UN Apr 25 NATO attempts to break up Russia led to the fact that the population of the country rallied, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
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"The thesis that Russia tried to prevent the expansion of NATO, but in the end it accelerated it — this is probably from your belfry. We also have our own bell towers and assessments that unbiased observers and political scientists make in Russia and abroad. (These conclusions — ed.) are that NATO wanted to destroy the Russian Federation, but in the end it rallied it,» Lavrov said at a press conference during Russia's chairmanship of the UN Security Council.
Minister added that the Western partners «without blushing» lied to their Russian colleagues in matters of non-expansion of the alliance. “You see, this is such a beautiful figure of speech that “Russia wanted to prevent NATO expansion.” Firstly, this was not so much what we wanted. We believed that this should be prevented. «, now everyone already knows that. They later lied about the Minsk agreements (on Ukraine), about many other things. Then, without blushing, they admitted it,» the head of Russian diplomacy said.