MOSCOW, May 6. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday said racism and discrimination against Russians in Western countries are getting absurd as a propaganda war is waged against Russia and its people.
"You can see what kind of a propaganda war is unleashed against the Russian Federation, against our people, against any Russian who finds himself in this or that European, Western or other country," the minister said at a flower laying ceremony at a memorial board of Foreign Ministry veterans. "And, of course, in this manifestation of outright racism, this is essentially another form of discrimination, which is now brought to the point of absurdity, brought to such an extent that they begin to instill hatred at the personal level for everything that is connected in one way or another with the Russian Federation. You can see it yourselves."
Lavrov said the West is trying to whitewash Nazism and represent Russia as the country that bears the main responsibility for World War II. "Of course, we must always remember the lessons of history, especially since the West is now trying to tear out these glorious pages of our history and cross out everything that has been done," he said. "They are trying not only to equate the victors of Nazism with criminals, but also to put most of the blame for that war on us and in every possible way whitewash Nazism, encourage Nazi manifestations in modern-day Europe."
"We can see it in the Baltics, we can see it in Ukraine, where neo-Nazism and new manifestations of anti-Semitism simply flourish under the current Kiev regime, with the full connivance of the so-called collective West," the minister went on to say.
The top Russian diplomat stressed the importance of Victory Day for Russia and its history. "The feat of the Soviet soldier, of course, is immortal," he said. "I want to emphasize that the employees of our ministry contributed to the common victory, many of them at the cost of their lives."
"Their names are immortalized on these walls, but let's not forget about those who made their contribution to the common efforts on the diplomatic front," the minister continued. "This is also a very serious part of the result that was achieved by the selfless feat of our people."