MOSCOW, June 24. /TASS/. The collective West fears honest competition and, therefore, acts in a dishonest fashion by ‘cancelling’ the culture of any nationally-oriented country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with the national broadcaster of Belarus.

"The West is scared of an honest competition, this is widely known. This is why they ‘cancel’ the culture of any country speaking from its own nationally oriented positions, prohibit TV channels from broadcasting, ban unwanted politicians on social networks and remove from the public space everything that disagrees with the neo-liberal concept of the world order," he said.

"In one of his recent public speeches, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the collective West an ‘empire of lies,’ the Russian top diplomat added. "And I absolutely agree with him.".