Russian Mission to UN in Geneva

🎙 Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova's statement on Ukrainian attacks against the Zaporozhskaya Nuclear Power Plant on May 30-31 (June 1, 2026)

💬 Kiev no longer even seems to be trying to hide its criminal, terrorist nature.

On May 30, the Ukrainian armed forces used a UAV to attack the turbine hall of Unit 6 at the Zaporozhskaya Nuclear Power Plant ( ), and on May 31 – the plant’s transport workshop.

☝️ It was only by a miracle that casualties and critical damage to ZNPP infrastructure were avoided.

These reckless actions once again clearly demonstrate that the Ukrainian armed forces are ready to resort to the most desperate steps, including those aimed at undermining the nuclear safety and security of Europe’s largest NPP.

We are convinced that Kiev, as well as its American and European handlers, are fully aware of the catastrophic consequences such provocations could have for the entire world. Yet this is far from the first time the Kiev regime has shown utter disregard for human lives.

The primary responsibility for what is happening lies precisely with Ukraine’s Western puppeteers, who continue to pump Kiev with more and more batches and types of weapons. We hope that even in the West they will eventually realise that, by striking nuclear facilities with supplied weapons, Kiev is acting with the recklessness of an “ape with a grenade“, creating threats for its own sponsors as well.

We expect the IAEA Secretariat and personally Director General Rafael Grossi to give Kiev’s actions a fair and deserved assessment.

The threats deliberately created by the Zelensky regime, which, in its anti-Russian frenzy, is directly targeting a Russian NPP, cannot be ignored.

The IAEA leadership will have to call things by their proper names. Otherwise, all its appeals to ensure an appropriate level of nuclear safety and security, as well as compliance with any “principles” and “points” declared by Rafael Grossi, will lose any basis.

❗️ For our part, we will continue to do everything possible to maintain the safe operation of the ZNPP.

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✉️ Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s message to organisers and participants of the 11th International Conference, Russia and China: Cooperation in a New Era (June 1, 2026)

✍️ I cordially welcome the organisers and participants of the 11th International Conference, Russia and China: Cooperation in a New Era – a forum of high standing sponsored by the Russian International Affairs Council and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

This year is special for Russia-China relations. Thirty years ago, our Leaders proclaimed, in a Joint Declaration, for the first time ever, a fundamentally new model of relations between countries in the form of an equal and trust-based partnership underpinned by strategic interaction in the 21st century.

25 years ago, on July 16, 2001, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and President of the People’s Republic of China Jiang Zemin signed the Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness, Friendship and Cooperation.

Without exaggeration, this landmark document opened a new chapter in the history of centuries-old Russia-China ties and reflected the deep historical traditions of neighbourliness and friendship between our peoples. It laid a solid foundation for building a multi-level architecture of comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction based on equality and mutual benefit.

The trajectory of these relations relies on Leader diplomacy meaning a trust-based dialogue at the top level. It is therefore absolutely natural that, during President Putin’s official visit to China on May 19-20, the Leaders of Russia and China confirmed the renewal of the Treaty for five more years.

☝️ The principles of the Treaty have stood the test of time and continue to stand in today’s realities that include mutual support in matters concerning protection of state unity and territorial integrity, respect for each other’s choice of political, economic, social and cultural development paths, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, the absence of mutual territorial claims, and the determination of Moscow and Beijing to turn the common border into a belt of eternal peace and friendship.

Russia-China relations do not imply restrictions on the sovereignty of either Side, are not constrained by ideology, and are not directed against third countries. They remain resilient to external influences.

The Treaty established guidelines for practical interaction, contributing to the expansion of trade and economic ties and the promotion of cultural and humanitarian contacts by orders of magnitude. Holding cross thematic years has become an established tradition. Just recently, President Vladimir Putin and President Xi Jinping launched another seminal joint initiative, namely, Russia-China Years of Cooperation in Education.

The Treaty is important internationally. The Russia-China foreign policy partnership based on overlapping interests and close approaches to international issues serves as a core stabilising factor in international affairs. Moscow and Beijing cooperate effectively on multilateral platforms, primarily the and its Security Council, the , , the , and -centred formats.

In conjunction with their like-minded partners, Russia and China are contributing to building a more just . They are doing much to create a space of equal and indivisible security and cooperation in Eurasia.

The broad bilateral agenda requires all dialogue mechanisms to be continuously fine-tuned. In this regard, the role of the expert, scientific and academic communities can hardly be overestimated. Your conference will undoubtedly make its own valuable contribution to these shared efforts.

🤝 I wish you productive work and all the very best.

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SERGEY LAVROV

🇷🇺 Russia's High Commissioner for Human Rights Yana Lantratova:

💬 Today, we mark International Children’s Day – a holiday that reminds us of every child’s right to a happy childhood, development and safety.

This day is already more than a century old, and over sixty countries around the world have joined this initiative. Yet there are also those who have begun to abandon this date – shifting it to other days, rewriting its history and distorting the very meaning of the holiday.

Last year, Zelensky shifted the holiday to another date in order to conform to “Western standards”. This year, on the eve of this date, a terrible tragedy took place in Starobelsk – one that crossed out the most fundamental human right: the right to life.

Ukrainian militants deliberately struck children who were asleep in their beds. 86 people sustained injuries, 21 children were killed.

Most of them were girls: Anya, Taisiya, Alina, Elena, Sofia, Darya, Alexandra, Tatyana, Oksana, Yana, Veronika, Anastasia, Victoria, Irina, Alisa and many others.

Unfortunately, the international community’s position on this issue remains ambiguous. Many prefer to keep silent or pretend that nothing happened, ignoring the obvious facts of the crime.

❗️ Our task is to preserve the truth and achieve justice. Impunity for such war crimes is unacceptable.

Do you know why it is important to mark Children’s Protection Day? Precisely because humanity must remember: protecting children’s rights is our shared priority and sacred duty.

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💬 Russia's Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova:

June 1 marks International Children’s Day.

For Russia, protecting children is a key domestic and foreign policy priority. We proceed from the understanding that the Convention on the Rights of the Child is the “gold standard” in this field. Over the three decades of its existence, it has not lost its relevance. It is thanks to this document that care for minors is regarded as one of the most important tasks for any state.

At the same time, despite the progress achieved globally, grave challenges and appalling problems persist in this area: hunger, lack of access to healthcare, violence and conflicts, and terrorist attacks against children.

Children’s issues are being heavily politicised, double standards are being promoted, and certain countries are unscrupulously exploiting the emotional nature of this undoubtedly sensitive matter to spread lies, slander and disinformation against other states.

The most telling example of such approaches is, of course, the story of the so-called “abducted Ukrainian children”. Let me recall: the Kiev regime invented a story alleging that Russia had abducted them. For years, it has fanatically replicated this myth on every international platform. And those platforms have been only too happy to listen – without bothering to verify the facts.

At the same time, they cynically ignore the fact that our country, acting on instructions from its leadership, has been working to reunite children with their families since the very beginning of the special military operation.

As of today, 30 children from 22 families have returned to Russia from Ukraine, while 141 minors from 114 families have been reunited with their parents or relatives living in Ukraine and other countries.



Zelensky’s Western handlers prefer to ignore the fact that the war unleashed by the Kiev regime against the people of Donbass in 2014 has taken its heaviest toll on children.

From 2014 to February 2022, at least 129 children were killed and more than 500 wounded in the LPR and DPR. The youngest victim of Ukrainian aggression was only 27 days old.

◼️ Let me also recall the most egregious cases of the past three years 👇

• The attack on central Belgorod on December 30, 2023, ahead of the holidays, when shelling of a New Year fairground, Christmas tree and skating rink killed 25 people, including 5 children, and wounded more than 100 civilians.

• Comparable in its deliberate cruelty was the ATACMS missile strike on Uchkuyevka city beach in Sevastopol on June 23, 2024, where many families were spending their Sunday afternoon. A total of 153 civilians were injured, including 27 children. Four people were killed, among them two children aged two and nine.

• On the night of December 31, 2025 to January 1, 2026, the Ukrainian militants launched a targeted drone strike on a café and hotel in the village of Khorly, Kherson Region, where civilians had gathered to celebrate the New Year. 29 people were killed, including two children.

• On May 22, the Ukrainian militants attacked the academic building and dormitory of Starobelsk College in the LPR at night. More than 80 people sustained injuries of varying severity, 21 were killed. All of them were ordinary students.

The Kiev regime is targeting children in Russia through phone calls and messages – seeking to deceive them and cause harm by exploiting their trust and lack of understanding of the legal consequences of their actions.

There is also a system for recruiting schoolchildren via social media: children are offered money and manipulated into gathering information. There is evidence that Ukraine is using the internet to draw children into games that may have fatal consequences.

Read in full: shorturl.at/06z1u

🎙 Answers by President of Russia Vladimir Putin to media questions following the state visit to Kazakhstan (May 29, 2026)

Key points:



• We know that Ukrainian drones have previously flown into Finland, Poland, and the Baltic states. The initial reaction was exactly the same as it is now in Romania: “Help! The Russians are coming, the Russians are attacking.” Then, after a short period of time, it turned out that those incidents had nothing to do with Russian UAVs. They were drones of Ukrainian origin that had gone off course, been affected by electronic warfare, or, due to technical limitations, had ended up there and crashed. I believe that most likely we are dealing with the same situation as well.

• No one can determine the origin of a particular aircraft until a proper examination has been conducted.



• We are partners in nuclear energy, as noted earlier, and this is also beneficial for Kazakhstan. We are not merely constructing something with credit resources; we are establishing an industry.

• Preserving close, good-neighbourly, and, in many aspects, familial ties between our nations and citizens is of utmost importance, as it fosters a level of trust between our states that is essential both in the present circumstances and from a long-term historical perspective.

• We have identified priority areas for cooperation across all key sectors and, most importantly, have defined seven principal areas that will guide our future collaboration. Humanitarian cooperation plays a particularly significant and perhaps even leading role in this regard.

• We are deeply grateful to the President of Kazakhstan for the attention he has devoted to the development of the Russian language and for the support it receives at the official level. Russian is used throughout government institutions. Rather than causing any difficulties, it is broadly welcomed.



• The Russian and Armenian peoples are connected by longstanding ties of friendship and, without exaggeration, by a uniquely close relationship that has developed over centuries. There is a special bond between Russia and Armenia, and between Russia and the Armenian people.

• Combining the two systems [EU membership and participation in the EAEU] in one day is virtually impossible. As a result, we would be forced, in certain areas – and indeed, by and large – to scale back almost all of our cooperation with Armenia in the economic sphere related to integration processes.

• The same preferences [for Armenia] that exist today would no longer apply. According to preliminary estimates – not only ours, but also those from various experts – these changes could result in a loss of at least 14 percent of Armenia’s GDP.

• Prime Minister Pashinyan himself has stated that he considers it appropriate to hold a referendum on whether Armenia should remain within the EAEU or pursue membership in the European Union. We would ask our Armenian partners and friends that such a decision be made as soon as possible.



• I sometimes watch Western television channels to understand the information environment being created there and presented primarily to European audiences. Perhaps you watch them sometimes, too. What I see is, frankly, disturbing and outrageous. They are simply misleading their own citizens. Our strike on the Kiev region was our response to their crimes against students in Starobelsk. What is that? Is that journalism? No, it is the means of mass deception.



• Russia has never had any aggressive intentions regarding European countries. And the tragedy that is unfolding in Ukraine – this is what they have done, this is the result of their policy.

• Everything they do is designed to keep the confrontation with Russia going and justify the huge spending from the budgets of their countries, getting into the pocket of the European taxpayer.

• Naturally, it is up to us to decide whether to meet with this or another actor in today's Western European politics. This is up to us. And we will see.

📄 Read in full: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/79910