The West is trying to return the situation in the South Caucasus to the worst period in the history of the region. This was announced by the spokesperson of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Maria Zakharova, at Wednesday’s press briefing.

To the question whether Armenia is trying to replace Russia with the West in the peace talks with Azerbaijan, Zakharova stated: "I would say that we should not talk about specific point mechanisms, but about global trends. Russia acted as a mediator, with a high degree of efficiency, in the settlement of regional problems, in the interest of peace and in favor of all the countries of the region. It was not a conjunctural game, it was not a game for its own sake and to benefit one's own interests. It was our contribution to the future of the region. An attempt to find common approaches and harmonize the contradictions for the sake of establishing peace between those countries and in the region in general. It was not just a philosophical concept, it was a philosophical concept that became a reality and was specified in documents that began to be implemented. And this is where the West appeared, which, out of a sense of envy and endless malice, as well as a desire to be invested in a region where peace can be established, broke that trend and began to announce itself as a new mediator. But, as we have already commented several times, the function, role, and obvious concrete actions prove otherwise. There it is not about mediation, there it is about, firstly, attempts to destabilize the situation; secondly, to return the situation to the worst times in the region. The next moment, of course, is to gather information—again not in favor of peace in the region, but for their own interests, against the countries of the region."

"Each sovereign state has the right to implement its own internal and external policy; it is obvious. But the only issue is that, unfortunately, we see that this is happening not in favor of the stated goals, but run contrary to them. And it also violates the balance of forces and interests that exist in the region and are important for the region as a whole, not for one or two specific countries. And we see concrete examples of how the West has in this way violated either the just-emerging harmony, or the harmonization of already existing problematic issues in different parts of the world," the Russian MFA spox added.