In 2018, Russia’s relations with Western countries severely deteriorated against the backdrop of numerous scandals and sanctions. In an interview with Sputnik on the eve of 2019, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, spoke about whether we should wait for further alienation, about Moscow’s possible response to Washington scrapping the INF Treaty, the price of a potential conflict between Russia and the USA, about presidential elections in Ukraine, as well as the situation around the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Syrian Arab Republic.