MOSCOW, September 12. /ITAR-TASS/. The European Union’s decision to introduce new sanctions against Russia means a choice of route for undermining the emerging peace process in Ukraine, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the Rossiya-1 television broadcaster on Friday.

Moscow will react “calmly, adequately, first of all based on the requirement to protect our interests,” the foreign minister said.

The present block of European sanctions against Russia came into force several days after the Contact Group in Minsk on September 5 signed an agreement on ceasefire and on beginning of talks about the political settlement of the conflict in Ukraine.

Russia to respond to new EU sanctions calmly and adequately, seeking to protect its own interests, Lavrov added,