Moscow’s rivals are seeking to turn it into a pariah, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at an event in Moscow, February 10, 2023. © Russian Foreign Ministry / AFP
The West is attempting to use the Ukraine conflict to portray Russia as a “rogue state” in the eyes of the world, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday. He stressed that the strategy has not been successful.
“The US and its satellite states are waging an all-encompassing hybrid war that they have long been preparing for, and are using Ukrainian radical nationalists as a battering ram against us,” Lavrov said in a speech in the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma.
The statement came the same day that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled proposals for a new sanctions package against Russia, including additional export bans and measures to prevent the bypassing of restrictions.
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Lavrov said that the West’s efforts to isolate Russia have failed because Moscow continues to develop relations with partners in other areas of the globe. He added that nations that have refused to back the “unprecedented” sanctions make up the majority of the world’s population.
The countries of the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, and South America “don’t want to live in accordance with the West-centric order,” the Russian minister stated. “So it makes perfect sense why three-quarters of the world’s countries have not joined the anti-Russian sanctions and have a reasonable view regarding the situation in Ukraine.”
China and India are among the major economies that have refused to impose restrictions on Moscow. Denis Alipov, Russia’s ambassador to New Delhi, said on Tuesday that sanctions “had an opposite effect” and facilitated more trade and closer cooperation between Russia and India.
Beijing, meanwhile, has accused the US of fueling the Ukraine conflict and trying to weaponize the world economy for its own benefit.
