Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov today accused the West of supporting Ukraine to end “the Russian question” and took particular aim at European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, who is visiting Kyiv.
Von der Leyen “stated that the outcome of the war must be Russia’s defeat, and such a defeat that it will not rise again for decades,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview on Russian state television. “Isn’t this racism, Nazism, and an attempt to solve the Russian question?”
Lavrov also said Russian forces would respond to the delivery of longer-range Western weapons to Kyiv by trying to push Ukrainian forces further away from the border to create a safe zone.
The Russian minister said everyone wants the war in Ukraine – which Moscow calls a “special military operation” – to end, but Western support for Kyiv plays an important role in how Russia approaches the campaign. “We are now seeking to push the Ukrainian artillery back to a distance where it will not pose a threat to our territories,” Lavrov said.”The longer the range of weapons provided to the Kyiv regime, the more we will have to push them out of the territories that are part of our country, ” he added.
Lavrov also said in the same interview that Moscow does not need help from its former Soviet allies in its campaign in Ukraine.
According to the Russian minister, Russia has everything it needs for the conflict and has not asked the members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (a Moscow-led alliance that includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan ) to provide material support to Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Lavrov also claimed that the United States was directly involved in the explosions that last year caused major damage to the Nord Stream gas pipelines at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.
President Vladimir Putin has previously accused Britain of blowing up the pipelines, which London has denied.
In his interview, the Russian foreign minister also said the West is lying that Russia refuses to negotiate over Ukraine and is trying to turn Moldova, Georgia, and former Soviet states in central Asia against Moscow.
Lavrov also emphasised that Moscow’s relations with China have no boundaries and, despite the fact that they have not entered into an official military alliance, the relations between these two countries are of a much higher and broader nature.
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