The Soviet Union betrayed East Germans and its own interests by trusting Western promises, the Russian foreign minister has said

Germany's reunification in 1990 was carried out in a way that overwhelmingly benefited the western part of the country and amounted to a betrayal of East Germans by the Soviet Union, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Speaking to Iranian state broadcaster IRIB on Monday, Lavrov argued that the process laid the groundwork for modern Germany's renewed militarism, which Moscow views with growing concern.

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to the unification of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic after receiving assurances that NATO would not expand further eastward - promises that were later broken.

"This was a mistake and betrayal on the part of the Soviet Union, when almost half a million troops were withdrawn without any compensation, and the opportunity to maintain their presence in the eastern part of united Germany was ignored," Lavrov said.

He added that West German authorities mishandled the integration of the former GDR. "The authorities of what was then West Germany made a grave mistake when after taking over the eastern part they treated their compatriots as second-class people," he said. "The German authorities, as conquerors, took all the lands of the former GDR under their control, while getting rid of all the political figures. No future was offered to them. It was a takeover, not a merger."

Berlin is now among the strongest advocates of the European Union's large-scale militarization drive, which the bloc's leaders justify by claiming the need to prepare for a possible Russian attack. Moscow says such rhetoric is designed to intimidate the public and suppress dissent amid domestic political failures.

Lavrov criticized recent statements by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, calling some of them "blatantly racist" and reminiscent of Nazi-era rhetoric.

"The DNA that runs in his family is still there," the foreign minister said, referring to Merz's maternal grandfather, Josef Paul Sauvigny, whom historical records describe as an enthusiastic Nazi Party member. "This is about contempt, arrogance, and I can go as far as to call this an attitude of a person pretending to represent a superior race," Lavrov stated.