We were told directly and quite rudely: the expansion of the alliance and the possible participation of Ukraine in this process is not Russia's business, you should not interfere in these issues.

Axar.az reports that the statement came from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

"In parallel with the demands for the implementation of the Minsk agreements, we have been reminding for many years that the West's course on NATO enlargement will end badly. First, it turns out that they lied to us when they promised the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand. Since then, the union has expanded fivefold. The sixth expansion is already planned," Lavrov said.

Lavrov also noted that when Ukraine became involved in NATO, it was warned that Russia would consider it a direct threat:

"They rejected the draft agreement on security guarantees in Europe that we proposed in 2009. They ignored another project that we proposed to the United States in 2021, and a separate NATO agreement."