MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov considers attacks on Russia’s sovereignty from the Western countries as absolutely unacceptable.
"Throughout the years of [his] tenure, especially the recent years, President [of Russia Vladimir] Putin has paid particular attention to strengthening our sovereignty. We see how Russia as well as many other countries with a more or less independent policy are attacked from the West. Hybrid attacks, as they are now called, coming from every direction," he said at a press conference following the results of Russia’s diplomacy in 2021.
"Perhaps, such concepts may work out in relation to certain countries, but this is absolutely unacceptable for Moscow," he stressed.
Focusing on the words of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the statements of the Russian authorities allegedly diverge from their actions, Lavrov noted that "it is a nice figure of speech, Anglo-Saxons like to formulate such mysteriously nice expressions." "I don’t really understand what it is about in this case," the Russian minister added. He stressed that he spoke with [US Secretary of State Antony] Blinken several times and called him an experienced man, capable of listening.
Lavrov recalled the events of the 1990s when the Western countries decided "that they have already achieved the goals" which they had set to Russia, and are now helping "to implement these goals, including through physical participation in the Russian government, in its relevant structures." "It must be a shame when someone thought that Russia was in the pocket of the West and would no longer pursue its own special interests, and then it all turned out not to be so," Lavrov concluded.