MOSCOW, November 11. /TASS/. The European Union cannot justify its lawlessness with Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Russian media.

There are many in Europe who would like to claim that Russia invaded Ukraine, though all this only shows that the West prefers not to remember how and when the first preconditions for the conflict appeared, he noted.

"It was the European Union that sparked the Maidan, and it was the European Union that came up with the slogan that Ukraine should be with Europe, not Russia," Lavrov stressed. "They are publicly stating this. So please, don’t blame us for anything here, and don’t try to justify your lawlessness with the actions that Russia took out of sheer necessity, having exhausted all its reserves," he added. The minister also noted that if the European Union continues to try to blame Russia for everything, it should understand that Russia "has something to reassure its European colleagues with."

In this respect, Lavrov recalled a number of examples of the EU's "dishonesty" in its relations with Moscow, including on the issue of the Minsk agreements, and the visa-free regime, which had been negotiated for many years.

"We developed our internal regulations on the basis of the framework agreed on with the European Union. Once we finalized those regulations domestically, once we agreed on respective bilateral agreements with each EU member state, there were no more conditions that would not be met," he said. "The European Union thought for a long time about answering our question when it would abolish the visa regime, and then it said that it had a new draft document, let’s develop joint steps. It outlined some very technical details, but we nevertheless joined the work," the minister said.

In those years Russia still "had some hope that it was dealing with decent people" in the European Union, Lavrov said. "Ultimately, we resolved those additional technical issues. It was 2012, the summer, and when we said, 'Go ahead, announce it', they avoided any official contact or response on the matter," he concluded.