be waived in specific cases if the guarantors of the treaty – Russia and China – had no objections.

Read more No ceasefire with Ukraine even if talks start – Lavrov

Kiev also put forward a proposal whereby it would commit to putting an end to discrimination against the nation’s minorities – mostly Russians – and stop supporting neo-Nazi movements, according to Lavrov.

However, when the sides were close to signing the treaty, Ukrainian negotiators attempted to dilute the ban on foreign military drills, indicating to Russia that they had been forbidden to make these concessions or had been acting in bad faith all along, Lavrov said.

Future of peace talks

Russia has always “preferred talks to fighting and wars,” Lavrov said. However, he dismissed out of hand Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s peace formula demanding that Moscow withdraw all its troops from territory Kiev claims as its own.

Read more NATO ‘one step away’ from sending troops to Ukraine – Orban

Lavrov also insisted that Switzerland is not fit to host a Ukraine peace summit, arguing that it has abandoned its neutral status and has become an “openly hostile state” to Russia.

Middle East mediation

Russia is actively working to defuse the latest stand-off between Iran and Israel after Tehran launched a retaliatory strike against the Jewish state in response to what it claimed was an attack by Israel on its consulate in Syria, Lavrov stated.

The foreign minister noted that Russian diplomats are engaged in talks with Iran and Israel.

Read more Israeli strike targeted Iranian airbase – NYT

“We clearly recorded and conveyed to the Israelis that Iran does not want an escalation,” Lavrov stressed, arguing that Tehran had no choice but to respond to a “brazen violation of international law.”

The West’s intimidation tactics

EU leaders are pushing the narrative about ‘the Russian threat’ because “they desperately need to ‘wheedle’ money out of their lawmakers to continue the war,” Lavrov said, explaining that many EU politicians have invested too much political capital in this narrative, as well as their support for Ukraine, and “would simply be finished” if they changed course now.

New Delhi’s geopolitical power has become important factor for Indian voters in the ongoing elections

India’s international standing will inform many of India’s voters in the coming weeks, as they now want to see their country compete with the likes of the US and China on the global stage, Sreeram Chaulia, professor and dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs at OP Jindal Global University, told RT in New Delhi.

The first of the seven phases of the election, with almost 970 million Indians eligible to their ballots, kicked off on Friday.

Commenting on the beginning of polling in the country’s parliamentary election, which runs until June 1, the professor explained that India’s emerging middle class will take note of the country’s international status when they head out to cast their votes.

Younger and first-time voters and the urban middle class want to see India equal to China and the US as a “great power in the world,” he remarked. “For a lot of them, having a strong and stable government through the elections is the means to achieve that desired dream or outcome,” he explained.

In this election cycle, 18.2 million Indians will vote for the first time.

Read more India votes: How 970 million people are deciding on who the leader of world’s new powerhouse will be

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a goal to turn India into a fully developed nation and a “leading power in the world” by 2047. This will be taken into account when votes are cast, Chaulia noted. He added that prestige, image, and India’s desire to prove its merit have all become a part of the electorate’s calculus.

Last year, 23 countries surveyed by the Wahington-based Pew Research Centre reported a relatively favorable view of India. A median of 46% say they have a favorable view of it, compared with a median of 34% with an unfavorable view. The Modi-led government has set a target of making India the world’s third-largest economy and touch $7 trillion GDP by the end of the decade, after the US and China.

According to Chaulia, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fronted by Modi has positioned itself strongly with claims of having increased India’s prestige on the world stage. This message according to experts, is resonating with a large number of voters.

“International issues, and India’s position on global issues, is going to be scrutinized by the urban middle-class youth voters,” the academic predicted. “A lot of people are going to want a strong state, a stable government, and continuity, so that India’s upward march in the world can continue without any interruption.”

He also noted that India is “ much more united” than critics try to present it. “There is this whole narrative that India is divided, polarized; Western liberal news media keeps on harping on that. But if you see the reality, it is quite different. I think the country is getting more unified and mobilized; there is more nationalistic consciousness. People want to be seen as Indian first, and then only the language or religion they belong to.”

READ MORE: Who is Narendra Modi, the Indian strongman seeking a third term in the 2024 polls?

Modi’s BJP, which won 303 Lower House seats in the last election, is eyeing an even bigger haul of 370 seats this time around. However, an alliance of a dozen opposition parties, led by India’s oldest party, [Indian National] Congress, which ruled the country for several decades, stands in its way.

The outcome of this election, which will be known on June 4, will be observed closely not only in India but overseas, Chaulia suggested, “because India is a rising power, anything big that happens in this country is naturally of global consequence.”

Describing the ongoing electoral process as “humongous,” he remarked that he expects this massive exercise in democracy will prove “India’s mettle to the world.”

Finland’s prime minister claimed that Moscow has used asylum-seekers from the Middle East against the EU

Russia has engineered the influx of migrants from third countries in order to undermine the EU, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said on Friday. He stressed the need to strengthen the border with Russia, which has been closed for several months.

Petteri made his comments during a visit to Finland’s eastern border at Imatra together with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

“We have to find common solutions to stop this phenomenon when Russia has used illegal immigrants against us. We are preparing our own legislation but we also need EU-level measures,” Orpo told reporters. He previously said that the threat from the situation at the border was “evident,” and announced that the government was working on a deportation law.

During a joint press conference, von der Leyen claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin “has set his sights on Finland” because of the Nordic country’s support for Ukraine and its recent accession to NATO. “Russia’s hybrid attacks are not just about Finland’s security. This is about the security of the entire EU,” she wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Read more EU member rebukes West over ‘belligerent’ Russia talk

Finland shut down the border with Russia in December and has since extended the closure indefinitely. The Finnish authorities cited a spike in illegal crossings, as more than 1,200 migrants from 29 different countries have applied for asylum since August, according to official statistics. Most of them came from Syria, Somalia and other Middle Eastern and African states.

Russia has denied weaponizing migration, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accusing Helsinki of refusing cooperation between the countries’ border agencies.

The historically warm relations between the neighbors became severely strained after Finland, together with many Western states, imposed sanctions on Russia and began supplying Kiev with weapons. In a March interview with the Russian media, Putin blamed the West for the breakdown of previously “ideal relations” between Moscow and Helsinki.

Last year, Finland abandoned its long-standing policy of nonalignment in favor of joining the US-led military bloc, whose expansion eastwards Russia sees as a threat to its security.

Itamar Ben-Gvir seemed to mock the strike against the Islamic Republic

One of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s key allies has been accused of damaging Israel with just one word, after making a social media post about the alleged strike on an Iranian airfield.

Iran has brushed off reports of explosions in the skies over Isfahan on Friday, while West Jerusalem declined to comment. Both countries thus seemed to have the perfect excuse not to escalate their conflict any further, when Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir chimed in.

“Lame,” he posted on X (formerly Twitter) in Hebrew, suggesting not only that Israel was behind the strike but that it had been ineffective.

“Never before has a minister done such heavy damage to the country’s security, its image, and its international status,” responded Opposition Leader Yair Lapid. “In an unforgivable tweet of one word, Ben Gvir managed to sneer and shame Israel from Tehran to Washington.”

Channel 12 quoted unnamed government officials close to Netanyahu as calling Ben-Gvir “childish and irrelevant to any discussion,” but also accusing him of damaging Israel’s national security.

Read more Israeli strike targeted Iranian airbase – NYT

“He may as well be working for the enemy,” wrote podcaster Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, who pointed out that Iranian media have been citing Ben-Gvir’s tweet to mock Israel.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency had indeed quoted the minister’s social media post, noting that “even Israeli officials are laughing at them.”

Israel had vowed to “respond” to last Saturday’s drone and missile strikes by Iran, itself reprisal for the April 1 bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria that killed several senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force.

Iran acknowledged on Friday that its air defenses were activated in response to a “suspicious object,” while the country’s media reported that three small drones were shot down and that there was no damage on the ground.

Israel does not typically confirm or deny attacks on foreign soil. West Jerusalem, however, repeatedly promised a retaliation against Iran, which they accuse of masterminding the October 7 Hamas attack on Israeli cities.

Karl-Erivan Haub, former head of retail chain, might have faked his own death to escape to Russia, broadcaster RTL claims

Karl-Erivan Haub, the former head of a German retail giant Tengelmann Group, disappeared at an Alpine ski resort six years ago. Now, German broadcaster RTL claims that the businessman, who had long been declared dead, could be alive and kicking, and may have secretly worked for Russia.

Haub was last seen in April 2018 in Zermatt, Switzerland, where he was preparing for a ski race. He vanished without a trace after taking a ski lift up a mountain alone. A six-day search operation involving five helicopters and several specialized rescue teams yielded no results. The then-58-year-old’s body has not been found.

The businessman and married father of two was officially pronounced dead by a Cologne court three years later, in 2021, after his younger brother, Christian, who took over his business empire, swore under oath that he had seen no indications that his relative could still be alive.

Read more Ukrainian children ‘kidnapped’ by Moscow found in Germany

Now, Liv von Boetticher, an RTL journalist, claims that Karl-Ervian Haub may still be alive. Evidence the reporter claims to have collected over a three-year investigation “demonstrates convincingly” that the businessman could have “deliberately staged his disappearance” and that at least some members of his family were well aware of that. The broadcaster also released a series of podcasts detailing von Boetticher’s investigation.

The reporter claimed in Stern magazine that Christian had initiated an internal Tengelmann Group investigation after his brother’s disappearance and, later, had also hired several private investigative companies, including ones based in Russia. The journalist also stated that she’d personally seen photos of the businessman, taken in Moscow in February 2021 by some of the private investigators hired by his brother.

”No evidence” of an accident was found at the site in Switzerland of Haub’s now-alleged disappearance, von Boetticher told German broadcaster n-tv, adding that the track had instead “led to Russia.” According to the journalist, the businessman had talked extensively to a Russian woman identified as Veronika Ermilova, before vanishing without a trace. Haub had reportedly called her phone more than a dozen times in three days before going missing. Von Boetticher claimed the woman was his “mistress” and was linked to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).

Read more Germany arrests alleged saboteurs ‘working for Russia’

According to the reporter, the two were also frequently “in the same places at the same time” over a number of years. In 2008, they were both in Moscow and Sochi within a few days. In 2009, they traveled from Moscow to St. Petersburg on the same train. They also made simultaneous short trips to the same destinations in 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015 and 2017, von Boetticher discovered.

The journalist claimed further that the German billionaire had other connections in Russia, including banker Andrey Suzdaltsev and Russian-American businessman Sergey Grishin. The latter had previously purported to have been “robbing” the Russian banking system in the 1990s.

Von Boetticher told Die Welt last year that Haub “could have worked as a kind of agent of influence for Russia in Germany,” adding that she also was in the FSB’s crosshairs, because of her investigation.

Read more German military employee accused of spying for Moscow

In 2023, RTL journalists filed a complaint with the Cologne Prosecutor’s Office, accusing Haub’s brother Christian of having made false statements before the court. German law enforcement officials initially refused to open an investigation but changed their stance after the reporters approached the Prosecutor General’s Office, which ordered that a probe be launched.

Earlier this month, the Prosecutor’s Office confirmed to news agency dpa that proceedings had been initiated against Christian Haub for allegedly lying to the court. Law enforcement officials specifically stated that they had no reason to review a court decision, under which Karl-Erivan Haub was declared dead.

Russian officials have not commented on the situation. Veronika Ermilova, who was contacted by the Russian media, denounced the RTL report as an “unverified fake.” She said she was “not living with a billionaire” and denied any connections to any security services.

Ermilova said she had previously worked for a St Petersburg-based event agency that had dealings with Haub. A lawyer for Christian Haub also told journalists that there was “no truth” in accusations against his client, adding that they were based on “incorrect information.”

RT could not independently verify von Boetticher’s claims.

Italian police worry about radicalization among Muslims in Rome and elsewhere

Italian security services are monitoring 53 “unofficial” Muslim prayer sites in Rome, concerned about radicalization and terrorism, according to a news report.

Improvised prayer spaces have proliferated as the number of Muslim immigrants in the Italian capital grew, opening up in warehouses, garages, apartments and basements. The authorities tolerate them, even though some are technically illegal.

“These hidden places of worship are where radicalization lurks and where, camouflaged among the faithful, those lone wolves who have too often become martyrs of the holy war hide,” the newspaper ll Tempo noted on Friday.

The number of underground mosques under surveillance has nearly doubled from 30 a decade ago, the newspaper noted, citing a report by the Italian interior ministry.

The total number of unregistered places of worship may be over 100, according to the outlet, which described Rome as “increasingly the capital of Islam.”

Read more ‘Islamic world will celebrate the destruction of Israel’: Is war inevitable between Tehran and West Jerusalem?

The situation does not appear to be limited to Rome. Undercover journalists from the news program Fuori dal Coro recently visited some of the underground mosques in Milan, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, producing a documentary titled “Immigrants and Violence, The Muslims Who Hate Italy.”

One of the men, described as a “radical Islamist,” said it was written in the Quran that the Muslims will “kick out the Jews.” He also believed that Muslims would soon conquer the West, starting with Italy because it “has a good heart” and is “very close to Islam.”

“Just look at the churches, a few elderly people, five here, five there,” the man told reporters.

The native-born population of Italy has been getting older – in 2023, the median age was 47.7 – and the country’s total fertility rate was just 1.3. Meanwhile, the country has been one of the major points of entry for immigrants headed to the EU from Africa and Asia, many from Muslim-majority countries.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni campaigned on a promise of cracking down on migration, but has since fully embraced the EU policy that effectively encourages asylum-seekers.

Earlier this month, Italian police detained a suspected member of Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K or ISPK) terrorist group on his way from the Netherlands. Ilkhomi Sayrakhmonzoda, a national of Tajikistan, was wanted by Interpol for suspected involvement in the planning of terrorist attacks in the EU.

ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for last month’s terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall concert venue outside Moscow. Nationals of Tajikistan made up most of the suspects arrested by the Russian authorities, who are also investigating Ukraine’s potential involvement.

Mike Johnson reverted to Republican orthodoxy as he vowed to get weapons to Ukraine as a matter of “critical” importance

In a dramatic break from his party’s hardline conservative base, US House Speaker MIke Johnson this week praised the country’s deep state, named Russia, China, and Iran as an “axis of evil,” and vowed to put his job on the line to funnel more than $60 billion to Kiev.

For months, Johnson has resisted bringing a $95 billion foreign aid bill to a vote, arguing that neither he nor his fellow Republicans could support such a bill – which would give $14 billion in military aid to Israel and $60 billion to Ukraine – without it being tied to an overhaul of US border security.

However, after a series of recent meetings with US intelligence chiefs, Johnson has changed his tune.

“This is a critical time right now, a critical time on the world stage,” Johnson told reporters on Wednesday. “I think providing lethal aid to Ukraine right now is critically important. I really do. I really do believe the intel and the briefings that we’ve gotten.”

Read more US Congress greenlights vote on Ukraine funding

“I believe [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] and [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil,” he continued. “I think they’re in coordination on this. I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed.”

Johnson’s comments represented a break with the Republican Party’s pro-Trump wing. These supporters of the former president – most prominent among them Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz – view the country’s intelligence agencies as arms of the anti-Trump “deep state,” and have called for the flow of money to Kiev to be halted.

“Fighting a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, which is a non-NATO member nation, is not protecting America’s national security interests, it doesn’t protect the United States of America, as a matter of fact, it pushes us closer and closer to world war three,” Greene told journalist Tucker Carlson earlier this month.

Read more Fund Ukraine? Go fight there, US congresswoman says

Johnson’s reference to an “axis of evil,” however, invokes the more interventionist GOP of the past. Coined by speechwriter David Frum, the phrase was first used by George W. Bush to refer to Iran, Iraq, and North Korea in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton later added Cuba, Libya and Syria to the list.

Despite resistance from some of its Republican members, the House Rules Committee agreed on Thursday to split the foreign aid bill into three separate bills – one each for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. The house voted in favor of this move on Friday, leaving Johnson free to schedule a vote on each bill for Saturday, even as Greene filed a motion to remove him from the speakership.

Johnson said on Wednesday that he anticipated such a move, telling reporters that he was willing to “take personal risk” to pass the bills.

Seizure of immobilized reserves could undermine global financial system, according to the International Monetary Fund

Any steps towards seizing Russia’s frozen reserves should be backed by legal support, so as to avoid the risk of undermining the global financial system, Alfred Kammer, Director of the IMF European Department, has said.

The EU and other G7 nations have blocked an estimated $300 billion in assets belonging to the Russian central bank since the start of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Of that amount, €196.6 billion ($211 billion) is being held by the Belgium-based clearinghouse Euroclear. Since last year those funds accumulated nearly €4.4 billion in interest.

“With regard to the seizure of Russia’s assets … our view is that is something for the relevant jurisdictions and courts to determine and to decide,” Kammer told a press briefing on Friday, reiterating the IMF’s previous statements on the matter.

“From our side, what is important is that whatever action is taken, that the implications of the functioning of the international monetary system are being taken into account,” he said.

Kammer recalled IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva’s words, that “one needs to be wary of unintended consequences” of such actions.

“And again, this is the issue of a multilateral rules-based system and a well-functioning international monetary and financial system, which we all should be respectful for, because it delivered … prosperity over last decades,” Kammer concluded.

Read more Russian money ‘doesn’t belong to anyone’ – Germany’s Scholz

The IMF has previously cautioned that Western plans to seize frozen Russian assets could pose a threat to the global monetary system and entail unforeseen risks.

Some Western officials have been pushing for the outright seizure of the Russian funds and for transferring proceeds to Ukraine, or at least using the interest generated by the assets.

While Kiev’s Western backers generally agree that the frozen assets should be used to aid Ukraine, they are at odds about whether an outright seizure would be legal. The US and UK support the direct expropriation of the funds, but some EU member states, France and Germany in particular, warn the move would erode trust in the European financial system.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, last month proposed using the profits generated by Russia’s frozen central bank reserves to support Ukraine militarily.

Moscow reacted to the diplomat’s proposal by warning that such a move would lead to disastrous consequences. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that all EU nations and officials that back Borrell’s plan would be subject to “legal prosecution for many decades to come.”

Russia has repeatedly said that any actions taken against its assets would amount to “theft,” stressing that seizing the funds or any similar move would violate international law and undermine Western currencies, the global financial system, and the world economy.

With help from the Democrats, the Republican speaker is set to put the $60 billion bill to a vote

The US House of Representatives introduced a rule on Friday that would allow the vote for a $95 billion foreign aid bill, including $60 billion earmarked for the government in Kiev.

Requested by President Joe Biden last October, the funding proposal has languished in the House for months due to objections from a faction of the Republican majority. Friday saw 165 Democrats and only 151 Republicans vote in favor of the rule change, fueling fury against Speaker Mike Johnson.

According to the Washington Post, the issue of Ukraine funding has “deeply divided a dysfunctional” Republican Party.

Congressman Michael Burgess of Texas, who chairs the Rules Committee, said he regretted not having border security in the package of bills but that “the requirement for America to assert itself as the leader of the free world is not optional, it’s not a requirement we can put on pause.”

His party colleague, Dan Bishop of North Carolina, fumed that the Republican leadership is “fighting tooth and nail to pass Democrat, America Last priorities.”

I voted ‘NO’ on the rule to give more aid to Ukraine.

Washington needs to stop shoveling money to Ukraine while our own borders are wide open. pic.twitter.com/DfPWKi9183

— Rep. Andy Ogles (@RepOgles) April 19, 2024

“Washington needs to stop shoveling money to Ukraine while our own borders are wide open,” complained Congressman Andy Ogles, a Tennessee Republican.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has filed a motion to oust Speaker Mike Johnson over the rule change. It has been endorsed by Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Paul Gosar of Arizona.

Read more Ukraine could be defeated this year – CIA chief

Johnson became speaker last October after the House Freedom Caucus, the same group now opposed to Ukraine funding, ousted Kevin McCarthy over a secret deal with Democrats to fund Kiev.

The Louisiana Republican plans to put the Ukraine funding bill up for a vote on Saturday. If adopted, it would go back to the Senate for approval before it can be signed into effect by Biden.

While some of the $60 billion would go to pay the salaries of Ukrainian government officials, much would end up in the pockets of US weapons manufacturers. About 20% of the funding would be restructured as a loan, but with the provision that Biden can write it off after November 15.