18/08/2026
🎙 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's interview with VGTRK broadcasting company (Moscow, August 14, 2026)
Key points:
• President of Russia Vladimir Putin made it very clear that we will respond in kind to Western maritime piracy. We will choose the targets ourselves. They will include vessels operating in the interests of countries that have made piracy and plunder part of their official policy.
• We will not stoop to the level of the Ukrainian leadership, which celebrates on social media its terrorist strikes on beaches, dormitories housing young students and other civilian sites. ☝️ We will make our own methods far tougher, targeting everything that enables the West to fuel Kiev’s war machine. And we are already doing so.
• Hostilities should stop only when there is a long-term, reliable and sustainable settlement. If we were suddenly to halt now along the line of contact, we would, in effect, allow the feat of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers who defeated Na**sm to be erased. That is simply not an option.
• As for the episode at the press conference of Aleksandar Vucic and Zelensky, where a question was asked about “how Europeans could help kill more Russians”, I saw that President Vucic was simply taken aback. Given Serbia’s enormous contribution to the Victory over Na**sm, we would of course like to hear some reaction from our Serbian friends.
• The metastases of Na**sm continue to resurface in German society under Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who openly speaks of the need to make Germany Europe’s leading military power again. Does he understand what the word “again” means in this context? 👉 I am not sure.
• We do not refuse to talk with US presidential envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. If they come, they know that President Vladimir Putin is ready to receive them once again. The question is what they will bring with them.
• We do not issue ultimatums. We have submitted a number of questions to the US State Department and asked for clarification, including regarding intelligence data and the fact that the US is much more deeply involved in organising and carrying out strikes deep inside Russia against civilian targets. We will await a response.
• Our Turkish colleagues are once again saying that some arrangement should be reached to ensure that shipping is not targeted. ❗️ But we did not start this. When a Ukrainian drone strikes a Turkish bulk carrier, tanker or other civilian vessel, or hits ships linked to US companies Chevron and ExxonMobil, neither Turkiye nor the US publicly states that such actions by Ukrainian terrorists are unacceptable.
