MOSCOW
The West creates hotbeds of tension in Georgia and Moldova for confrontation with Russia, deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on Tuesday.
Speaking to the state-run TASS news agency, Grushko said Russia is concerned over recent developments in these countries, as they have “key” significance for the country’s security interests.
“Of course, we are concerned … about the situation in Georgia and the situation in Moldova, because these are … our neighbors, and we see that the US and its satellites are working to create more and more hotbeds of tension along our borders and are trying to arrange some kind of geopolitical competition in these zones, which are key, even for geographical reasons, for the security interests of the Russian Federation,” Grushko stressed.
The diplomat added that Western states demonstrate “a neocolonial approach,” acting in a way that “only they have the right to dictate what to do” to Georgia and Moldova.
While in Georgia there were mass protests against a “foreign agents” law which was later dropped, Moldova has had a new government following a prolonged economic crisis, and tensions have also risen in the breakaway region of Transnistria.
Turning to investigation of last year’s Nord Stream pipeline blasts, Grushko said Russia is going to seek “absolute clarity of all the circumstances of the sabotage.”
“We proceed from the fact that it is necessary to put an end to this story, to deal with those who are guilty, they should be held accountable,” he said.
