State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Monday that “uproarious laughter” at Russia’s top diplomat during a recent event in India indicates that Moscow is losing the information war around its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
At a briefing with journalists on Monday, Price said the incident involving Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov—and the way the video of it went viral around the world—is the result of years of blunt Russian propaganda and obfuscation.
“You can’t watch that clip, you couldn’t have been in the room and heard Foreign Minister Lavrov make those remarks and not to have the same reaction that, apparently, everyone else in that room had,” Price said.
“For those who haven’t seen the clip, the room breaks into what can be described as probably uproarious laughter at a statement from Foreign Minister Lavrov that Russia was attacked and that was the genesis of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”
“We’ve heard similar statements, outlandish statements like this, from Russia before,” Price continued. “I think it is clear from the reaction in that room the fact that the world is under no illusion about how this started, about who is responsible, and perhaps most importantly of all, who could end it if they—if Russia—sought to seek an end to this war today, tomorrow.”
Lavrov had been speaking in India as part of the Raisina Dialogue conference, shortly after taking part in G20 talks—also held in India—which were dominated by angry disputes relating to Moscow’s war on Ukraine.
“The war which we are trying to stop and which was launched against us,” Lavrov said at the Raisina Dialogue in response to a question on energy policy, before laughter from the crowd interrupted him.
A visibly flustered Lavrov tried to finish his sentence, adding that the conflict “influenced Russian policy,” but was disrupted by further laughing and one audience member who shouted: “Come on.”
Lavrov met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken briefly at the G20 event in India; the first time the two have spoken in person since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began last year. The interaction lasted less than 10 minutes and did not include any negotiations, Reuters reported citing Russian media.
Price said Monday that the US is “clear-eyed about the potential for any sort of…near-term change in the Russian posture on this,” adding: “The point of this brief encounter was not to seek to effect a reversal in the near term over these core issues that matter a great deal to us and to the rest of the world, but it’s in our interests to engage in diplomacy and to make clear where the United States stands.”
“I think the secretary has used the term that the foreign minister has an adversarial relationship with the truth,” Price said. “We didn’t engage with Foreign Minister Lavrov because we necessarily trust what he has to say or what he has said, for that matter. We engaged with Foreign Minister Lavrov just as we’ve engaged through other channels and through other counterparts because it’s in our interests to do so.”
Not all of those in the Raisina Dialogue audience were unsympathetic to Lavrov. India, along with China, is the most significant nation maintaining neutrality in the ongoing war. New Delhi is benefitting from discounted Russian oil as Moscow seeks to shore up its income streams in the face of unprecedented sanctions. India also remains a major customer of Russian military exports.
Price on Monday acknowledged that the US and its allies “have cut our work out for us” in overturning pro-Russian sympathies in non-aligned nations. “It is a task that we have, that NATO has, and that our allies and partners more broadly have to combat misinformation, to combat disinformation,” he said.
“We know that Russia is sowing disinformation, is sowing lies about the strategic intent of NATO. We believe the best antidote to disinformation and misinformation is information.”
Newsweek has contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry by email to request comment.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Monday that “uproarious laughter” at Russia’s top diplomat during a recent event in India indicates that Moscow is losing the information war around its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
