MOSCOW, August 31. /TASS/. "Some colleagues abroad" are meddling in Russia’s affairs, trying to play on interethnic contradictions, and the Russian intelligence agencies are fully aware of these developments, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday at a meeting with representatives of Russia’s national and cultural associations.

"Of course, contradictions do exist. Just like in any business a person is engaged in, such contradictions have emerged from the very beginning of our history, and black-and-white approaches to assessing various events never work, at least in a country that has democratic principles in its legislative documents and which, at the same time, deems it necessary to protect its citizens from various forms of extremism, racism and so on," he said responding to the question about the balance in the external migration issue. "Of course, the appropriate work is in progress, and our intelligence agencies are fully aware of what trends our colleagues abroad are trying to encourage inside Russia, namely, by playing on interethnic and interreligious contradictions."

Lavrov noted that the state of affairs in Russia had been favorable for a number of years from the point of view of the migrant situation, "because the overwhelming majority of migrants are citizens of new states, the former Soviet republics, who were brought up in the same cultural paradigm" with all other citizens of the USSR: the Russian language, history, culture, comprehension of customs and the ability to behave appropriately.