Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused Western governments of repeatedly misleading Moscow, arguing that years of broken commitments have permanently changed Russia’s approach to relations with the United States and Europe.
Speaking in an interview with Russian outlet RBK, Lavrov was asked why Moscow had continued engaging with Western governments despite believing Russia had repeatedly been taken advantage of during the decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“Deception lies at the foundation of Western diplomacy. And it still does,” Lavrov said.
Among the examples cited by the foreign minister were Russia’s longstanding claims that Western officials gave assurances regarding NATO’s eastward expansion around the time of German reunification and the collapse of the Soviet bloc.
Lavrov also pointed to the political crisis in Ukraine in February 2014, when France, Germany and Poland helped broker an agreement between then-president Viktor Yanukovich and opposition leaders. Yanukovich subsequently fled Kiev as protesters took control of government institutions and a new administration emerged.
Despite those experiences, Lavrov said Moscow continued trying to find common ground with Western countries, attributing that willingness partly to what he described as a deeply ingrained Russian tendency towards patience and giving others the benefit of the doubt.
“This reveals something about our psychology – not naivety ingrained by centuries of historical experience, but rather the enduring hope that a scoundrel cannot be a complete scoundrel, to put it simply,” he said.
According to Lavrov, Russians traditionally retain “faith in people right to the very end,” before adding that, as far as relations with the West are concerned, “the end has already come.”
The foreign minister argued that the deterioration accelerated dramatically following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. He accused the US and European Union of embarking on a deliberate policy of providing Kiev with progressively more sophisticated and lethal offensive weapons.
Lavrov said President Vladimir Putin had already made clear in 2022 that Moscow remained prepared to negotiate with Western governments but had drawn lasting conclusions from what Russia regarded as years of broken promises and duplicity.
According to Lavrov, those lessons mean that even if dialogue between Moscow and Western capitals eventually resumes, Russia’s relationship with the West will not return to what it was before the Ukraine conflict and the broader collapse in relations.
