Speaking at a meeting of the United Russia Party General Council Commission on International Cooperation and Support for Compatriots Abroad, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned, according to TASS, that “the European Union is now virtually indistinguishable from NATO and has essentially become a replica of that alliance.” TASS then quotes Lavrov directly: “The West knows no limits in the application of these aggressive policies. It resorts to illegal, unprecedented sanctions that undermine all the previous tenets of the Western world, which were based on free trade, market forces, the sanctity of property, and much more. But it is not only economic sanctions that are being imposed; we are also seeing instances of direct military intervention.”
Lavrov continued: “We see this in what is happening around Iran, and we see it in other parts of the Middle East that directly border Eurasia: Palestine, Libya, Syria, Yemen, along with a whole range of other problems that have been created.”