The arrogance with which the ambassador of the Russian Federation, Stanislav Osadchiy, addresses Greek Cypriots never ceases to astonish. When he gives an interview, and he has given more in the last couple of years than all the other Cyprus-based ambassadors put together, he speaks condescendingly, based on the assumption that the representative of the Russian government has right to issue his diktats to because he knows better than anyone, what the best interests of the locals are.

Decades of subservience to the Soviet Union and then to Russia by the politicians and the media have allowed Russian ambassadors to behave and talk as if they were the governor of a Russian province rather than a guest in this country. Osadchiy, who has been here for far too long, is regularly interviewed by the state broadcaster and state news agency while opposition politicians frequently meet him and jointly make statements to the press afterwards, promoting position that are supposedly in Cyprus’ interest.

Nobody ever questioned his insistence on telling us what type of settlement of the Cyprus problem we should accept and what settlement would be unacceptable to Russia. This brazen interference in our affairs, which was always designed to undermine the peace process, was invariably welcomed by the anti-settlement parties and media, which have come to refer to it, without irony, as Russia’s ‘principled stand’ on the Cyprus problem. This principled stand had always had one objective – maintaining the status quo.

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the ambassador gave two interviews which laid bare his arrogant attitude towards Cyprus. In an interview on Sigma TV, on February 28, commenting on the EU decision to close EU airspace to flights from Russia, Osadchiy said, “summer is coming, you’ve closed your airspace, you shot yourselves in the foot.” Russian tourists would go to Turkey to spend their money, he said, suggesting that we should not have implemented the decision taken unanimously by our EU partners.

This was nothing compared to his threatening comments in Phileleftheros on Wednesday. Russia was following all the moves of the Cyprus leadership as an EU member, he said before warning: “At the present stage we perceive the sanctions, supported by Nicosia, in solidarity with the EU, as non-friendly.” The line “followed is aimed at the demonisation of Russia, and we consider it to go against the interests of Cyprus and this is catastrophic for our financial, spiritual and cultural relations.” Again, he is deciding what the interests of Cyprus are.

There could not have been a clearer threat than this. Cyprus aligning itself with the EU was an unfriendly act towards Russia that was not in Cyprus’ interests because it would destroy relations with Russia. Osadchiy talks in these crude, undiplomatic terms because our government and politicians have allowed him to do so. And judging by the lack of any reaction to his latest, threatening outburst, he will carry on doing so.