MOSCOW (Realist English). The West is furiously reacting to the fact that Russia is defending its absolutely legitimate, fundamental interests, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
“Russia has said that its security interests are being infringed every time NATO, contrary to all promises, has expanded to the east five times, coming very close to our borders. They warned that the inclusion of the Ukraine and other former Soviet republics in the alliance is a “red line”.
We warned that we could see what plans the United States and other NATO countries were hatching regarding the deployment of weapons in the Ukraine, pumping it with modern weapons, creating military and naval bases on the Ukrainian territory. After the coup, the new Kiev authorities tried to suppress by force the will of those in Donbass who refused to accept the results of the coup; they were declared terrorists. And they simply did not accept the results of the coup, asked to leave them and let them figure it out for themselves. They did not attack anyone, but they were attacked,” the minister stressed as part of the project of the gymnasium named after E. M. Primakov “100 questions to the leader”. The text of his presentation is available on the website of the Russian diplomatic department.
According to Lavrov, the West has been “ordering the music” for more than 500 years, conquering colonies, “civilizing” them, organizing “order” there, dividing countries according with a ruler”:
“Look at the borders in Africa — a pencil was drawn along the ruler in the middle of one ethnic group, and this part of the ethnic group ended up in one country, and the other in another (often in a warring one). The West wants to keep it, but it won’t work. It is objectively visible how China and India are developing. It is no coincidence that now they are trying to drag India into anti-Chinese formats. Now, in Japan there is a meeting of the “quartet” QUAD. It was created a couple of years ago — USA, Japan, Australia and India. Our Indian friends are well aware that these are quite incorrect games. They insist that within the framework of this “quartet” they are ready to engage in economic projects, but they will not in any way support giving a military dimension to this quartet.”
