BAKU. Oct 11 (Interfax) - The United States and its allies are seeking to destabilize the situation in countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov has said.
"The U.S. and its allies have undertaken massive efforts to unsettle the situation in Commonwealth countries, to place sanctions pressure on undesirable states, [and] to block logistical routes and the establishment of new transport corridors, thus worsening the negative consequences of the global economic crisis," Bortnikov said at a conference of leaders of security and other special services from the CIS countries in Baku on Wednesday.
Western countries are making special efforts to destroy "interstate associations that are not under their control and break their participants up into alternative formats, which severs conventional trade, economic, political, cultural, and historical ties," he said.
"The main targets include integration projects in Eurasia, namely the CIS, the EAEU [Eurasian Economic Union], the CSTO [Collective Security Treaty Organization], and the SCO [Shanghai Cooperation Organization]," he said.
"The buildup of social problems is being actively fueled by external forces and causes the radicalization of the most vulnerable sections of society, primarily youth," Bortnikov said.