Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday that the European Union was no longer a source of Moscow's fair assessments in the international arena
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th October, 2020) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday that the European Union was no longer a source of Moscow's fair assessments in the international arena.
"We [Russia] need to stop looking at our Western colleagues, including the European Union, as a source of assessments of our behavior, which we then pursue and measure ourselves in their arshins [obsolete Russian unit of measurement]. They [EU] do not have arshins, they [have] inches, ... I think we need to stop looking back at them," Lavrov said during a presentation of Valdai International Discussion Club's report, dubbed "The Utopia of a Diverse World: How History Continues."
The top Russian diplomat also recalled President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen's recent remarks that Russia could not be the EU's geopolitical partner under the current leadership.
"This is a very serious statement from the highest official of the European Commission and I think we need to stop looking back at these assessments," Lavrov noted.
The relations between Moscow and EU countries have been strained since 2014 over the Ukrainian crisis and the reunification of Crimea with Russia. The EU, together with the United States, introduced sanctions against Russia, to which the Russian authorities responded with counter-sanctions.
