MOSCOW, April 4. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed doubts about Western claims that NATO membership would guarantee Ukraine’s security, calling them contradictory and illogical.
"Western ideologists said: Let’s admit Ukraine to NATO so that Russia would not dare attack it as Russia cannot attack a NATO country. <…> At first, they hewed to the position that Russia could never afford attacking NATO, and now they tell everybody around that this is exactly what [Russian] President [Vladimir Putin] and the Russian leadership are seeking to do," Russia’s top diplomat said at a meeting with foreign ambassadors on resolving the Ukraine crisis.
According to Lavrov, the Russian leader has already dismissed statements in that vein by Western opponents as "asinine nonsense." "And NATO officials who make these statements understand only too well that this is the case," he added.
Addressing the audience, Lavrov said that, unlike Western countries, Russia is ready for an open dialogue and does not practice "backstage whispering."