Comments come a week ahead of Greek prime minister’s controversial visit to Moscow but Tsipras insists country can be ‘a bridge’ between Russia and west

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Setting the tone for a controversial visit to Moscow, the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, went out of his way to court Russia on Tuesday as Athens continued to argue over reforms demanded in return for aid from the EU and IMF.

Barely a week before his 8 April talks at the Kremlin, the leftist leader described western sanctions against Russia as a “road to nowhere”, saying his new government would seek to strengthen ties with the country.

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“This is a possibility for … giving a new impetus to the Russian-Greek relations which have very deep roots in history,” he told the state-owned Russian news agency Tass. “We should see how our nations and countries can really cooperate in many spheres – the economy, energy, trade, agriculture – and find out where we can help each other.”

As a member of the EU, Greece, he believed, could act “as a link and a bridge” between Russia and the west. “We disagree with sanctions,” the premier said, adding that penalties enforced over the crisis in Ukraine had hit Athens’ cash-strapped economy hard. “The new European security architecture must include Russia,” he added, reiterating that Greek support for EU trade restrictions could not be assumed.

Tsipras’ comments came as his energy minister – and effective No 3 in cabinet – Panagiotis Lafazanis also attempted to win over Russian officials during two days of back-to-back talks in Moscow.

Before departing Athens, Lafazanis, who heads the militant wing of Syriza, Tsipras’ far-left party, denounced Europe for asphyxiating the debt-stricken Greek economy. Following discussions with Alexei Miller, chief executive of the Russian energy giant Gazprom, he announced that major Russian companies would participate in a Greek tender for deep-sea oil and gas exploration. Moscow supplies 57% of Greece’s natural gas.

Tsipras brought forward his trip by a month, underscoring the significance his government gives to the fellow Orthodox state. Top Russian officials, including the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, have publicly said Moscow would “positively examine” a Greek request for aid if one were ever made.

The governing coalition has raised the spectre of Athens turning to Russia, China or even the United States, in the event of negotiations with the EU and IMF ultimately failing. Amid renewed scepticism over the Greeks’ ability to remain in the euro zone, the anti-austerity government has spent most of its two months in power fruitlessly trying to unlock £7.2bn ($7.7bn) in financial assistance from its bailout programme.

“If there is no deal, and if we see that Germany remains rigid and wants to blow Europe apart, then we will have to go to Plan B,” said Panos Kammenos, who heads the leftist-led administration’s junior rightwing partner.

International creditors have sought to play down the brinkmanship on display in Greece.

Addressing reporters in Berlin – which has provided the bulk of Athens’ £240bn ($257bn) emergency rescue funds – the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said Tsipras’ Russian visit didn’t worry her. “[We] have also been to Moscow and we’re still members of the European Union and stand united,” she said after holding talks with her French counterpart, President François Hollande.

Both leaders urged Greece to work as fast as possible towards a credible economic plan.

Analysts similarly doused fears that an economically straitened Russia was capable of undermining European unity by exploiting the continent’s most indebted state. “Speculation that Russia might be an alternative source of funding [for Greece] is groundless,” said Dr Thanos Dokos, director of Athens’ leading thinktank Eliamep. “It would be unwilling and incapable of providing financial assistance at the necessary scale.”

But Greece’s turn east has caused jitters in Washington, where officials speak of a potential geopolitical threat to Nato’s fragile south-eastern European flank.

Tsipras’ Syriza party, a conglomeration of far-left groups including Marxists and greens, has traditionally strong Russian connections.

President Vladimir Putin was quick to send a warm congratulatory note when the populist movement was swept to power in January, and the Russian ambassador was the first foreign dignitary to be received by Tsipras.