Putin Calls West 'Empire of Lies' Following Heavy Sanctions

Russian President Vladimir Putin called the West an "Empire of Lies" on state TV after the latest sanctions imposed on Russia, the Kremlin revealed on Monday.

"(Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin) and I discussed this topic, naturally bearing in mind the sanctions that the so-called Western community - as I called it in my speech, the 'empire of lies' - is now trying to implement against our country," a transcript of the meeting quoted Putin as saying.

In his previous remarks, Putin noted that he had made a decision to conduct a special military operation in response to a request from the leaders of the Donbass republics. However, he stressed that Moscow’s plans did not include the invasion of Ukraine.

Meantime, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who was supposed to travel to Geneva today, called his mission in Switzerland off after EU countries closed their airspace to flights from Russia.

Lavrov was going to attend high-level meetings at the Human Rights Council and the Conference on Disarmament, followed by a planned news conference.

The mission tweeted that the cancellation of the trip to landlocked Switzerland was due to an “unprecedented ban” on Lavrov’s flight by “a number of EU countries that have imposed anti-Russian sanctions.”