Russia, USA, EU and NATO after Ukraine crisis

Director of the Third European Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry Oleg Tyapkin believes that the current crisis in Ukraine will rebuild Russia's relations with Europe and the United Stats from top to bottom. The quality of Russia's relations with the EU, the USA and NATO will be completely different, he added.

Earlier, Maria Zakharova, an official representative for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said that the country's relations with the United States and the West were approaching the point of no return. Russia respects its own interests and views on security, and therefore does what is "beneficial for both the country and the people," she said.

• On March 7, Russian diplomats to the United Nations (UN), expelled from the US, flew with their families to Moscow. The Ilyshin Il-96-300 special government aircraft took off from New York to Russia with 50 passengers on board.
• On February 28, Russia's permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, announced that the United States declared 12 employees of the Russian permanent mission to the UN persona non grata and ordered them to leave the country by March 7.
• On March 6, Maria Zakharova said that secret services of NATO countries conducted certain conversations with the Russian citizens who interacted with the Russian diplomats abroad. In particular, representatives of the United States, Poland and the Baltic countries contacted such Russians in order to establish their contact lists.

Russia's representative at the UN's Geneva headquarters, Gennady Gatilov, suggested that the goal of the West was to oust Russia from the majority of international organizations, including the United Nations.

On February 25, members of the House of Representatives of the US Congress agreed to discuss a resolution calling for Russia's exclusion from the UN Security Council because of the country's military operation in Ukraine. The next day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during a dialogue with UN Secretary General António Guterres, called to deprive Russia of the right to vote at the Security Council.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in response to those calls, said that there is no mechanism to deprive Russia of its member status at the UN Security Council.

"Their total inadequacy has long been well known to everyone,” he said.