Almost a year has passed since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and today Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov issued a resounding warning statement: “We are no longer talking about a Russia-West hybrid war, but about a real one”.

“The West has been preparing for a long time against Russia, trying to destroy everything Russian that is left in Ukraine. From the language to the culture – which have been there for centuries – and they have also forbidden the citizens to speak their mother tongue”, Lavrov clarified his statements about the West in a press conference held after the talks with the foreign minister of South Africa, Naledi Pandor, as reported by the Russian news agency TASS.

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Among other things, Lavrov noted that Ukraine has adopted laws banning Russian-language education, Russian-language media, and laws effectively banning the use of the Russian language in everyday life:

“Any cultural contacts related to the Russian language are prohibited and all this is supported by the West. Just as the West supports the regular marches of neo-Nazis with swastikas, with divisive symbols that were banned by the Nuremberg Trials… So the West supports all of this”.