In an exclusive interview with the BBC, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called on the West to recognise that Russia has legitimate interests in the former Soviet space.
Lavrov told the BBC that Moscow sought stability and prosperity for countries that had once been part of the Soviet Union. He also said Russia recognizes the interests of the EU and the US in regards to stability and access to the energy resources in the region.
Responding to criticisms from the West regarding the regime in Belarus, Lavrov said he did not believe that Western-style democracy could be forced upon the region.
“We believe that you cannot just demand that these countries, many of these countries, take a law which would pronounce full, western-style democracy and there is no experience in world history where you can achieve democracy overnight,” he said.
In relation to the former Soviet states, Lavrov said that in “recognizing the legitimacy of the interests of our partners [in the West] we expect that they will also recognize the legitimacy of our interests in the territories immediately adjascent to our borders, which only 15 years ago were parts of a single country within the Russian Federation and that are still linked with us economically, culturally, socially and where there are still strong family ties across borders. Do not forget that around 25 million ethnic Russians live in independent states bordering Russia.”
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