Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, during a press conference after meeting with Swedish Foreign Minister and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Chairperson-in-Office Ann Linde, called on Western countries to return to the principles underlying the foundation of the OSCE as well as those of the UN Charter in their relations with other countries. “We are open to dialogue with our Western colleagues,” he said. “President Vladimir Putin spoke about this in detail yesterday at an expanded meeting of the Foreign Ministry Collegium.”
But Lavrov also delivered a very sobering warning. “Let’s not turn a blind eye to the gross provocations that we observe daily on the part of NATO and, increasingly often, on the part of the EU as it attempts to play up to Ukrainian militarists, to organize military training missions for Ukrainians, to prepare the Ukrainian army for actions which it constantly threatens to employ claiming that it will take Donbas by force and is unwilling to fulfill the Minsk agreements, and to encroach on Russian Crimea,” Lavrov continued. “Ukraine’s bellicose rhetoric and military preparations do not seem to evoke any principled assessment on behalf of the West.”
“We witness what is happening, but I assure you that we will never allow the infringement of our legitimate, national interests. We have all the means to ensure it,” Lavrov stated.
