MOSCOW, January 22. /TASS/. The US Department of State publishing a bulletin on Russia’s policy in Ukraine on the eve of talks between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Geneva is an open provocation, according to a commentary by the Russian Foreign Ministry made public on Saturday.
"The very fact of the State Department publishing such ‘instructional guidelines’ immediately before the talks between Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and US Secretary of State Blinken in Geneva can be called nothing more than an open provocation," the commentary said.
The diplomatic agency noted that since December 15, 2021, when Washington officially received the drafts on security guarantees and the measures of ensuring the security of Russia and NATO member states, the US generally had been making obvious attempts to draw out the negotiation process of specific parameters proposed by Russia on various expert levels and formats.
"Instead of pausing and concentrating on substantively answering the questions posed in the Russian documents, the White House and its Western allies launched a highly toxic information and propaganda campaign painting our country as an ‘aggressor,’ the ‘enemy of civilized Europe’ and a ‘threat’ to international stability. All of this is coupled with the incessant threats of ‘painful’ sanctions designated to drain our domestic economy and solidify a systematic challenge to Russia," the diplomatic agency pointed out.
On her Telegram channel, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova emphasized that the document was "shaped on the basis of separate scenarios taken out of context" and approaches attributed to Russia "that have nothing in common with reality."
The talks between Lavrov and Blinken within the framework of the agreement on security guarantees in Europe proposed by Moscow were held in Geneva on Friday.