‘North Macedonia’s Hostile Steps Make Cooperation Impossible’ — Russian Ambassador

Kathmandu — Russia’s newly appointed Ambassador to North Macedonia, Dmitry Zykov, has said that unfriendly steps taken by Skopje have prevented the resumption of the bilateral intergovernmental commission on trade-economic and scientific-technical cooperation.

In his first interview with TASS news agency, Ambassador Zykov stated, “Unfriendly steps taken by Skopje do not allow resuming the activity of the Russian-Macedonian intergovernmental commission.” He noted that North Macedonia has sided with all European Union restrictive measures against Russia since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, which has affected mutual trade.

Zykov said that since 2022, when bilateral trade turnover stood at $495 million, foreign trade between the two countries has plunged threefold, with Russian exports falling fivefold. Russia, in response, placed North Macedonia on its list of unfriendly countries and suspended participation in the intergovernmental commission, whose last — ninth — meeting was held in November 2019, with a meeting of co-chairs following in June 2021. “Obviously, the resumption of the commission’s activities does not appear possible under the recent level of relations between the countries,” Zykov concluded.

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