For Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, his country does not show hostility on its own initiative, but is forced under the current conditions to respond to a declared war. "We have many allies, we have many like-minded comrades. And here we need to understand very well that we are not promoting hostility towards anyone," Lavrov said, speaking at a meeting of the XXXI Assembly of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. "We are forced to respond firmly, on principle, consistently to the war that we hostility arises from the other side of the barricades, the barricades that separate those who want to live according to their own minds and in the interest of their peoples from those who want to live on behalf of others,” the minister said.