WASHINGTON, February 13. /TASS/. Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg believes that the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine marked the expulsion of European nations from ‘the Garden of Eden’.

"I sometimes cite Robert Kagan, the American political scientist, who said about 20 years ago that Europeans are living in a post-historic paradise of peace. But outside, power struggles are ongoing. To a certain degree, you could say on the 24th of February, 2022, we were kicked out of paradise. And nobody likes being kicked out of the Garden of Eden," the top diplomat said in an interview with The Washington Post on Monday.

The diplomat said he couldn’t quite see all the repercussions yet, "but it has moved Europe together." "It has moved the transatlantic partnership together again," Schallenberg stressed. Meanwhile, Austria, Germany and other countries "are paying an economic price because we have been heavily invested in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine," he added.