News - Russia FM: International situation being unsafe is comparable to Cold War period

The current international situation being unsafe is comparable to the times of the Cold War. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated this at the Primakov Readings international forum. "During the Cold War, there were checks and balances, there was a disposition in the big states, competing camps—the US and the Soviet Union, NATO and the Warsaw Pact—, there was a disposition to restrain competition in the political-diplomatic framework. Neither in the US, nor in the Soviet Union, nor in the countries of the socialist camp, were observed such alarming assessments of what was happening and such serious concerns for the future; I mean the physical future," noted the Russian FM. "Now such fears are manifested everywhere and next to you in the speeches of many political figures of government organizations; this is a different situation," added Lavrov. The Russian FM noted that "at that time, the arms control dialogue took shape and developed quite quickly, concrete results were achieved, and it inspired calm." According to him, the US and its European allies use a broad set of geopolitical engineering tools. "Among them is also the provoking of conflicts; we see it along the entire perimeter of the Russian borders," Lavrov added. "The activities of the World Trade Organization, first of all, its dispute settlement body, were blocked by the hands of the supporters of the West. Such fundamental legal foundations of global economic relations as free competition and the inviolability of property have collapsed," the Russian FM said.