Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that the European Union’s presence in Armenia was organized with the goal of ousting Russia from the region.
She noted that the launch of the mission, which ostensibly aimed to help normalize relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, took place without the consent of the Azerbaijani side and other regional players and without proper reporting.
"This only confirms the true motive of the EU policy in the region, the main purpose of which is to squeeze Russia out of the Transcaucasus and turn the South Caucasus into an arena of geopolitical confrontation to the detriment of the core interests of the people living there,” she said.
According to Zakharova's assessment, the increase in the number of EU monitoring points "has nothing to do with the task of establishing stability and peace in relations between Baku and Yerevan."
"The non-accountability of the EU mission to the international community and, above all, to Azerbaijan and Armenia, reinforces suspicions of the existence of a hidden agenda in EU activities 'on the ground,' the presence of a 'second bottom' in the mission's mandate under the guise of its 'civilian' nature," she said.
The spokeswoman said that Moscow is not the only one who has "numerous reasonable questions" about the real motives of the EU's activities in the region.
