In his address to a meeting at the Russian-Tajik (Slavic) University, Mr. Lavrov on June 6 called on partners from Central Asia to take a critical look at cooperation schemes imposed by the West, according to TASS.  

“Today we are witnessing deliberate efforts by the West to forcefully infiltrate, including in humanitarian and military terms, into Central Asia,” said the Russian foreign minister.  “It is worth taking a critical look at the military cooperation schemes imposed by West and their training programs for law enforcement officers.”

He also noted that development support programs “promoted by geopolitical engineers from the Western countries in fact are tools of control and reformatting of the political and economic landscape of the Central Asian region for themselves.   

“In particular, we spoke about this during the talks today in a key area of water use,” the Russian foreign minister added.