SKOPJE, November 30. /TASS/. The US and European Union countries have shut the door on broad cooperation by imposing thousands of sanctions on Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

"In a bid to bring down the Russian economy, the US and its European satellites imposed thousands of sanctions on Russia, shutting the door on broad practical cooperation between the East and the West in our once common region," he pointed out, addressing an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) foreign ministers' meeting.

"In spite of everything, the EU continues to obediently play the inevitable role it has been assigned, carrying the heaviest burden from the consequences of the United States’ Ukrainian escapade and dutifully abandoning the economic partnerships that had served as a guarantee for the decades-long prosperity of the European Union," Lavrov emphasized. "It seems that the EU has dismissed the initial goal of its founders, which was to improve the member states’ welfare, turning into an aggressive geopolitical project, much through the efforts of the Brussels bureaucracy," the top Russian diplomat added.