Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in an interview with Vladimir Soloviev of the Soloviev Live YouTube channel, denounced the attitude of NATO and the West towards Ukraine as “insolent” and charged that the Baltic states, Poland, and Ukraine are clearly “egging on” the alliance. “"We are on our own soil, the clearest way to spell that out to our friends is what [Russian President Vladimir] Putin said at his recent press conference about what if the same thing happened on the United States’ border with Mexico or Canada,” he said, reported TASS. “They are fueling [Ukraine] with weapons, boasting that they have provided the country with $2.5 bln worth of ammunition and combat systems since 2014.”
Lavrov also claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s recklessness worries his sponsors. “Zelensky often does things that are simply reckless. And [the West] … is afraid that some folly may spark a conflict that no one needs, by and large,” he said. Lavrov noted that when Zelensky began his election campaign he had “progressive principles, called for freeing people from oligarchs, observing the rights of Russians and other national minorities, and most importantly, promised to bring peace to Donbass,” but now, he is little different from Ukraine’s former prime minister, Arseny Yatsenyuk, who called people living in the Donbass republic “not fully humans.” Lavrov recalled that the incumbent Ukrainian president reportedly called Donbass residents “beings” and said that all those who feel themselves Russian “should head off to Russia.” The West, however, stayed silent about these pronouncements, Lavrov added.
