MOSCOW, April 24 (RIA Novosti) – The West, first and foremost the United States, is pretending that it can ignore Russia’s opinion in European affairs and is harming Moscow’s interests, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday.
“Our Western partners, first and foremost the US, have attempted to behave like they were the winners in the ‘Cold War’ and are pretending that they can ignore Russia and do what they want, directly harming the interests of Russian security,” Lavrov told a university forum in Moscow.
On Wednesday, Lavrov warned that Moscow would be forced to respond correspondingly to any actions undermining the interests of Russian citizens.
Commenting on Russia’s alleged military presence near the Ukrainian border, Lavrov explained that Russian troops were dispatched in response to Ukraine’s own deployment.
In February, the Ukrainian parliament backed by far-right movements ousted President Viktor Yanukovych and scheduled an early presidential election for May 25. Moscow has described the uprising in Kiev as an illegitimate fascist coup and a military seizure of power, which resulted in it taking steps to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine, including the reunification with Crimea.
