Kremlin Official Laments Donald Trump's Twitter Ban, Praises Fox News

In a 35-minute interview aired Friday on Russian state-owned television network RT, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed that Fox News is the only American media outlet that offers "alternative" points of view, and called the removal of former President Donald Trump from Twitter and other social media "censorship."

This comes as the latest back-and-forth on media and propaganda between the two countries as the war in Ukraine rages on.

"So we know the manners and the tricks which are being used by the Western countries to manipulate media," Lavrov said. "We understood long ago that there is no such thing as an independent Western media. If you take the United States only Fox News is trying to present some alternative points of view."

"But when you see, you watch other channels, and when you—watch, read the social networks and internet platforms, when the acting president was blocked, as you know, and this censorship continues in a very big way and the substitution of notions whenever something is happening by the way of mass protest mass demonstrations, which they don't like, they immediately call it domestic terrorism. So it's a war, and it's a war which involves the methods of information terrorism. There is no doubt about this."

Lavrov also discussed Presidents Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as several other topics like the White House's reported recent meetings with TikTok creators and the widely disputed claim that the United States is funding dangerous biolabs in Ukraine and around the globe.

He said that Russia will adapt to the sanctions that have been placed on the nation by the West and said they learned how to "rely" on themselves when sanctions were placed on Russia in 2014-15 after the annexation of Crimea.

In discussing the votes that the United Nations has held condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Lavrov claimed that many of the countries who have not imposed sanctions on Russia only voted to condemn Russia under "pressure" from the U.S. and other Western nations.

Lavrov also claimed that Russia's military discovered documents that would prove the controversial and widely disputed claims that the United States is funding biological labs in Ukraine that are studying dangerous pathogens and viruses that could be weaponized against Russia and other countries.

He claimed that the U.S. is funding over 300 labs around the world, much larger accusations than the dozens of labs throughout Ukraine that Russia has previously accused the U.S. of funding. The U.S. has acknowledged the existence of labs in Ukraine that receive American funding but has maintained that they are not performing research with the intent to weaponize anything.

Biden is an experienced politician that knows how dangerous the U.S. complying with Zelensky's requests of establishing a no-fly zone and providing more weapons would be, Lavrov said. Lavrov believes that Zelensky is relying on "less responsible" politicians in Congress and around the world to pressure Biden into providing more support and taking a more confrontational stance with Russia, which is what he believes Zelensky wants.

"Any cargo moving into Ukrainian territory which we would believe is carrying weapons would be fair game," Lavrov said of Russia's preparedness to "remove any threat to the Russian Federation coming from Ukrainian soil."

Lavrov also repeated several Russian claims, continuing to call the invasion a "special military operation" and said Russia's goals remain the same, claiming that "denazification is an absolute must."

Update 3/18/22, 1:35 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional information.