UNITED NATIONS, January 25. /TASS/. Russia’s special military operation became inevitable when Ukraine was turned into an immediate threat to Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a news conference to sum up the results of his participation in UN events.

"The special military operation became inevitable after many, many years when we tried to dissuade the West from turning Ukraine into a direct threat on our immediate borders," he said.

"It [Ukraine] is not some 10,000 miles away from us. The United States once portrayed Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yugoslavia as a threat to US interests. [But Ukraine is] located directly on our borders, and, most notably, this land was populated and developed by Russians, too, for several centuries. Their descendants, who still live there, were prohibited from speaking Russian," the Russian foreign minister added.