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West seeking to weaken all countries around Russia, says Lavrov

According to the Russian top diplomat, Western countries "need the Ukrainian regime only for one thing - to keep on irritating Russia and find new pretexts for the Russophobic policy"

© Russian foreign Ministry press service/TASS

MOSCOW, February 19. /TASS/. Western nations are seeking to weaken all countries around Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

"They are seeking to weaken as much as possible everything located around us: Belarus, Central Asia, and now the South Caucasus. After Russian President Vladimir Putin’s successful mediatory mission between Armenia and Azerbaijan, they got startled: why without their say? Now, they are trying to build up their activities in that region," he said in an interview with the RBC television channel.

According to the Russian top diplomat, Western countries "need the Ukrainian regime only for one thing - to keep on irritating Russia and find new pretexts for the Russophobic policy."

He noted however that such state of things has nothing to do with the Cold War-era ideology and confrontation between two systems. "It only means that our Western partners don’t want, are not ready and cannot speak on the basis of equality. Either with Russia, or with China, or anyone else. They badly need a structure where they could dominate in. That is why they don’t like the United Nations because they cannot control it by 100%," Lavrov added.

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