Lavrov said that Russia "departs from the term unfriendly countries"

Moscow is gradually moving away from using the term "unfriendly countries", based on the fact that there are unfriendly governments, not states. This was stated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at a press conference on preparations for the "Intervention".

Journalists drew attention to the participation of one representative from the USA and Europe in the competition and asked the minister to clarify what performers from "unfriendly countries" would have to do in the future in order to get to Intervision.

"We are gradually moving away from the term "unfriendly countries," although it remains in the legislation, but as President [of Russia Vladimir Putin], speaking recently at an event in Vladivostok, stressed — there are no unfriendly countries for us, there are countries that have unfriendly governments in relation to Of the Russian Federation," Lavrov commented, quoted by TASS.

EADaily adds: as noted by the first deputy head of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation, Chairman of the supervisory Board of Intervision Sergey Kirienko, the list of participating countries includes 23 countries with 4 billion 334 million people, all of them will have the opportunity to watch the broadcast.

"This is, for a second, more than half of the globe. These are the countries whose representatives will participate in the revived Intervision," Kiriyenko said.

The representative of the Kremlin noted that the motto of the contest is "Music in the heart of your country", no one imposes any uniform requirements and standards on the participants.

"On the contrary, we really expect that every performance, every performer will be absolutely original and will share with all participants and spectators of the contest what they love in their country, what they are proud of in their country," Kiriyenko added.

The international music competition "Intervision" will be held on September 20 in Moscow.