Russia’s New Foreign Policy to Focus on Ending Western ‘Monopoly’

This handout photograph taken and released on February 10, 2023 by the Russian Foreign Ministry shows Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov delivering a speech during the celebration of the Diplomats' Day in Moscow. (Handout / Russian Foreign Ministry / AFP)
This handout photograph taken and released on February 10, 2023 by the Russian Foreign Ministry shows Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov delivering a speech during the celebration of the Diplomats' Day in Moscow. (Handout / Russian Foreign Ministry / AFP)
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Russia’s New Foreign Policy to Focus on Ending Western ‘Monopoly’

This handout photograph taken and released on February 10, 2023 by the Russian Foreign Ministry shows Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov delivering a speech during the celebration of the Diplomats' Day in Moscow. (Handout / Russian Foreign Ministry / AFP)
This handout photograph taken and released on February 10, 2023 by the Russian Foreign Ministry shows Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov delivering a speech during the celebration of the Diplomats' Day in Moscow. (Handout / Russian Foreign Ministry / AFP)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow would focus on ending what he called a Western "monopoly" over global affairs as part of a new foreign policy, accusing the West of suppressing rival centers of power.

Russian state media reported last week that President Vladimir Putin was set to approve a new foreign policy, as relations with the West sink to historic lows over the war in Ukraine and subsequent Western sanctions.

"The Anglo-Saxons - and the rest of the collective West, unquestioningly submitting to them - seek to impose their dictates on world affairs at any cost," Lavrov told lawmakers in Russia's State Duma.

"Our renewed foreign policy concept will focus on the need to end the West's monopoly on shaping the framework of international life, which in the future must be determined not in its egoistic interests but on a fair, universal balance of interests."

The Kremlin has often accused Western countries, led by the "Anglo-Saxon" United States and Britain, of trying to dominate global politics and meddle in others' affairs, while seeking to suppress rising powers in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Western countries say Russia has made itself a global pariah by invading a peaceful neighbor and that Russian-backed groups have interfered in Western elections - something that Yevgeny Prigozhin, a high-profile ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, now freely acknowledges.



Thousands Protest the Rise of German Far Right Ahead of Feb. 23 General Election

Participants hold lights during a rally against the far right at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, 25 January 2025. (EPA)
Participants hold lights during a rally against the far right at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, 25 January 2025. (EPA)
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Thousands Protest the Rise of German Far Right Ahead of Feb. 23 General Election

Participants hold lights during a rally against the far right at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, 25 January 2025. (EPA)
Participants hold lights during a rally against the far right at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, 25 January 2025. (EPA)

Thousands of Germans on Saturday protested in Berlin and other cities against the rise of the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party ahead of a Feb. 23 general election.

At Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, participants lit up their phones, blew whistles and sang anti-fascist songs, and in Cologne, protesters carried banners denouncing AfD.

An opposition bloc of Germany’s center-right parties, the Union, led by Friedrich Merz, is leading pre-election polls with AfD in second place.

Merz said Friday that his party will bring motions to toughen migration policy — one of the main election issues — to parliament next week, a move seen risky in case the motions go to a vote and pass with the help of AfD.

Merz had earlier vowed to bar people from entering the country without proper papers and to step up deportations if he is elected chancellor. Those comments came after a knife attack in Aschaffenburg by a rejected asylum-seeker left a man and a 2-year-old boy dead and spilled over into the election campaign.

Activists including the group calling itself Fridays for Future dubbed the Berlin rally the “sea of light against the right turn.” They hope it will draw attention to the actions by the new administration of US President Donald Trump and to the political lineup ahead of Germany’s election.

A protester in Cologne, Thomas Schneemann, said it was most important for him to “stay united against the far right.”

“Especially after yesterday and what we heard from Friedrich Merz we have to stand together to fight the far right,” Schneemann said.

The protests took place while AfD was opening its election campaign in the central city of Halle on Saturday. Party leaders Alice Weidel, AfD's candidate for chancellor, and Tino Chrupalla were expected to speak to an audience of some 4,500 people.

Weidel again received the backing of Elon Musk, who addressed the rally remotely, but she has no realistic chance of becoming Germany’s leader as other parties refuse to work with AfD.