Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s answer to a question from Moscow. Kremlin. Putin TV show, Moscow, April 20, 2025

Question: What, in your view, has the EU degenerated into, if its officials warn leaders of EU member countries against travelling to Moscow?  

Sergey Lavrov: There is no such word that would characterise this phenomenon. The fact that the EU is openly seeking to revive the European ideology of Nazism really boggles the mind (I am not being ironical). This ideology was born in Europe, wiped out in Europe, and banned by the Nuremberg Trials – again in Europe. But now it is being resuscitated under the leadership of the “Brussels bureaucracy.” 

These are sad and worrisome events. We will not put up with this. We will do whatever we can to prevent this ideology from rearing its ugly head. We want it to be destroyed once and for all. We want Europe to return to its values that do not consist in tarring everyone with the same brush, placing everyone under arms, and playing off others against Europe’s rivals or those whose values, views and convictions are against the grain to European leaders, führers, and other “commissars.”     

I hope that we will gain the majority in European capitals – the majority of those who do not want to renounce their roots or obey a bureaucracy, let alone one with clearly Nazi leanings.