Russia will emerge stronger after Wagner mutiny – foreign minister Lavrov

30 Jun 2023

The West need not worry about stability in the world’s biggest nuclear power, said Sergei Lavrov, who also took a swipe at the adequacy of many Western leaders and swatted aside Ukraine’s claims Russia was planning a ‘provocation’ involving the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked the army and security forces this week for averting what he said could have been a civil war, and has compared the mutiny led by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin to the chaos that plunged Russia into revolution in 1917.

Asked by Reuters if Russia was stable and if he could give assurances to the world that Russia was not slipping into turmoil, Lavrov said Moscow was not obliged to explain anything or give any assurances to anyone.

“If anyone in the West has any doubts, then that’s your problem,” Lavrov said at a news conference in Moscow. “Thank you for your concerns about our national interests, but there is no need.

“Russia has always emerged more resilient and stronger after any difficulties – and it is hard to call it anything more than difficulties,” he added. “Moreover, we already feel that the process has started.”

The foreign minister also said Moscow had doubts about the adequacy of many Western leaders.

It is a schizophrenic situation: they say everything will end with talks but first Russia must be defeated.

Since a deal was struck on Saturday to end the mutiny, the Kremlin has sought to project calm, with the 70-year-old Putin discussing tourism development, meeting crowds in Dagestan and discussing ideas for economic development.

Many questions remain though. Prigozhin has not been seen in public since Saturday evening. Two senior Russian generals involved in the war in Ukraine have not been seen for days either.

Nuclear risk

Asked about the prospects for peace in Ukraine, Lavrov said he felt the West wanted to temporarily freeze the conflict to allow it to build up Ukraine’s military.

“It is a schizophrenic situation: they say everything will end with talks but first Russia must be defeated,” he said.

A majority of the world does not want to live according to Western rules.

Lavrov, who is 73 and has served as Putin’s foreign minister since 2004, dismissed Ukrainian statements that Russia was planning some sort of “provocation” involving the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which Russian-forces control, as “pure lies”.

“They say that we will blow ourselves up at a nuclear facility – well, is it necessary to comment on it? It’s just pure lies,” Lavrov said, adding that Ukraine had confected other such “tragedies” and was “playing with fire”.

Read more in Daily Maverick: ‘You cannot remain neutral’ — Russian ambassador says SA must take a stance on war in Europe

Lavrov said he had repeatedly reminded United Nations secretary-general António Guterres about establishing the facts about what happened at Bucha, where Ukraine says Russia committed large-scale atrocities last year.

Russian forces, he said, had left Bucha three days before the bodies were found on Bucha’s main street. Russia wants the names of those found dead, he said.

Read Daily Maverick’s Ukraine Crisis archives here

Lavrov casts the war in Ukraine as a watershed moment which marks the decline of the West’s post-Soviet dominance over world affairs just as China rises.

“A majority of the world does not want to live according to Western rules,” Lavrov said.

He added that the West should stop trying to pressure African and Latin American countries over cutting ties with Russia due to the war in Ukraine.

Lavrov called for reform of the UN Security Council, where he said the West was overrepresented, to give more representation to Asian, African and Latin American countries. Reuters/DM

By Guy Faulconbridge

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Angus MacSwan)

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