Russia 'done' with Western Europe 'for at least a generation' - Lavrov

RT
Sat, 18 May 2024 16:28 UTC

© Sputnik/Alexey Filippov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

An "acute phase of the military-political confrontation with the West is in full swing," Moscow's foreign minister has said

Russia won't view Western European countries as partners again for "at least one generation," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has predicted.The diplomat remarked that Moscow and the West are already locked in a confrontation that has no end in sight.

Top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have repeatedly described Moscow's ongoing military conflict with Kiev as a proxy war waged by NATO against Russia. Evidence of this, the Kremlin says, is the material aid, the training, and the intelligence that the US and many European countries have been providing to defend Ukraine.

Speaking on Saturday, Lavrov cited an article by Russian political scientist Dmitry Trenin, who has written that "Europe as a partner is not relevant for us for at least one generation." The minister said that he "can't help but agree" and that Moscow is "feeling this in practice almost daily." The senior Russian diplomat also claimed, without elaborating, that "many facts speak in favor of such a prognosis."

"The acute phase of the military-political confrontation with the West continues [and] is in full swing," Lavrov said, pointing to the nature of the narratives currently prevalent in the US and Europe.

In an interview with TASS on Friday, Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Ryabkov compared Western elites to delinquent youths and provocateurs intent on escalating tensions to the brink of a "catastrophic collapse," and with no regard for the consequences.

Speaking of the work of Russian diplomats in the West, the official revealed that it is "in a crisis-management mode, aimed at preventing an escalation into a really massive conflict."

NATO is "a group in which we feel not an ounce of trust, which triggers political and even emotional rejection" in Moscow, Ryabkov told the media outlet.

He said that, no matter who comes out on top in the US presidential election in November, "no chance for the improvement of the situation can be seen, considering the fundamental anti-Russian consensus of the American elites."

During his inauguration speech on Tuesday, nonetheless,Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted that Moscow does not "refuse dialogue with Western states."

"The choice is theirs," the president proposed, posing the question: "Do they intend to continue trying to restrain the development of Russia, continue the policy of aggression and relentless pressure that they have pursued for years, or look for a path to cooperation and peace?"

Comment:
1)

Speaking on Saturday, Lavrov cited an article by Russian political scientist Dmitry Trenin, who has written that "Europe as a partner is not relevant for us for at least one generation."

See the original Russian article from the magazin, Profil. (Browser translation works reasonably well from Russian to English.)
2)

In an interview with TASS on Friday, Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Ryabkov compared Western elites to delinquent youths and provocateurs intent on escalating tensions to the brink of a "catastrophic collapse," and with no regard for the consequences.

See more details in: Russia-obsessed Western elites acting like delinquents - Moscow which has additional links to related articles.

3) From the same source:

26 Apr, 2024 19:44
West must rebuild relations with Russia from scratch - Kremlin
Moscow has had enough of Europe's hostile attitude, Dmitry Peskov has said

Contacts between Russia and Europe will never be the same even after the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev ends, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Friday. Russia has seen enough of the West's hostile treatment and does not want to stick to the old model of relations, he said.

"Russia threatens no one in Europe and expects no one in Europe to threaten it," Peskov said. That does not mean, though, that the West would be able to continue "business as usual" with Moscow, he warned.

European nations will still have Russia as their neighbor after the conflict and will be bound to maintain certain relations with it, the Kremlin spokesman said. "There will be no relations as before. No one will want it," he stated, adding that Moscow would certainly oppose reverting to old practices.

"We have had a lot of experience with how the Europeans treat us," the official explained. "We will always take this experience into account." Any future relations would thus be based on some "new foundations," according to Peskov.

The Kremlin spokesman's words echoed earlier statements by top Russian officials, including by President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. In January, the nation's top diplomat said that the Ukraine conflict had clearly shown that Moscow cannot trust the West.

"If there had been any illusions left over from the 1990s, that the West would open its arms to embrace us and that democracy would unite us all, they have been completely dispelled," the minister said at that time, adding that the only thing Washington and its allies wanted was to "live at the expense of others."

Late last year, Vladimir Putin admitted that he'd been "naive" early on in his political career, despite having served in the Soviet KGB. He said he believed that there was no fundamental reason for the West and Moscow to be at odds after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The president then said that he eventually understood that the West was seeking to break Russia into several entities that would have less ability to protect their national interests.

Earlier this month, Moscow also pinned the blame on Washington for the current crisis in relations between Russia and Western nations. The ongoing standoff was an exclusive choice of the West itself, Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said at the time. It was not Moscow that "moved its war machine to NATO's borders" and spearheaded unprecedented economic and personal sanctions, the diplomat said, adding that America simply refuses to understand that Moscow would never give up on its national interests.