Today’s EU policy towards Moscow can hardly be called friendly. This was stated by the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry Sergei Lavrov in an interview with the magazine “Russian Thought”, published in the UK, on Thursday, March 4.
“Unfortunately, the current EU policy towards our country can hardly be called friendly. The EU has deliberately destroyed almost the entire infrastructure of our relations and continues the practice of imposing unilateral illegitimate sanctions, ”the minister said, answering the question of how he assesses the current relations between Russia and the alliance.
According to him, the association “continues to link the normalization of ties with Russia with the implementation of the Minsk agreements on Ukraine, which are openly sabotaged by Kiev.” In addition, the EU is organizing media campaigns “with unfounded accusations” of “disinformation” to Moscow, rejecting Russian proposals to start a professional dialogue on this topic.
He stressed that “it has come to open interference in our internal affairs.”
“Meanwhile, Russia and the EU are neighbors. I am convinced that it is in our common interests to ensure the peaceful, stable and secure development of the entire Eurasian continent, ”Lavrov said, answering a question about the prospects for relations between Moscow and Brussels.
The head of the Russian Foreign Ministry added that Moscow would be glad to “enter into constructive cooperation with the European Union,” based on the principles of mutual respect and consideration of interests, “if Brussels is ready for this.”
He said that cooperation between Russia and the EU is “in great demand” in the scientific and technical sphere, in health care and energy, as well as in the fight against climate change. International terrorism, drug trafficking and cybercrime require joint counteraction.
He recalled the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said during a speech at the session of the online forum “Davos Agenda 2021” in January, that “we need to approach dialogue with each other honestly, get rid of phobias of the past, look in future”. Only then, according to Lavrov, relations between Moscow and Brussels “will develop positively.”
On March 2, the Official Journal of the EU published a regulation on new sanctions against four Russian officials. These are the first restrictions imposed on Moscow under the new mechanism, which involves measures for violations of human rights. Following the alliance, the US also expanded anti-Russian sanctions.
The decision on the restrictions was made in connection with the conviction against blogger Alexei Navalny, who on February 2, the Simonovsky court in Moscow, decided to cancel the suspended sentence in the Yves Rocher case and replace him with 3.5 years in a general regime colony. The reason for replacing the suspended sentence with a real one was numerous violations of the probationary period. In total, Navalny will spend about two and a half years in prison.
Shortly before the announcement of the sanctions, Lavrov promised that Moscow would unequivocally respond to these restrictions.
The Foreign Ministry believes that the European Union imposed sanctions in the context of an unprecedented warming up of the anti-Russian information background. The department stated that in Brussels, contrary to logic, they first make a political decision, after which they arbitrarily select candidates for it.