MOSCOW, December 27. /TASS/. Russia is no longer planning to initiate joint projects with the European Union given that the West has been effectively waging a hybrid war against Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with TASS.

According to Russia’s chief diplomat, relations between Moscow and the EU are "at historic lows" for what he said were well-known reasons. "Soon after the special military operation was launched, the EU's Brussels followed in the footsteps of the US and NATO to wage a hybrid war against us. The EU’s diplomacy chief Josep Borrell was one of the first to call for Russia’s defeat on the battlefield," Lavrov recounted.

"Naturally, there will be no more ‘business as usual’ with such counterparties. We do not intend either to knock on closed doors or initiate any joint projects," Russia’s top diplomat emphasized. "Thank God, the world is not just the European Union for us and we have lots of friends and like-minded nations elsewhere," he pointed out.

Lavrov blasted the ruling elites in the EU for harming the vital interests and well-being of their citizens. "They have been following the anti-Russian lead of the hegemon across the ocean almost in full obedience and sometimes even outdoing [the US]," he said as he pointed to the ban Washington imposed on European countries to maintain energy dialogue with Russia which, he said, had guaranteed Europeans unprecedented prosperity for decades.