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New ‘Iron Curtain’ Descending Between Moscow and the West – Russian Minister

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY / AFP

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday that a new "Iron Curtain" was descending between Moscow and the West amid the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

"As far as an Iron Curtain is concerned … essentially it is already descending," Lavrov told journalists during a press conference in the Belarusian capital of Minsk.

“The process has already begun,” he said.

Lavrov also claimed that relations between Russia and the European Union no longer existed.

“[The European Union] has destroyed the relationship that had been built over decades between us and the EU,” the foreign minister said, adding that Moscow was still open to negotiations.

“I can only say that from now on, we will not trust neither the Americans nor the EU. We will do everything necessary in order not to depend on them in critical sectors," Lavrov said.

Moscow launched a full-scale war in Ukraine on Feb. 24, sparking severe economic and diplomatic sanctions from the United States, the United Kingdom and the EU against Russian state institutions, companies and a number of Russian officials and businessmen.

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