In a sign of bettering relations between the USA and Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was invited onto the famous TV program “Face the Nation” on CBS News. Since the first presidency of Vladimir Putin it is nearly unheard of to expose an American audience to the opinions of Moscow. Despite the fact that the host of the program Margaret Brennan was being “snippy” and trying to get sound bites more so than actually have a discussion, we should all be quite excited to actually have the Russian side being heard in the Mainstream Media.

This is was a truly groundbreaking interview and we hope that officials from both sides will be able to speak openly and honestly with the populations of these two great civilizations. This was a major blow to Russophobia, which relies on keeping the Russians distant, alien, and silent in the media. Below is the full interview and key talking points from it.

Key talking points from Mr. Lavrov

-We welcome the dialogue between the US and Iran. We would be certainly ready to help if both parties believe this is going to be useful. And they know that we are ready.

-We continue our contacts with the American Side (https://t.me/MFARussia/24595) on the situation in Ukraine. There are several signs that we are moving in the right direction, first of all, because President Trump is probably the only leader on Earth who recognized the need to address the root causes (https://t.me/MFARussia/24134) of this situation. When he said that it was a huge mistake to pull Ukraine into NATO, and this was a mistake by the Biden administration, and he wants to rectify this.

-We only target military goals or civilian sites used by the military. President Putin expressed this for so many times, and this is not different this time as well. We never consciously target civilian sites, unlike the Zelensky regime.

-The Trump administration is interested in searching for a balance of interest. They sincerely want to understand better the Russian position. And they’re getting this understanding. And we understand better the American position through negotiations and meetings and discussions, which we have with them.

-We are really polite people. And unlike some others, we never discuss in public what is being discussed in negotiations. Otherwise, negotiations are not serious.

-Whenever we discuss Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, anything, American negotiators put on top human rights. They have claims in this regard to China, to us, to anybody. But whenever Europeans and other Western nations speak about Ukraine, nobody can even mumble the words “human rights”.

-We have nothing against American companies, but those companies who decided to leave their business in Russia might find that their place has been already taken by Russian or other foreign investors. And in this case, we would not make any decisions which would discriminate those who came to invest in Russia instead of Americans. If American companies would like to come to a place which is not yet occupied, if they want to propose a project, a new project on top of the previous business ties, of course, we will look into this. And if we find balance of our interests, I think it would be only natural to get into business together.

-We have been promoting for many years in the United Nations a resolution prohibiting putting any nuclear weapons into outer space. The country which is categorically against it is the United States. At least during the Biden administration, this was the case, they were categorically against it. At the same time, the United States promotes an approach according to which they want to prohibit putting conventional weapons in outer space. And they cannot answer the question, “Does this mean that nuclear weapons, they would be planning to move to the orbit?”

-It was the United States which broke the process of strengthening strategic stability. And if the United States is willing to get back to this track, we will see what are the conditions under which this might be possible.