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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."

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.

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.

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17 May, 2024 13:20
Ukraine was warned about Russia's Kharkov offensive - Guardian
Despite the advance notice from the UK, Kiev's defense lines on the border were "thin to absent," the paper said

The UK warned Ukraine ahead of the Russian offensive in Kharkov Region, but Kiev failed to prepare for the attack that resulted in Moscow's troops making rapid gains, The Guardian reported on Thursday, citing sources.

British intelligence provided Ukraine with advance warning about the attack, according to one of the newspaper's sources, although he did not say how much time Kiev had to prepare.

However, the alert had followed a public warning by Russian President Vladimir Putin in March, saying Moscow could move to establish a "cordon sanitaire" in Kiev-controlled territories to protect civilians in Russian border regions, particularly in Belgorod, from indiscriminate Ukrainian artillery and drone bombardment.

Given that Ukrainian officials had also reported a concentration of Russian troops in the area ahead of the offensive, "it might have been expected that the attack would be swiftly repulsed," The Guardian said.

However, Ukrainian defensive lines "were thin to absent" in Kharkov Region, the paper said. As a result, the Russian Defense Ministry reported the capture of several border settlements in Kharkov Region in recent days.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky recently admitted that Kiev was not ready to meet a large-scale Russian attack due to delays in Western arms shipments. He has canceled scheduled trips to Spain and Portugal, heading to Kharkov instead. Zelensky described the situation as "very serious," but promised that Kiev was redeploying reinforcements to the area from other frontline sectors.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Kiev to reassure Ukraine that it was "not alone" in the face of the Russian onslaught. He noted that the country was now going through its "critical moment" on the battlefield.

Echoing The Guardian report, some Ukrainian service members complained about the absence of fortifications and minefields in Kharkov Region, while local outlet Ukrainska Pravda reported that funds earmarked for creating defenses had simply been stolen. Ukrainian officials, however, have dismissed the narrative about the lack of defenses as "Russian propaganda" aimed at driving a wedge between local administrations and the top brass in Kiev.

On Friday, during his visit to China, Putin confirmed that Moscow's combat operations in the region were aimed at creating a "cordon sanitaire," stressing that his country had no plans to capture Kharkov, Ukraine's second-largest city, at this point.

14 May, 2024 14:15
Ukrainian military stole money intended for fortifications - local media
With millions of dollars reportedly embezzled, Russian armor was free to roll across the border into Kharkov

[...]

Writing in Ukrainska Pravda on Monday, Ukrainian anti-corruption activist Martina Boguslavets explained that Kharkov's Department of Housing and Communal Services (ZhKG) and Regional Military Administration (OVA) had been given 7 billion hryvnias ($176.5 million to build fortifications to hold back this advance.

Much of this money was embezzled, Boguslavets claimed. For the supply of wood, the ZhKG and OVA signed contracts worth 270 million hryvnias ($6.8 million) with five companies that were set up immediately after the contracts were announced. No bidding process took place, and at least two of these companies were owned by the same person, Boguslavets wrote.

"Moreover, the owners of these firms do not resemble successful businessmen and businesswomen," she wrote. "They have dozens of court cases, from whiskey theft to domestic violence against a husband and mother; some of them are deprived of parental rights and have had enforcement proceedings for bank loans."

Boguslavets described these business owners as "avatars," placed in charge of the companies either for a small fee or without their knowledge. One of the supposed CEOs, whose firm was paid 52 million hryvnias ($1.3 million) is an agricultural laborer, according to Boguslavets' documents.

"The naked eye can see how a government official mercilessly registers new companies, using for this purpose people who, due to the circumstances, may not be aware of this," she wrote. "And this someone continues to make money on blood."

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