Lavrov to France: ‘NATO Aggressive to Russia’

LAST UPDATE: 22.30

Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that he had talks with the French Foreign Ministry about the increased presence of NATO naval forces in the Black Sea, as reported by RIA.

The Russian Foreign Minister has accused the North Atlantic Alliance of being aggressive towards Russia lately.

Lavrov said relations between Moscow and the European Union had reached a stalemate and that the Russian delegation had offered to seek solutions to change the situation.

Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Minister, after the end of the talks he had in Paris with his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian, in which the defense ministers of the two countries, Florence Parley and Sergei Shoigu, participated, said during an interview that He pointed out to his French counterparts that there should be no two measures and two weights in relation to how migrants are treated in other European countries and how Belarus’s borders with Poland and Lithuania.

Lavrov also said that in talks with France he did not discuss the issue of sanctions against the Russian airline Aeroflot, saying that “everyone realizes that it is stupid” to impose sanctions. “The European Union understands that the sanctions against Aeroflot are stupid, and that is why the issue was not raised at the meetings in Paris,” Lavrov said.

The Russian Foreign Minister also said that he discussed with the President of the European Council Charles Michel the immigration crisis on the borders of Belarus, Poland and Lithuania, as well as the need to normalize relations between Russia and the Union.

“We literally managed to talk, as I told you, but for a long time with Charles Michel. Among other things, that we need to somehow normalize the situation in relations between Moscow and Brussels, I have that in mind,” Lavrov said. . During the conversation, Lavrov said that he told Charles Michel that Russia hopes that “common sense” will be found in the European Union that will understand the need for a sincere and honest dialogue with Belarus on the acute issues.

The Russian Foreign Minister said that during the talks in Paris with his French counterparts, they discussed the situation in Mali, stating that the accusations leveled against Moscow in connection with the activity of the Russian private military company “Wagner” are unfounded. this country. At the same time, he said that they pointed out to their interlocutors that according to the transnational cooperation “we provide military-technical assistance to Mali and assist in the organization of the security services and the Malian army”.

Paris, for its part, raised the issue of the presence of Russian mercenaries in Mali.

French Foreign and Defense Ministers Jean-Yves Le Drian and Florence Parley, in a meeting with Russian Foreign and Defense Ministers Sergei Lavrov and Sergei Shoigu, raised the issue of the presence of Russian mercenaries in the Sahel region. The French ministers described the presence of the private military company “Wagner” in the Sahel region of the Sahara as unacceptable, according to a joint statement issued by the two French ministries today.

“The French ministers have stated that the deployment of Wagner mercenaries in the Sahel region of the Sahara is unacceptable.”