He said this at a press conference following talks with South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor.
“When we talk about what is happening there, in Ukraine, we are talking about the fact that this is no longer a hybrid war, but almost a real one, which the West has been preparing for a long time against Russia, trying to destroy everything Russian: from language to culture, that was in Ukraine for centuries, and forbidding people to speak their native language, ”RIA Novosti quotes him
Earlier, Lavrov warned that the course of the West, aimed at the total containment of Russia, carries the risks of a direct armed clash of nuclear powers.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his New Year's address to the nation, said that the West lied about peace in Ukraine, was preparing for aggression, and is now talking about it openly.
On December 7, former German chancellor Angela Merkel called the Minsk agreements an attempt to give Ukraine time to “become stronger.”
She noted that today's Ukraine militarily is "not what it was in 2014-2015."