Russian Foreign Ministry: Europe blames Russia for unrest to evade responsibility for its internal crisis

Foreign Ministry statement amid November protests

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Dmitry Lyubinsky said in an interview with TASS that European countries are trying to evade responsibility for their internal crisis by accusing Russia of interference and destabilizing the situation. According to him, statements about the causes of unrest in European countries directly blame Russia for interference. “This is a long-known scheme, well tested in the West: drive the situation into a crisis and then dump the responsibility for the consequences on Russia,” Gazeta.Ru quotes the diplomat as saying.

The essence of Moscow's claims

Lyubinsky noted that, in his view, this position helps European leaders avoid answering to their fellow citizens and avoid analyzing the socio-economic causes of the events taking place. This is the Russian side's assessment: the European governments themselves are not commented on in the publication through the Russian Foreign Ministry, and no confirmation or refutation of the accusations is provided in the material.

Context: the protests in early November

The comment came after protests took place in many European cities in early November. In Switzerland, a march escalated into major riots and clashes with police. In Germany and France, protesters, according to Gazeta.Ru, resorted to open looting. In Poland, Russia was accused of supporting street demonstrations — it is this episode that is directly connected to the subject of Lyubinsky's statement. The outlet examined the causes and consequences of the mass protests in a separate article; also, Dmitriev earlier offered his own version of the causes of the mass unrest in the European Union.