Enlarge image
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Minsk
Photo: RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY / REUTERS
At some point in a James Bond film, there is inevitably a scene in which the Bond villain makes a malicious threat to his counterpart.
An appearance by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in front of journalists in Minsk had a similar effect.
A new "Iron Curtain" is already falling between Russia and the West, Lavrov said.
Western politicians should be careful "not to get their fingers caught in it."
Behind the phrase is a reading that the Kremlin has followed for a long time.
The war of aggression against Ukraine that Russia started under international law is being reinterpreted as a longer conflict for which NATO is partly to blame.
Lavrov also incorporated the more recent decisions of the G7 summit and the now ended NATO summit in Madrid into this perspective.
He accused the European Union of showing "no interest whatsoever" in Russia's position.
The decisions of the EU would be “dictated by Washington”.
The resolutions at the NATO summit in Madrid showed that the USA "want to subject all states to their will".
"The Iron Curtain is now being erected by the Westerners themselves," agreed Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makey at the Minsk meeting.
Who separates from whom?
Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill coined the term Iron Curtain in 1946 to describe the isolation of the Soviet Eastern Bloc from the capitalist world.
At the NATO summit, the member states tried to demonstrate unity.
The admission procedure was officially started for Finland and Sweden, and Turkey justified the agreement at the last minute.
At the same time, the heads of state and government of the 30 NATO countries approved a new strategy paper at their summit meeting.
For the first time, Russia is a declared enemy of NATO.
In the basic document for political and military planning, Russia is described as the “greatest and most immediate threat to the security of the allies and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area”, China as a challenge.
mrc/AFP