Lavrov added, during a press conference on security issues in Europe, that “NATO’s expansion has led to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe losing its importance and role in the region, and the West has not taken any step to establish international agreements aimed at achieving a balance of interests in the world.”
Lavrov continued: It is quite clear that they are inventing myths and names and trying to hide their anti-Russian orientation. According to the Russian Minister, NATO is moving its line of defense to the east, towards the South China Sea, taking into account the rhetoric of Washington, Brussels, Australia, Canada and Poland that the South China Sea has now become one of those areas in which it is not excluded that NATO, as it did in Ukraine, could increase tension in it.
The Russian top official pointed out that Western countries have made efforts for many years to prevent the building of an equal and indivisible European security system despite all the incantations made within the framework of political declarations. Lavrov said: We are now reaping the fruits of this wrong policy, which is absolutely short-sighted.
Lavrov affirmed his conviction that the spirit and letter of the basic documents of the organization were violated and that it was created in Europe at a time to start a dialogue between the pan-European parties, and all of this raises complex questions about the form of Russian relations with the EU and even, perhaps more importantly, the question of what will happen to the OSCE in Europe itself.
Lavrov indicated that it is not about obtaining more revenues from the Russian oil today, but rather about moving towards building a system that does not depend on neo-colonial methods, and the Russian Federation is doing this with countries of the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as well as through cooperation and bilateral relations with China, Iran, India and other countries. Lavrov pointed out that Russia has already stated at various levels that it will not supply oil to these countries.