Iulian CHIFU // An interview to remember: Sergey Lavrov, the petty meddler, accuses USA for no reason
I was watching on Friday night, at the BBC Hard Talk, an interview with the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov.
It comes after another interview, with Dmitry Peskov, the speaker of the Russian President Vadimir Putin, a day earlier. As I was in Brussels at a high level NATO workshop , the interviews were more shocking through its discrepancy towards the reality and the current situation of the Russian Federation in Crimea, East of Ukraine, and Syria, in regard to the international community, with the UN itself, although he is a permanent member of the Security Council.
I leave aside the interview with Peskov, which was the usual note. I am sick of propagandists and oath defenders for any undone thing of the Russian President and I saw a thousand of them. However, at the intelligence level and knowledge of international interface, a custom, decency, the things that can be done and that cannot, the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov is a master. The same thing and in the relation to media. But his performance was memorable.
Dressed up and with a make up that you could not tell his age, Sergey Lavrov wanted to appear jovial, extremely sure of himself during the whole interview. Although it was a fair-play interview, covering all the actual topics, and the journalist did not spear him at all, Sergey Lavrov wanted to give the impression that he always plays in offence, that he is always in the position to attack the counterpart that he defined for himself, as otherwise in US, the actions of the Americans, the President Obama and his counterpart, John Kerry. This kind of behavior, in a paradoxical way, underlined, the fact that the real situation is different from what he states, Lavrov had moments of absolute awkwardness, through his inadequate tone, unusual for him as a diplomat, and for the gravity of the discussed topics. A general freaking feeling of a character that laughs like a fool in the market when someone tells him that his house is burning!
Sergey Lavrov answered no questions. There was no way to. Any real answer would emphasize the defensive posture ought to be, the explanations that he should provide, the unpleasant answers that would have to give to defend the country and its aggressive military actions. He did not even chose, as Peskov before him, on the eve, to pass some responsibilities to his "fellow military men". No. Lavrov has received all the questions with a superior smile and often inappropriate and responded to all the turning mirror from themselves and pointing to the third party. The third party being the guilty service of USA.
As a banal provincial propagandist, rivaling with boorishness of his ambassador to Bucharest, Kuzmin, Sergey Lavrov answered all the questions that made him responsible for and were accusing Russia on the "us as us, but look at what did the US do". As the cucumber from the Cucurbitaceae family, from the skit played admirably by Florin Piersic, whatever the lesson that he was asked, the student embodied by the great actor was going to the lesson that he knew. So, Lavrov, whatever question was, the answer was inevitable that US did not separate the moderate opposition of Al Nusrat Front, a terrorist organization, with variations of an attack - USA protects Al Nusrat. Asked about the civilian victims of airstrikes, about the slaughter of civilians in Aleppo's hospitals, about the UN and Red Cross humanitarian aid convoy attack, everywhere the answer was the same: US did not separate the moderate opposition of Al Nusrat Front.
The interview reached a high rate of embarrassment when the question of bombing civilians was asked again, Lavrov asked for evidence, and when the evidence was presented, he denied them and said that US coined the term collateral damage! Faced with the fact that US apologize for errors, Lavrov said that he does not have to apologize for. As the US Government is guilty of intentionally killing civilians by the Russians, because they have give a name to the military actions aimed at legitimate targets, but hits accidentally civilians as well! Neither the Malaysia Airlines plane crash over the Donbas had no logic: he did not seen the evidence and the very commission of inquiry, in the final report, reserves the right to bring more evidence (all to condemn Moscow as well, but this was not underlined). In fact, the entire interview took place while the UN and all its components speak about Russian war crimes in Syria, Donbas and shooting down of the plane. Lavrov's reaction proves that the logical and factual arguments have been exhausted and the Russians have left only the propaganda.