Lavrov turned his U.N. appearances into a propaganda coup to deflect from Russian atrocities in Ukraine.
Using a visit to the U.N. in New York this week as his platform, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov sought to convince the world that the West’s “golden billion” is an arrogant bloc that seeks to subjugate the rest of the world’s seven billion people, reprising a theory recently pushed by Vladimir Putin to justify Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.
He also argued during a lengthy press conference yesterday that Western leaders are inviting the start of a third world war.
Russia has taken the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council in April, a largely symbolic post that nonetheless comes with some agenda-setting responsibilities. Ukraine has argued that Russia’s continued leadership role at the U.N. undermines the global institution and that Moscow should not continue to have a seat on the Security Council in light of the invasion.
Lavrov turned his U.N. appearances into a propaganda coup, in a bid to deflect from Russian atrocities in Ukraine, including the forced deportation of Ukrainian children, and to set developing countries against the U.S. and its allies.
During a U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday, Lavrov first brought up the “golden billion” theory, which is a rhetorical tactic that seeks to split off the U.S. and its partners from developing countries. The meeting was on the topic of “effective multilateralism,” a concept that Russia, China, and other authoritarian regimes lean on to counteract criticism of their human rights abuses and other misconduct.
“Washington and the rest of the obeisant West is using these rules as needed to justify illegitimate steps against the countries that build their policies in accordance with international law and refuse to follow the ‘golden billion’s’ self-serving interests,” he said. “Those who disagree are blacklisted based on the precept that ‘he who is not with us is against us.'”
The “golden billion” theory has been traced back to the 1990s when it originated in a conspiracy theory-laden book that described a concerted plot by Western elites to hoard all of the world’s resources amid pending ecological catastrophe. Putin revived a cursory version of it geared toward stoking global resentment of the West this summer, when he said, “The model of total domination of the so-called golden billion is unfair. Why should this golden billion of all the population on the globe dominate over everyone and impose its own rules of behavior?”
The U.S., U.N. secretary general, and other countries, like Ecuador, criticized Russia’s military aggression, human rights abuses, and hostage-taking throughout the meeting. The U.S. envoy to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield, used her speech to call attention to the plight of Paul Whelan, a marine jailed by the Russian authorities on espionage charges.
“I want to direct your attention to the gallery, where today, we are joined by Paul’s sister, Elizabeth, and I want Minister Lavrov to look into her eyes and see her suffering,” she said. “I want you to see what it’s like to miss your brother for four years, to know he is locked up, in a Russian penal colony, simply because you want to use him for your own means.” Thomas-Greenfield also called on Russia to release Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter whom Russia arrested on espionage charges this month.
Unsurprisingly, Lavrov staunchly defended the arrests during a wide-ranging press conference at the U.N. yesterday afternoon, saying that journalists are as capable as anyone else of committing crimes by receiving Russian state secrets — and that the U.S. engages in the very activity of which it accused Russia. He cited the cases of 60 Russians “who are servicing sentences here, and in most cases, the accusations are dubious.”
Throughout the presser, Lavrov also blamed the West for the current unrest in Sudan (which he said was provoked by Washington’s support for the country’s partition in 2011), forcing Russia to invade Ukraine by expanding NATO, and for making a third world war more likely.
He also accused the U.S. of violating its First Amendment by declining to approve visas for Russian state media organs to accompany Lavrov on his trip to New York. On the latter point, he also made a quip about former Fox host Tucker Carlson’s abrupt departure from the network: “It’s curious news. What this is related to one can only guess, but clearly, the wealth of views in the American information space has suffered as a result.”
Lavrov expanded on his previous remarks about the “golden billion” from the previous day, making a hard sell to developing countries that have either stayed on the sidelines of the global response to Ukraine or stood with Russia.
“On the billion I mentioned yesterday, of course, this is arrogant, what is inscribed in the resolutions of NATO and the European Union is pure arrogance. These are all the people who say black lives matter,” Lavrov said.
Later, as he wrapped up the press conference, he referred to the billion once more, adding: “Placing one above others is also wrong, no matter what traditions of aristocracy of lords and other high titles this might be justified by. We all live on the same planet.”