Attempts by the West to suppress competition and protect its privileged position at any cost are the main drivers of international tensions today, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.
The top Russian diplomat spoke with domestic and international reporters in Moscow to outline the work of his department over the last year, and to answer questions about issues the country’s diplomats are dealing with.
Lavrov described the source of the confrontation between the West and multiple other nations, including Russia, as a clash between the US and its allies on one side, who are attempting to force a poorly-defined “rules-based order” onto other countries, versus parties that respect the UN Charter as the foundation of the world order created following World War II.
Essentially, the West wants to suppress any nation that does not submit to its policies or is better in any sphere, Lavrov stated.
The ‘collective West’ – as Russia calls the US and nations that follow Washington’s orders rather than protect their own interests – is deluding itself by hoping that its post-Cold War dominance can survive, Lavrov said.
”Any sound politician should become aware that in the past 30 to 35 years times have dramatically changed,” the diplomat argued, adding that “the opposition to the diktat of the West” has now reinstated itself in new economic powerhouses.
Dissenting nations, including China, India, and Russia, strive for a more just multipolar world order, Lavrov said. They want a system where players can compete with each other on a level field and respect each other’s interests, he added.
The US, however, defends a system that gives it an unfair advantage and does not shy away from anything in doing so, Lavrov claimed. Washington issues sanctions “even against its own allies without the slightest hesitation, when they start thinking that someone else would produce something cheaper and be more efficient at international markets,” he added.
Washington’s methods are not unlike those of the ruling Communist Party in the USSR, which “decided everything on its own and just sent down its orders,” Lavrov asserted.
Lavrov cited deindustrialization in the EU following the economic bloc’s decoupling from Russian supplies of cheap energy as an example of the US harming its loyalists for its own benefit.
“They [the Americans] in a headlong manner gave a go-ahead to perpetrate terrorist attacks that destroy the energy wellbeing of the EU and they prod the Ukrainian clients now to take out the TurkStream as well,” the diplomat said.
Gas pipelines built to carry Russian fuel under the Baltic Sea to Germany were destroyed in September 2022 by explosions. Moscow says the US had most to win from that, since it cornered the European liquefied natural gas market thanks to it.
Investigators in the EU have failed to identify the culprit, but Western media reports have claimed that the Ukrainian military was behind the bombing. Germany’s meek acceptance of the damage to its economy was exemplified by the virtual silence of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Lavrov said.
This week, the Russian military reported a Ukrainian drone attack on a compressor station, which pumps gas under the Black Sea to Türkiye and several consumer nations in Europe.
Biden trying to spoil everything before Trump arrives - Lavrov
The outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden is working hard to create problems for President-elect Donald Trump before he arrives at the White House, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.
Lavrov made the statement during a press conference on Tuesday when asked about the sweeping new sanctions against the Russian energy industry, which Washington announced last week.
The curbs target two major petroleum producers – Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegaz – as well as their subsidiaries, including Naftna industrija Srbije (NIS), which handles deliveries of Russian oil to Serbia and neighboring European nations. Related insurance providers, as well as more than 30 oilfield service companies and over 180 vessels used to deliver Russian oil, have also been slapped with restrictions.
According to the foreign minister, the move made by the Biden administration simultaneously targets Serbia, Russia and Trump, who expressed a readiness to resume dialogue with Moscow in order to try to find a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict.
“The Democrats have such a manner in American politics to spoil the whole thing for the next administration before the end of their mandate,” he said.
Lavrov reminded that the same thing had happened before Trump’s first term when outgoing Democratic President Barack Obama “banished 120 [Russian] diplomats from the US and arrested five sites of [Russian] diplomatic property” just three weeks before his successor’s inauguration.
Regarding the Biden administration, the minister suggested that after not winning reelection “from the moral point of view, you should just wait before the inauguration [of Trump on January 20]; you should understand that your people want a different kind of policy.”
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