Kosachyov sees vicious logic in actions of German authorities who included Russia in list of ten major threats
MOSCOW. June 5 (Interfax) - Russia has never rejected cooperation and partnership with the West, including Germany, but Russia also hopes for mutual respect, Konstantin Kosachyov, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federation Council, the upper house of Russia's parliament, told Interfax.
"We have never rejected a partnership with European countries. It was not Russia that introduced sanctions. It was not Russia that rejected interaction with NATO. It was not Russia that refused to discuss the most acute topics, including the Ukrainian crisis at its most initial stages, when discussions on gas transit were underway in the trilateral format. But the world order in which Russia is not seen as a partner today is based on the West's main formula - 'what is good for the West is good for all'," Kosachyov said.
The Russian senator said this when commenting on German media reports that the German Defense Ministry had included Russia in the list of ten major threats and had called Russia a rival rather than a partner.
"Russia by no means rejects a partnership with Germany or with any other state of Europe," Kosachyov said.
"It is simply that a partnership envisages the sole crucial condition - mutual respect. If you consider your conditions to be the only right ones and your interests the only possible ones, in this case such a partnership will be inherently doomed," Kosachyov said.
When commenting on accusations that Russia "calls into question" the European world order "created after the Cold War", the Russian senator said: "Honesty speaking, I will agree with the Germans on this point. Indeed, we actually call into question the world order, which, at the West's initiative, has changed beyond recognition in comparison with the agreements of the period of the joint exit from the Cold War."
When voicing their concern over Russia's use of "hybrid instruments to wash out the borders between war and peace and subversive activity in other states," the German authorities should bear in mind the fact that "we have the same questions following the West's repeated attempts to ensure former Soviet states' geopolitical re-orientation in its direction at any cost," Kosachyov said.
"Support for clearly anti-Russian forces, involvement into pro-Western instruments of the 'Eastern partnership' type and various association agreements, brainwashing of local NGOs [non-governmental organizations], media and expert communities, direct work with political staffs, and, finally, direct support of coups - all this is not a free choice, but hybrid methods of advancing one's influence," Kosachyov said.
"If German politicians believe that Russia will endlessly put up with such a 'world order' in Europe, it is either a deep naivety or an incorrect assessment of the situation and the concrete crucial state of the Eurasian continent," he said.