MOSCOW, May 6 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's foreign minister strongly criticized Saturday remarks made earlier in the week about the Russian government by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.
Cheney attacked Thursday Russia's post-Soviet policy at a conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, attended by heads of states from the Baltic and Black Sea regions and NATO and EU representatives. "No one can justify actions that undermine the territorial integrity of a neighbor," the vice president said.
But Sergei Lavrov highlighted in an interview with Russian e-media the role played by Russian troops to end conflicts that erupted after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"In early 1990s Russian peacekeepers gave their lives to stop bloodshed in Georgia and Moldova, saving the territorial integrity of these states," Lavrov said. "I would suggest that forgetting about this is profanation."
Lavrov said the vice president's advisors must have failed to provide him with objective information, especially with regard to his comments that opponents of reforms in Russia were endangering the achievements of the 1990s.
"I think that there is no need to explain in detail to the Russian people what these achievements were, when the country was on the brink of collapse," Lavrov said, adding that the government sought to ensure the country's territorial integrity in the interests of its people.
Cheney also harshly criticized Russia saying it had been backsliding on democracy and using its vast energy resources to blackmail its neighbors. "No legitimate interest is served when oil and gas become tools of intimidation or blackmail, either by supply manipulation, or attempts to monopolize transportation," Cheney said.
Lavrov said lower-ranking politicians had often made such statements, but suggested "a U.S. vice president should be informed that for the last 40 years neither the U.S.S.R. nor the Russian Federation has ever broken a single contract for oil and gas supplies abroad."
Lavrov said he hoped such statements would not undermine efforts Russia, the United States and Europe were making to build a just world without conflicts with countries developing in conditions of stability and democracy.
