The Swedish Foreign Minister is currently chairing the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe), of which Russia is also a member.
- We have very good relations when it comes to trade, but when it comes to political issues, we have great differences in how we view development, says Foreign Minister Ann Linde to SVT News about relations with Russia.
"Changes have taken place"
One of the topics discussed in the talks is the migrant crisis in Belarus, which Linde calls a "hybrid attack".
- We can state that there have been changes in the last 24 hours where Minsk has moved the migrants to hangar-like buildings.
I was very clear that we see this as a hybrid attack on the EU - they want to change EU policy by orchestrating migrants to the external border, she says.
She continues:
- In some of the conversations I had, they discussed what was happening in Turkey, in Italy and between Great Britain and France, and compared this with Belarus.
Then of course I could say that it has nothing to do with each other.
This is an orchestrated movement of people to change political behavior.
When Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is asked what Russia is ready to do to improve political relations with democracies in the West, he answers as follows:
- We do not intend to turn a blind eye to the extremely serious provocations that we see daily from the NATO countries' side and increasingly from the EU's side.
Among other things, the EU is trying to pretend to be militarists in Ukraine.
We are always open to dialogue, but only on the basis of equality, mutual respect and a search for a balance of interests.
Harassment against human rights organization
Osse has also this week criticized Russia for "harassment" in its attempts to close the long-established Russian human rights organization Memorial.
Ann Linde met the organization on Thursday night.
- I expressed our full support for their incredibly important work.
In my meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov, I mentioned that it is incredibly important that voluntary organizations such as Memorial can continue to work without restrictions, she says.