"All peaceful instruments of cooperation are being deliberately destroyed, the work of the Arctic Council, which was the main international platform for managing the situation in the Arctic and establishing cooperation, has actually been blocked. It is in this region that international cooperation is needed more than ever," Grushko told the Izvestia newspaper.
He said all of this was deliberately destroyed by NATO and the European Union in order to "demonize Russia and militarize the region," and the Arctic itself has become an arena for their confrontation not only with Russia but also with China.