MOSCOW, November 5. /TASS/. The breakdown in relations between Russia and the West stems from the latter’s expansion eastwards and its complete disregard for Moscow’s security interests, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ryabkov said.

"The [deteriorating] state of relations between Russia and the West has quite deep roots, mainly due to the West’s eastward expansion - militarily, economically, culturally, and ideologically - toward our borders, onto the post-Soviet space," the senior Russian diplomat explained at a meeting of the expert council at the State Duma Committee on International Affairs on the topic of trans-Atlantic pressure on Russia. "And this expansion has been ongoing over the course of the past few decades amid almost complete disregard for Russia’s vital interests, primarily in the security sphere," he added.

"We have repeatedly called on our Western neighbors and also those in the collective West to address the strife that they have created in the field of security, especially security in Europe," Ryabkov emphasized.