Russian Foreign Ministry Fact-Checks Op-Ed by EU's Borrell

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia’s Foreign Ministry accused top EU diplomat Josep Borrell on Tuesday of information manipulation after he claimed that Russia mounted a disinformation campaign to justify its operation in Ukraine.

In a 3 March op-ed titled "Might makes not right, unjust wars are doomed to be lost," Borrell alleged that Russia attacked a "peaceful and democratic" Ukraine, which posed no threat to it.

"[Ukraine] declared itself to be anti-Russian and was building up military forces, working on weapons of mass destruction and turning into a springboard for a possible military operation by Western countries against Russia. How is that not a threat?" the Russian ministry argued.

It further denied Borrell’s claim that the West had spent months pursuing "unparalleled efforts to achieve a diplomatic solution." The ministry argued it was Russia that made security guarantee proposals to the US and NATO but so no readiness in the West to meet it halfway.

Reacting to the diplomat’s warning that Russia now faced a "full-scale isolation" by the international community, the ministry said that the world was not limited to the US, Canada, the UK, Japan, South Korea and Australia, and "even the EU is not all of Europe."