📰 Excerpt from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's article "International Cooperation in the Arctic: Challenges and Opportunities" 💬 Preserving the Arctic as an area of peace and cooperation meets the interests of the entire international community. Meanwhile, there are those who do not share this point of view. How else can one explain the fact that NATO countries, as well as the Alliance as a whole, are driving the region towards militarisation and creating hotbeds of international tension there? [...] This deliberate and systematic effort to foster an atmosphere of mistrust in the military sphere is taking place alongside Western attempts to undermine Russia's legitimate rights in international cooperation through illegitimate sanctions targeting legal entities and individuals from countries of the Global South who are involved in joint projects in the Arctic region. NATO and other Western countries are openly declaring their intention to turn the Arctic into a new front for opposing the development of Russia and its like-minded partners [...] Our current opponents should have learned the many lessons of history by now and understood that attempts to speak to Russia in the language of sanctions and threats are futile. ❗️ Unfriendly and hostile actions have been and will continue to be met with an appropriate response. Read in full