Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was nearly laughed off the stage Friday when he told an audience of an international conference in India that Russia did not start the war against Ukraine. Lavrov repeated the Kremlin’s claim that Russia was simply trying to stop a war that threatened its own existence. “The war, which we are trying to stop, and which was launched against us, using Ukraine—Ukrainian people,” Lavrov said, pausing briefly as he was interrupted by laughter. Lavrov was speaking at the Raisina Dialogue, a geopolitics conference in India. Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, called Lavrov an “ignominious jerk” following the appearance. The reaction in India aligns with some resistance from the Indian government when it comes to Putin’s war in Ukraine. In recent months, India’s defense minister has sought to throw cold water on the idea of using nuclear weapons in the war and has expressed interest in diplomacy rather than conflict.
Speaking in India, whose government has been sympathetic to Putin’s claims on Ukraine and helped Moscow mitigate the effect of western sanctions, Lavrov says “the war we are trying to stop was launched against us.”
