Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov Warns of Evils of U.S. Technological Empires
Jan. 18 , 2021 (EIRNS)—Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gave his annual press conference on the results of Russian diplomacy over the past year, today. The Foreign Minister said that big tech’s decision to censor the U.S. President “comes from evil,” reported RIA Novosti, according to Iran’s FARS News Agency today: “Recent events, including those in the United States, [pertain] to a situation when half a dozen people who have created their technological empires do not even want to know what rights they have in their countries. They themselves define their rights on the basis of so-called corporate norms and they don’t care a bit about the constitutions of their nations. We have clearly seen this in the United States, and this, of course, causes serious concern.” Lavrov asserted that such a tendency “comes from evil,” and accused U.S. authorities of failing to deliver on their obligations to provide American citizens with free access to information. If the United States fails in its battle against censorship, it would have very serious ramifications for the entire world, he stated.
TASS quoted him as saying:
“Let’s hope that American society will not let its elites use blatant censorship, flagrant infringement of the constitution and international commitments in its struggle against one another. This is a problem of American society, though. If it fails to cope with this problem, we all should be ready to face the consequences of such a failure of the American state, and these consequences would be very serious for the global arena.”
Lavrov continued that
“everyone understands that, and this is the reason why Europe is drafting some sort of documents on how to begin dialogue after Joe Biden’s inauguration in a bid to anticipate all possible scenarios of further developments.... But I would recommend focusing on how the United States ended up in a situation which risks undermining America’s statehood, if private corporations cannot be dealt with in such a way as to integrate themselves back into government mechanisms and the national constitution at the end of the day.”
On arms control, Lavrov said that Russia anticipates the Biden Administration will make concrete proposals on the extension of the New START Treaty:
“The most important and, probably, top priority area is the absolutely abnormal situation in the sphere of arms control. We have heard about the Biden Administration’s plans to resume dialogue with us on these topics, including plans to try to agree to the extension of the New START before its expiration on February 5. We will be waiting for concrete proposals. Our position is well-known and it is still in force.”
The media also asked him about Russia’s detention of Alexey Navalny who returned to Russia on Jan. 17. He was arrested at the airport in Moscow for having violated the conditions of his suspended sentence in a criminal case. Lavrov remarked: “We saw how they latched onto yesterday’s news of Navalny’s return to Russia.... They are glad because it seems that this makes Western politicians think that in this way, they can distract from the deepest crisis that the liberal model of development finds itself in.”
