Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today that it was obvious that Brussels and NATO wanted to turn the region into a “closed Balkans”.
At a press conference in Moscow on the occasion of the ban on the flight of Russian government planes through the airspace of neighboring Serbian countries, where he was supposed to meet with Serbian officials, Lavrov pointed out that no one will be able to destroy Serbia-Russia relations.
Invitation to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia
He emphasized that they invited the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, Nikola Selaković, to visit Russia soon, and that we hope that his plane will not be subjected to the punishment of Brussels, which has lost its boundaries and borders.
Lavrov said that by visiting Serbia, he wanted to confirm Russia’s position on Kosovo and BiH and the “Open Balkans”, but that Brussels did not want to allow that.
He added that the ban on the overflight of his plane shows how far NATO and the EU can go in using the crudest means to influence those who are guided by national interests and are not ready to sacrifice their principles for what the West imposes.
Lavrov added that Serbia, from the point of view of the West, cannot have a free choice of partner, which is cynicism and which is not surprising, and stressed that the West has made it clear that it will use pressure, double standards, which was shown in 1999. the bombing of Serbia.
We appreciate Vučić’s brave policy
He estimated that there will be more explanations in this case, that the countries that banned the overflight of the Russian plane will say that they were ordered, while the West will claim that they made those decisions independently.
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Lavrov pointed out that something unthinkable happened because a sovereign country was deprived of the right to pursue foreign policy.
– We appreciate the brave policy taken by Serbia and especially President Vučić. His decision is that he will not be part of the anti-Russian policy, and that is what the EU is asking of him – Lavrov added.
Last night, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Northern Macedonia banned the flight of Russian government planes through their airspace ahead of the announced visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Serbia.
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After that, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Maria Zaharova, confirmed that the countries surrounding Serbia closed the skies for Sergei Lavrov’s plane, emphasizing that Moscow is not making a new iron curtain, but Europe is enclosing Russia.