News - Zakharova: Moscow discusses with Armenia dragging Yerevan into anti-Russian course

Moscow has been discussing with Armenia in the course of contacts, "the dragging of Yerevan by Western countries into their anti-Russian course" to warn about the risks, the Armenian side has accepted some arguments, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told RIA Novosti. "Unfortunately, we have been seeing this trend for quite a long time, and we talk about it. We speak, including very confidentially, with our Armenian colleagues, partners, with one goal only - to warn," Zakharova said in an interview with the agency. According to her, "the Armenian side perceived some of Moscow's arguments", and "even certain measures were taken." "We understand perfectly well that the States and the collective West in general have been using tactics of treating countries and peoples as their tools for not just decades, centuries. At the same time covering themselves with good intentions. If there were no such examples in our region, one would probably think that it is to the post-Soviet space that the United States and the collective West would not apply these tactics," she said. According to Zakharova, Moscow "sincerely wishes Armenia to preserve its sovereignty and build a policy based on national interests." "What are national interests? Not those interests that someone in Brussels or somewhere else in some capital, but those that reflect the cultural identity of the people, that are connected with the interests of people who every day through their labour create this very public good, who will, want and will bring up their children and their children's children on their land, who do not treat Armenia transitively in terms of transit consciousness, but want to live there, want to create a national product there, and their families, their homes," Zakharova said.