LIVE – War in Ukraine: NATO Secretary General makes surprise visit to Q

S. Lavrov just finished his Latin American tour

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Cuba on Wednesday evening from Nicaragua, where he met with President Daniel Ortega, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Barilla said. He will meet with President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Thursday, who was unsurprisingly re-elected on Wednesday.

“Westerners under countries like the United States (…) are trying to increase their hegemony through conflicts like Ukraine,” the head of Russian diplomacy said in a televised statement before departing Nicaragua. During an exchange, Daniel Ortega and Sergey Lavrov condemned the sanctions imposed by Washington on the same day that three Nicaraguan judges stripped 316 of their nationalities of opponents qualified as “terrorists” by President Ortega.

“Hundreds of fellow senior state officials have already been admitted, but that doesn’t scare us, it doesn’t worry us,” the Nicaraguan president said. Earlier in the day, in Caracas, the Russian foreign minister called for a “unity” to confront the “black tigers” of Western sanctions.