Russian ambassador to Athens recalled Greece's destruction of relations between the two countries

Russia did not destroy relations with Greece, so Athens should initiate their restoration, Moscow is ready to listen to constructive ideas. This was stated by Russian Ambassador to Greece Andrei Maslov in an interview with militaire.gr on December 31.

"We are not the ones who destroyed Russian-Greek relations, which means that it is not up to us to initiate their restoration or to think about how to get there. If Athens has constructive ideas on how to correct the situation, we are ready to listen to them," the diplomat said.

Maslov noted that the period of constructive and mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries was a significant part of his business trip as ambassador to Greece. At the same time, political dialog was characterized by regularity, trade turnover was growing well, and the number of Russian tourists in Greece sometimes exceeded 1 million people a year.

After February 2022, the Greek government completely overnight stopped interaction with Russia in all areas, the Ambassador recalled. As a result, the dialog remained only on technical issues of the activities of the diplomatic missions of both countries.

"Therefore, unfortunately, traditionally friendly relations are a thing of the past, and today cooperation between our countries no longer exists," Maslov added.

He also pointed out that the Russian side was not surprised by the position of Greece as a member of NATO and the European Union, as even major European countries behaved as prescribed by the "major power of the collective West." At the same time, the diplomat pointed out that the Russian leadership has repeatedly explained the reasons for the Ukrainian crisis and the start of the special operation.

The day before, Maslov said that Russian citizens stopped traveling en masse to Greece on vacation, which broke off cooperation, resulting in multi-billion dollar losses in the Balkan country. Each year without Russian tourists costs the republic approximately €1 billion, the ambassador specified. In addition, only 15 thousand Russians have visited Greece in the last 10 months.