Russia’s top diplomat warned Tuesday that the European Union “is becoming militarized at a record rate” and aggressive in its goal of containing Russia. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference he has no doubts that there is now “very little difference” between the EU and NATO. Lavrov said they recently signed a declaration, which he said essentially states that the 31-member NATO military alliance will ensure the security of the 27-member EU political and economic organization. He was apparently referring to a Jan. 19 EU-NATO declaration on their “strategic partnership” which calls Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine “the gravest threat to Euro-Atlantic security in decades.” Also Read: Sweden expels 5 Russian Embassy staff on suspicion of spying It calls the present moment “a key juncture for Euro-Atlantic security and stability” and urges closer EU-NATO cooperation to confront evolving security threats, saying this will contribute to strengthening security in Europe and beyond. And it encourages the fullest possible involvement of NATO members that don’t belong to the EU and EU members that aren’t part of NATO, but it does not state that NATO will ensure the security of the EU. Russian President Vladimir Putin has long complained about NATO’s expansion, especially toward his country, and partly used that as a justification for invading Ukraine. Also Read: UN chief, representatives of the West berate Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov over Ukraine war The Russian attack, however, sent fear through its other neighbors, and Finland joined NATO earlier this month, seeking protection under its security umbrella after decades of neutrality following its defeat by the former Soviet Union in World War II. While NATO says it poses no threat to Russia, the Nordic country’s accession dealt a major political blow to Putin. Finland's membership doubles Russia’s border with NATO, the world’s largest security alliance. Sweden, an EU member, is also seeking NATO membership and is hoping for final approval soon. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg defiantly declared last week that Ukraine’s “rightful place” is in the military alliance and pledged more support for the country on his first visit to Kyiv since the invasion. The Kremlin responded by repeating that preventing Ukraine from joining NATO is still a key goal of its invasion, arguing that Kyiv’s membership in the alliance would pose an existential threat to Russia. Ukraine is also seeking EU membership and in February its leaders pledged they would do all it takes to back Ukraine. But they offered no firm timetable for talks on joining the EU to begin, as Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had hoped. Russia’s Lavrov was asked whether the war in Ukraine was a miscalculation since Moscow strongly opposed NATO’s expansion and the invasion sparked Finland’s membership, with Sweden next and Ukraine hoping for a road map to join. “NATO never had any intention of stopping,” the Russian minister replied, pointing to the recent EU-NATO declaration and actions in recent years that saw non-NATO members Sweden and Finland “increasingly taking part in NATO military exercises and other actions that were meant to synchronize the military programs of NATO members and neutral states.” Lavrov said Russia was promised on several occasions that NATO would not expand, but said “those were lies.” “Unbiased assessments that our political scientists as well as those abroad made is that NATO sought to break Russia apart," he said, "but in the end it only made it stronger, brought it closer together. So, let’s not make any hasty conclusions now as to what this will all end in.”

Russia’s foreign minister on Tuesday warned anew Ukraine that it must demilitarize, threatening further military action and falsely accusing Kyiv and the West of fueling the war that started with Moscow’s invasion. Sergey Lavrov said Ukraine must remove any military threat to Russia — otherwise “the Russian army (will) solve the issue.” His comments also reflected persistent unfounded claims by the Kremlin that Ukraine and its Western allies were responsible for the 10-month war, which has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions. Russia launched the war on Feb. 24, alleging a threat to its security and a plot to bring NATO to its doorstep. Lavrov reiterated on Tuesday that the West was feeding the war in Ukraine to weaken Russia, and said that it depends on Kyiv and Washington how long the conflict will last. “As for the duration of the conflict, the ball is on the side of the (Kyiv) regime and Washington that stands behind its back,” Lavrov told the state Tass news agency. “They may stop senseless resistance at any moment.” In an apparent reaction, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted that “Russia needs to face the reality.” “Neither total mobilization, nor panicky search for ammo, nor secret contracts with Iran, nor Lavrov’s threats will help,” he said. “Ukraine will demilitarize the RF (Russian Federation) to the end, oust the invaders from all occupied territories. Wait for the finale silently…” A day earlier, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the Associated Press in an interview that his government wants a summit to end the war but that he doesn’t anticipate Russia taking part. Kuleba said Ukraine wants a “peace” summit within two months with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres acting as mediator. But he also said that Russia must face a war crimes tribunal before before his country directly talks with Moscow. Read more: Russia scrubs Mariupol's Ukraine identity, builds on death Both statements illustrate how complex and difficult any attempts to end the war could be. Ukraine has said in the past that it wouldn’t negotiate with Russia before the full withdrawal of its troops, while Moscow insists its military gains and the 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula cannot be ignored. Testifying to the hardships of war, families of Ukrainian prisoners of war believed held by Russia on Tuesday said the Christmas holiday season is particularly painful and appealed for more to be done to bring their loves ones back home. Neither Ukraine nor Russia have revealed the exact numbers of POWs they hold, while hundreds have been released as part of prisoner exchanges. Iryna Latysh’s husband Yevhen was captured exactly 300 days ago, in the early days of the war, and she says Christmas isn’t the same without him. “We were decorating the Christmas tree together this time last year,” she sobbed. “We put the star together, the decorations.” U.N. human rights investigators have warned that Ukrainian POWs appear to be facing “systematic” mistreatment — including torture — both when they are captured and when they are transferred into areas controlled by Russian forces or Russia itself. Meanwhile, fierce fighting continued on Tuesday in the Russia-claimed Donetsk and Luhansk regions that recently have been the scene of the most intense clashes. Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said that Russian forces are trying to encircle the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, but without success. Heavy battles are also underway around the city of Kreminna in the Luhansk region, Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai said. In the partially occupied southern Kherson region, Russian forces shelled Ukrainian-held areas 40 times on Monday, wounding one person, Ukrainian authorities said. The city of Kherson itself — which Ukraine retook last month in a major win — was targeted 11 times, said regional administrator Yaroslav Yanushevich. Since its initial advances at the start of the war 10 months ago, Russia has made few major gains, often pummeling Ukraine’s infrastructure instead and leaving millions without electricity, heating and hot water amid winter conditions. Lavrov didn’t specify how the Russian army will achieve its goals of demilitarizing and “denazifying” Ukraine — which was Russia’s stated goal when the invasion started in February. The reference to “denazification” comes from Russia’s allegations that the Ukrainian government is heavily influenced by radical nationalist and neo-Nazi groups. The claim is derided by Ukraine and the West. Lavrov warned further Western support for Ukraine could lead to direct confrontation. Read more: Russia warns increasing supply of US arms to Ukraine will aggravate war “We keep warning our adversaries in the West about the dangers of their course to escalate the Ukrainian crisis,” he said, adding that “the risk that the situation could spin out of control remains high.” “The strategic goal of the U.S. and its NATO allies is to win a victory over Russia on the battlefield to significantly weaken or even destroy our country,” he said. On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree banning oil exports to countries that support a $60-per-barrel price cap that was declared by the European Union and Group of Seven countries in a bid to reduce Moscow’s revenue during wartime. The ban takes effect in February and will run through July. The price cap is higher than what Russian oil has sold for in recent weeks, so the potential effects of Putin’s ban are uncertain.  

Russia on Friday responded in kind to a barrage of new U.S. sanctions, saying it would expel 10 U.S. diplomats and take other retaliatory moves in a tense showdown with Washington. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also said Moscow will add eight U.S. officials to its sanctions list and move to restrict and stop the activities of U.S. nongovernment organizations from interfering in Russia’s politics. He said the Kremlin suggested that U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan follow the example of his Russian counterpart and head home for consultations. Russia will also move to deny the U.S. Embassy the possibility to hire personnel from Russia and third countries as support staff. The moves follow the sanctions on Russia announced this week by the Biden administration. While the U.S. wields the power to cripple the Russian economy, Moscow lacks levers to respond in kind, although it potentially could hurt American interests in many other ways around the globe. Lavrov noted that while Russia could take “painful measures” against American business interests in Russia, it wouldn’t immediately move to do that Russia has denied interfering in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and involvement in the SolarWind hack of federal agencies — the activities punished by the latest U.S. sanctions. The Russian Foreign Ministry warned of an “inevitable” retaliation, charging that “Washington should realize that it will have to pay a price for the degradation of bilateral ties.” The U.S. on Thursday ordered 10 Russian diplomats expelled, targeted dozens of companies and people, and imposed new curbs on Russia’s ability to borrow money. Pundits had predicted that while Moscow would respond in kind to the expulsions, it would refrain from any other significant moves to avoid a further escalation. Russia’s economic potential and its global reach are limited compared with the Soviet Union that competed with the U.S for international influence during the Cold War. Still, Russia’s nuclear arsenal and its leverage in many parts of the world make it a power that Washington needs to reckon with. Aware of that, President Joe Biden called for de-escalating tensions and held the door open for cooperation with Russia in certain areas. Biden said he told Putin in Tuesday’s call that he chose not to impose tougher sanctions for now and proposed to meet in a third country in the summer. Lavrov said the summit offer was being analyzed. Also read: Sanctioned Russian IT firm was partner with Microsoft, IBM While the new U.S. sanctions further limited Russia’s ability to borrow money by banning U.S. financial institutions from buying Russian government bonds directly from state institutions, they didn’t target the secondary market. “It’s very important that there’re no sanctions on secondary debt because that means that non-U.S. persons can buy the debt and sell it to the U.S. persons,” said Tom Adshead, director of research at Macro-Advisory Ltd, an analytics and advisory company. Tougher restrictions would also hurt Western businesses, inflict significant economic pain on the Russian population and allow Putin to rally anti-U.S. sentiments to shore up his rule. Ramping up sanctions could eventually drive Russia into a corner and provoke even more reckless Kremlin action, such as a potential escalation in Ukraine, which has recently faced a surge in clashes with Russia-backed separatists in the east and a massive Russian troops buildup across the border. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Paris on Friday to discuss the tensions with French President Emmanuel Macron. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was to join them in a call later. Fyodor Lukyanov, a top foreign policy expert who leads the Moscow-based Council for Foreign and Defense Policies, predicted Putin would likely accept Biden’s invitation to join next week’s call on climate change but could drag his feet on accepting the summit offer. “There is no way to make any deals,” Lukyanov said. “There is a mutual antipathy and a total lack of trust.” He charged that the only practical outcome of the summit could be an agreement to launch long and difficult talks on a replacement to the New START nuclear reduction agreement that Russia and the U.S. extended in February for another five years. Lukyanov noted that the growing U.S. pressure will push Russia and China closer together in the long run. Also read: Months after hack, US poised to announce sanctions on Russia “Closer cooperation with China on coordinating actions to contain the United States will develop more quickly now as the Chinese are interested in that,” he said. While Russia lacks tools for a symmetrical answer to the U.S. sanctions, “it has ample capabilities to stimulate changes in the world order,” he added. Konstantin Kosachev, the Kremlin-connected deputy speaker of the upper house of parliament, said that by hitting Russia with sanctions and proposing a summit at the same time, the U.S. sought to take a commanding stance. “Russia’s consent would be interpreted as a reflection of its desire to soften the sanctions, allowing the U.S. to secure a dominant position at the meeting, while our refusal to meet would be a convenient pretext for more punitive measures,” Kosachev wrote on Facebook. He argued that Russia should not rush to accept Biden’s summit offer. “Revenge is a dish best served cold,” Kosachev wrote. “I believe the saying is quite adaptable to a situation when we talk not about revenge but a due answer to aggressive action by an opponent.” Some predicted the U.S. sanctions could discourage Russia from cooperating with the U.S. on international crises. “The Russian position will grow tougher on Syria, the Iranian nuclear deal and other issues,” Ivan Timofeev, program director at Russian International Affairs Council, said in a commentary. Instead of acting as a deterrent, he warned, the sanctions would “only anger Russia and make its policy even tougher.” However, any attempt by Russia to undermine American interests would dangerously escalate tensions with the U.S. and trigger even harder sanctions — something the Kremlin certainly wants to avoid. Despite the soaring tensions, Russia and the U.S. have shared interests in many global hot spots. For example, Moscow fears that instability could spread from Afghanistan to former Soviet republics in Central Asia, and it is interested in a political settlement there. As for Iran, Moscow also doesn’t want to see it with nuclear weapons, despite its friendly ties with Tehran. Lukyanov said that Russia wouldn’t try to use global hot spots to hurt the U.S. and would wait patiently to see them erode U.S. domination. “It’s not a matter of playing the spoiler here or there,” he said. “The ongoing developments will help accelerate the process of consolidation of leading powers against the U.S. domination.”