By destroying ties with Russia, Brussels is playing into the hands of London and Washington, Russia’s deputy foreign minister says
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Mikhail Galuzin © Sputnik / Press Service of the Russian Foreign Ministry
A senior Russian diplomat has accused the EU of falling victim to a US-UK ploy in Ukraine, and losing the chance to become an independent player in a multipolar world. Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin claimed that preventing Germany, France and Russia from banding together has long been a goal of Washington and its closest allies
“Due to political machinations of the US and Britain, the opportunity for constructive cooperation involving Russia, aimed at creating an independent center of power on the European continent, has been lost for decades,” the official said on Monday during an event in Moscow.
Galuzin referred to the 2014 armed coup in Kiev, and the ensuing escalation of Russia-Ukraine tensions, leading up to the military conflict last year. The diplomat said Ukraine is being used by Washington as “a tool, even a consumable” in its attempt to cling on to its world hegemony.
The sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines last autumn “vividly demonstrated the lengths to which those who are not interested in mutually beneficial cooperation between Russia and … European states would go,” the deputy foreign minister added.
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The pipelines, built under the Baltic Sea to deliver Russian fuel directly to Germany, were ruptured by powerful explosions on September 26. American journalist Seymour Hersh claimed the operation was ordered by US President Joe Biden, in an effort to lock Germany into a campaign to defeat Russia in Ukraine. The US has denied the allegation, and European nations investigating the incident have so far failed to identify a culprit.
Regarding the standoff with Russia, the EU “has been forced to leave behind all pretence at independence and unconditionally comply with the US course,” Galuzin stated. This decision has resulted in a “rapid decrease of the EU’s economic and political clout in the world and worsened the crisis trends in the EU.”
The deputy minister was delivering opening remarks during a Ukraine-themed event hosted by the Russian Historical Society. He claimed Western influence in Ukraine has included distorting the truth about the nation’s past.
“The current Ukrainian authorities are destroying everything that connected our nations in any way,” he claimed, expressing hope that historians can help to eventually find a way towards reconciliation.
