"Westerners, with energy worthy of better use, are erecting a new 'iron curtain,' trying to make irreversible the severance of social, economic, trade, transport, interpersonal, cultural, and historical ties they have provoked. These ties, which have been built in the region not just over years, but over centuries," the diplomat said.
The situation in the Baltic region as a whole is a reflection of the overall geopolitical situation in Europe, conditioned by the course of NATO and the European Union towards systemic confrontation with Russia, Bulatov emphasised.
"Thanks to the efforts of our former partners, key mechanisms of multilateral regional cooperation, including the Council of the Baltic Sea States and the Barents Euro-Arctic Council, have been destroyed," he said.
With Russia's withdrawal from these mechanisms, which was inevitable under the current circumstances, their activities have lost their meaning and are now essentially relegated to a secondary instrument of NATO and the EU's anti-Russian policy, Bulatov stressed.
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, and Canada welcome NATO's increased activity, including military exercises, in the Arctic region, according to a joint statement by the prime ministers of these states issued on March 15.