This “Foreign Policy Speech” by Lorenzo Greco can be accessed here.
It was originally written for the ATHENA Jean Monnet Chair MSc Course “The EU and the Post-Soviet Space” taught by Dr. Olga Burlyuk. It is published as part of our mission to showcase peer-leading papers written by students during their studies. This work can be used for background reading and research, but should not be cited as an expert source or used in place of scholarly articles/books.
Context
Imaginary situation where the current Russian Foreign Affairs Minister, Sergej Lavrov, dies under mysterious circumstances during the most recent G20 meeting, on the 14th of November 2022. The doctors who conducted his autopsy say that he perished due to natural causes, because he was old and apparently sick. President Vladimir Putin does not believe this was the case: in his view, the fact that it occurred during a G20 meeting where several Western leaders were present was not a coincidence: Lavrov was poisoned. In his view, this amounts to a declaration of war from the West, and in this speech he delivers a powerful message to his people in the colossal Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow (and through a live-stream video transmitted on all Russian national broadcasters), saying that an “all-out” war against the West is now unavoidable.
