MOSCOW, December 22. /TASS/. Western countries have failed to "cancel" Russia in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a joint meeting of the Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO.

"Canceling Russia in UNESCO did not work out," the top Russian diplomat said. "As [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin said this November at the St. Petersburg Cultural Forum, we are implementing rather serious projects within the framework of this organization which are of great interest worldwide," he added.

That said, according to the foreign minister, there were "aggressive attempts to squeeze [Russia] out of UNESCO’s administrative and executive bodies." "Any, sometimes even the most underhanded methods, were used, up to financially blackmailing the countries of the Global East and the Global South," Lavrov explained. "Under such conditions, our country, despite being supported by more than half of UNESCO’s members, was not re-elected to the organization’s Executive Council and its other bodies," he added.

The top Russian diplomat stressed that "Russia is not shutting anyone out, on the contrary, it is oriented toward promoting the unifying agenda, including both in UNESCO and in other international organizations." "This is confirmed by the results of the assessment of cooperation along UNESCO lines carried out by the commission’s secretariat together with Russian departmental and thematic committees," he noted. "I would like to thank everyone who took part in this work," Lavrov added.

"Professional and mutually beneficial dialogue in UNESCO is still possible in spite of all the openly illegitimate actions by the leadership of its secretariat," the Russian foreign minister concluded.