Russia is focused on developing its relations, economic as well as diplomatic, with the Global South, but “we are not slamming the door shut to the West,” if they come to their senses and decide to share “in promoting comprehensive continental cooperation within Eurasia,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated Oct. 31. Eurasia, is, after all, “one of the most promising and densely populated areas with abundant natural resources” in the world.
Lavrov was addressing new diplomats entering the Foreign Ministry when he spoke, but his message was clearly aimed at Europe. That Russia is leaving the door open at all to the West is notable, given the government’s stark assessment of Western relations overall. Lavrov himself the next day compared the West’s war against Russia today to Napoleon’s 1812 and Hitler’s 1941 invasions.
Opening a conference of the Russian diaspora the next day (subject: “Strengthening Traditional Spiritual and Moral Values To Guarantee Unity among Compatriots”), Lavrov charged that “just like Napoleon in 1812 and Hitler in 1941, the United States has now brought together almost all Western countries to make yet another attempt to destroy Russia and inflict a strategic defeat on it so that it ceases to exist as an independent international actor. The level of Russophobia we are witnessing in Western countries is just mind-blowing.”
