Russia will never remain in isolation with the number of friends it has, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Aljazeera TV channel.

"Russia has many friends and it is impossible to isolate it," the TV channel quoted the Russian foreign minister as saying, TASS reported.

Lavrov said Russia was ready for sanctions against it but was surprised that the measures affected athletes and media workers: "We were ready for sanctions, but we did not expect them to affect athletes, intellectuals, actors and media workers," he said.

The minister also said that Western countries had refused to discuss the formation of a new European security architecture with Russia.