Lavrov’s speech on Friday at the UN headquarters in New York focused on global challenges but, unlike some of the speakers, he didn’t mince words, proceeding into a full-on rebuke of the Western ideal of world order.

It’s hard for the West to accept that its centuries-long domination is diminishing.

New centers of economic growth and political influence are emerging internationally, he said, but the US and its allies are trying to impede the rise of the multi-polar world.

In order to achieve this, they “impose the standards of conduct based on narrow Western interpretation of liberalism on others. In short, ‘We’re liberals hence anything is permitted to us’” was how he characterized this attitude.

The West has been increasingly forgetting about international law and more often dwell on rules-based order.

As opposed to this counterproductive approach, lasting solutions to global challenges should be founded “on the basis of the UN Charter, through the balance of interests of all states,” the Russian FM recommended.

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