L’The West would have had a chance to stop the outbreak of war in Ukraine by complying with Russia’s demands to limit NATO expansion and create a special security status for Kiev. This is what the Russian Foreign Minister claimed Sergey Lavrov at a press conference in Moscow.
There is no turning back on relations with the West, Russia will not restore them to the way they were before the conflict in Ukraine, he then pointed out. “It is clear that if, and when, at some point our Western neighbors and former partners suddenly take an interest in somehow restoring the joint work on European security, there will be no restoration on our part. Because restoration means what it was before. But that’s not possible,” Lavrov said as quoted by RIA Novosti.
“When and if the West realizes that it is better to coexist on the basis of some mutually agreed foundations, we will listen to what the West proposes and it is clear that there should be a new beginning of interaction,” Lavrov stressed.
”The OSCE has become an increasingly marginal organisation”, also due to ”NATO’s expansionist attempts” and the desire for ”privatization on the part of the West”, said Lavrov again, accusing the ”Poland to be sinking the OSCE”. “Taking advantage of the numerical superiority in this organization, the West has been trying for many years to carry out its privatization and, probably, it is more correct to say that they are trying to carry out a seizure of the OSCE in order to subjugate this last platform,” he said during a briefing.
”Security in Europe is fragmenting and the OSCE is becoming, to put it mildly, an increasingly marginal entity”, added Lavrov. “In recent years, the current presidents of the OSCE have not been willing to interrupt this negative trend. The Swedes were presidents last year and have stopped acting as honest intermediaries”, added Lavrov stating that ”they have been the Swedes to start preparing the OSCE funeral. Our Polish neighbors have been diligently digging a grave for this organization throughout this year, destroying the remnants of the culture of consent.”
