Moscow denounces decision to prevent Sergei Lavrov’s visit to Serbia

“If a visit by the Russian foreign minister is perceived in the West as a quasi-global threat, that apparently means that everything is very bad there,” quipped Mr. Lavrov on June 6, 2022 in Moscow. AP Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, denounced on Monday June 6 the decision of Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro, all three NATO member countries, to close their airspace for the prevent him from traveling to Serbia. “The inconceivable has happened,” said Mr. Lavrov, during an urgently called online press conference. “We have deprived a sovereign state of its right to exercise its foreign policy”, he added, denouncing a “scandalous” measure. Mr. Lavrov was to travel to Serbia for a two-day visit. He was supposed to meet Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, his foreign affairs counterpart, Nikola Selakovic, and the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Porfirije, in Belgrade. Черногория, Северная Македония и подобные им страны нужны НАТО для того, чтобы сдерживать Россию в Европе, расширят… https://t.co/g9gklBgoew— tass_agency (@ТАСС) « Si une visite du ministre des affaires étrangères russe est perçue en Occident as a planetary near-threat, it apparently means that everything is very bad there,” Lavrov quipped. He added that he had invited Mr. Selakovic to go to Russia “as soon as possible”. “No one can destroy our relations with Serbia,” Lavrov said. Sergei Lavrov also said that Russia was not going to follow the example of its “Western partners”: “As regards possible responses, we are not going to do anything that risks further complicating the ties between the peoples. Dmitri Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, also reacted to the cancellation of this trip: “Such hostile acts against our country are capable of causing certain problems (…), but they cannot prevent our diplomacy to continue its work. For his part, Konstantin Kosatchev, the vice-president of the Council of the Federation, the upper house of the Russian Parliament, denounced a “action by NATO” directed “against Russia as a State and Serbia as a State” and called for a “common and extremely severe reaction” which would result “in practical, concrete actions”. Read also Article reserved for our subscribers Serbia, the only country in Europe to massively support Putin’s Russia Serbia’s ambiguous position The head of the Serbian government, Ana Brnabic, said on Sunday that the situation around this visit was “exceptionally complicated” due to the impossibility of flying over certain countries. She had specified that the Serbian president was himself working on the organization of the visit. In Belgrade, Serbian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin expressed his incomprehension. In a statement, he said: “A world in which diplomats cannot seek peace is a world in which there is no peace. Those who prevented the arrival of Sergei Lavrov do not want peace, they dream of defeating Russia. (…) Serbia is proud not to be part of the anti-Russian hysteria, and the countries that participate in it will have time to be ashamed. As for Bulgaria, its foreign minister “did not give diplomatic authorization for the overflight of Bulgarian territory by Russian planes”, defending a decision “in accordance with the regime of European Union sanctions against Russia “, is it written in a press release. Sergei Lavrov has been targeted since February 25, the day after the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, by European Union sanctions, as has President Vladimir Putin. At the end of February, the head of Russian diplomacy, who was to participate in the UN Human Rights Council and the Disarmament Conference in Geneva, had already had to cancel his visit to Switzerland because of the sanctions prohibiting him from flying over of the European Union. Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Serbia keeps vivid memories of NATO strikes Le Monde with AFP and Reuters