Moscow: Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that “all agreements that the West ‘sponsored’ [with regard to Ukraine] did not prevent it from turning Ukraine into an anti-Russia, a kind of a land-based aircraft carrier for creating threats to our country.”
Russian Ministry of Foreign affairs on Wednesday shared a statement by Lavrov highlighting his concerns over Western actions and their impact on Ukraine and Russia.
The statement was part of a broader excerpt from Lavrov’s interview for a documentary marking Russian filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov’s 80th birthday, recorded in Moscow on October 20. While reflecting on cultural and artistic matters with Mikhalkov, Lavrov used the conversation to reiterate his critical stance on Western involvement in Ukraine and to outline Russia’s shifting approach to global relations.
On the Ukraine issue, Lavrov emphasised that Russia’s commitment to national interests and the protection of ethnic Russians in Crimea, Donbass, and Novorossiya came at a cost. “When it became clear that we would uphold our dignity based on our national interests and did not want to be ‘friends’ with the West at the expense of forgetting about the Russian people... all the agreements that the West ‘sponsored’ in this regard (including with us)... did not prevent it from driving a hard bargain, turning Ukraine into an anti-Russia, a kind of a land-based aircraft carrier for creating constant threats to the Russian Federation.”
He further reflected on the consequences of this confrontation, noting that it revealed Russia’s dependence on the West. “When we were forced to launch a special military operation, it turned out that the West had taken advantage of our foreign relations to hinder our development. It turned out we were dependent on them. Nikita Mikhalkov spoke about this more than once in his BesogonTV programme.” (ANI)
Also Read: Trump cancels meeting with Putin