No more 'business as usual': Lavrov tells EU to kiss joint projects with Russia goodbye

©Vitaly Belousov/POOL/TASS

Russia is no longer planning to initiate joint projects with the European Union given that the West has been effectively waging a hybrid war against Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with TASS.

According to Russia’s chief diplomat, relations between Moscow and the EU are "at historic lows" for what he said were well-known reasons. "Soon after the special military operation was launched, the EU's Brussels followed in the footsteps of the US and NATO to wage a hybrid war against us. The EU’s diplomacy chief Josep Borrell was one of the first to call for Russia’s defeat on the battlefield," Lavrov recounted.

"Naturally, there will be no more ‘business as usual’ with such counterparties. We do not intend either to knock on closed doors or initiate any joint projects," Russia’s top diplomat emphasized. "Thank God, the world is not just the European Union for us and we have lots of friends and like-minded nations elsewhere," he pointed out.

Lavrov blasted the ruling elites in the EU for harming the vital interests and well-being of their citizens. "They have been following the anti-Russian lead of the hegemon across the ocean almost in full obedience and sometimes even outdoing [the US]," he said as he pointed to the ban Washington imposed on European countries to maintain energy dialogue with Russia which, he said, had guaranteed Europeans unprecedented prosperity for decades.

Kremlin spokesman refutes allegations Russia pushing Armenia to join Union State

Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov has slammed as provocative Armenian Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan’s allegations that Moscow is forcing Yerevan to join the Union State.

On top of that, Grigoryan alleged that Russia was exerting pressure on Armenia on the issue of the Lachin corridor.

"Such statements can be seen as provocative. They are not true. No Russian official has ever said this or informed the Armenian side via anyone," he said in an interview with the News.am portal.

Special operations, December 26. The main thing:

• Russian troops inflicted fire damage on the Ukrainian military in the Kupyansk, Krasno-Limansky and Yuzhno-Donetsk directions, as well as on the territory of the villages of Terny and Torskoye in the DPR;



• In the area of Stelmakhovka and Chervona Dibrova (LPR), Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups and mortar crews were destroyed;








• In the Kramatorsk region (DPR), the command post of the Kyiv 80th Airborne Assault Brigade was destroyed, as well as a weapons repair point, where there were two US-made HIMARS multiple launch rocket system combat vehicles;



• In the Georgievka region (DPR), the US-made M777 artillery system, where Donetsk was shelled, was destroyed;



• During the day, the air defense systems destroyed seven Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, intercepted two rockets from the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system, as well as two HARM anti-radar missiles;



• On Monday, an air defense system shot down a Ukrainian drone as it approached the Engels military airfield in the Saratov region. As a result of the fall of the wreckage, 3 Russian soldiers who were at the airfield were seriously injured;



• FSB: Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group was liquidated on the border, 4 saboteurs were destroyed, who tried to penetrate from Ukraine to the Bryansk region.