Moscow's proposals to Kiev must be fulfilled, otherwise the Russian army will solve the problem, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in an interview with the TASSZ news agency published on Tuesday.

"Our proposals for the demilitarization and de-Nazification of the areas controlled by the regime (the Ukrainian government) and the elimination of threats to the security of Russia, including our new territories - Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts - are well known to the enemy. You only have to do one thing: fulfill them voluntarily and in good faith. Otherwise, the Russian army will solve the problem," said the head of Russian diplomacy.

Lavrov, the risk of the situation becoming uncontrollable remains very high.
" It is important to prevent a catastrophe," Lavrov said, recalling the incident on November 15, when Volodymyr Zelensky attempted to pass off a Ukrainian missile that hit Polish territory as Russian. "As for the duration of the conflict, the ball is in the court of the regime and Washington, which is behind it. They can put an end to the senseless resistance at any moment," said the minister.

"The countries of the collective West and the actions of Zelenskiy, which they lead, prove that the Ukrainian crisis is global in nature. It is no longer a secret that the strategic goal of the United States and its NATO allies is victory over Russia on the battlefield, a mechanism by which they can significantly weaken or even destroy our country," Lavrov outlined his assessment of the world political situation . "The main beneficiary of the hot conflict is the United States, which is trying to make the most of it both economically and from a military-strategic point of view. At the same time, Washington is solving an important geopolitical task: severing the traditional ties between Russia and Europe, subordinating its European minions to itself even more," he said.

According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Washington is doing everything to prolong and aggravate the conflict, in which NATO countries have become actual participants with the support of the Ukrainian armed forces.

According to Lavrov, the Russian leadership, unlike the former British Prime Minister and the Pentagon officials who spoke anonymously, never threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. "We are talking about something completely different. About the fact that the West's complete containment policy towards our country is extremely dangerous. There is a risk that it will lead to a direct armed conflict between the nuclear powers," he stressed.
"This is exactly what we are warning and repeating over and over again, that there can be no winners in a nuclear war and one should never be launched," he added.

Sergey Lavrov once again called on the West to show maximum restraint in this extremely sensitive area. In order to minimize nuclear risks, he called it important that the nuclear powers remain committed to the inadmissibility of nuclear war.

According to Lavrov, relations between Moscow and the EU have reached a "historic low". He complained that essentially the Union also declared a hybrid war against Russia. He recalled that Josep Borrell , the EU's chief diplomat, said that Russia must be defeated on the battlefield. According to his words, the leaders of the EU countries are acting at the expense of the interests and well-being of their citizens, sometimes surpassing the "overseas hegemon" in their anti-Russian attitude.

"Of course, business with such partners will no longer be business as usual. We do not intend to knock on closed doors or initiate joint projects," Lavrov said. He pointed out that Russia has many friends in other parts of the world. As he said, Moscow will be ready to cooperate with Europe when it acts on the continent "if reliable, nationally oriented politicians appear there who understand the importance of an equal and mutually beneficial partnership with Russia".

"We are realistic. We will continue to cooperate with the few Europeans who value friendship with Russia. We will not cooperate with Russophobes," he said.

He objectively called it impossible to maintain normal communication with the Biden administration, which was aiming for the strategic defeat of Russia. As he said, the deliberate deterioration of interstate relations is not the style of Russian diplomacy, but Moscow starts from the principle of reciprocity, "an eye for an eye" in shaping the dialogue in all circumstances, but not necessarily symmetrically. He said that at the current stage of relations, the Russian side does not want to take any initiative, which also refers to the discussion of a possible new agreement or agreements on military offensive weapons and mutual security guarantees. As he said, the United States itself rejected negotiations on the issue under the pretext of the Ukrainian crisis. Moscow took note of this, but at the same time it remains committed to the START treaty, whose basic principles, according to Lavrov, are increasingly undermined by Washington.

"During the planning, we take into account the principle that worked during the Cold War: the principle of peaceful coexistence between states with different political and socio-economic systems", and which can be good in the new geopolitical environment as well," said the Russian Foreign Minister .

Source: MTI

(Header image: Press Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Sputnik/AFP)