The West has launched a “total hybrid war” against Russia, and Moscow is ready to respond, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, has stated in his address to the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy.
“The collective West has declared a total hybrid war on us, and it is difficult to predict how long this all will last, but it is clear that everyone will feel the consequences of it, without exception,” Lavrov said.
He noted that Russia was doing everything to avoid a direct collision, “but once we are challenged, certainly, we accept it.” The Minister also reminded that Russia is quite familiar with sanctions, as they have been almost always imposed on the country “in one form or another.”
“What is surprising is the absolutely cave-like, Russophobic surge that has occurred in all so-called ‘civilized countries’. Political correctness, decency, rules, and legal norms are simply discarded; the culture of abolishing all Russian is applied, any hostile actions against our country, including direct robbery, are allowed,” Lavrov stated.
According to the Minister, the West is no longer perceived as the ideal of freedom and democracy, “and with its predatory actions, its countries have dispelled the reputation of reliable partners.”
“Today Westerners are ready to counteract Russia, as it is now customary to say, ‘to the last Ukrainian’. At first glance, this is a very convenient position, especially for the United States, which conducts processes from overseas, and at the same time weakens Europe, freeing its markets for its goods, technologies, military-technical products […] At the same time, the EU is gradually merging with NATO in security matters, ‘falling under NATO’ that, in turn, is ‘louder and louder voices its global ambitions,'” the diplomat noted.
Lavrov drew attention to the fact that the EU is finally losing signs of independence, sacrificing the quality of life of Europeans and fundamental interests in favor of the US, “according to the very unipolar world order.”
World order change
Russia’s Foreign Minister noted that Russia, China, the US, and “all others” understand that today the question is being decided whether the world order will become truly fair, democratic, and polycentric, or whether this small group of countries will be able to impose on the international community “a neocolonial division of the world” into those who consider themselves exceptional and the rest who are destined to fulfill the will of the elect.
He emphasized that nowadays all countries capable of pursuing an independent policy are under attack by the US.
“Those who disagree will be punished. It is clear that not only Russia [will be punished]. Especially since we will hit back,” Lavrov warned.
He also mentioned that in the spirit of the Monroe doctrine, the US wants to dictate what standards Latin America should live by, while the question is whether Americans today are able to actually follow the key principle of the UN Charter, which states that the UN is based on the sovereign equality of states.
NATO’s Defense Line
According to Lavrov, if you listen to the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, as well as the Americans and the British, “then the line of defense, which in the Cold War passed along the Berlin Wall between two military blocks (concrete and imaginary) and has been moving east five times since then, then they are already declaring through the mouth of Stoltenberg, Liz Truss and others that NATO has a global responsibility to solve security problems, primarily in the Indo-Pacific region.”
“That is, the next line of defense will be shifted, as I understand it, somewhere in the area of the South China Sea,” Lavrov assumed.
As the Foreign Minister noted, such statements clearly refute the thesis persistently imposed by the West that NATO is a defensive alliance, and the expansion of the alliance is a defensive process that does not threaten anyone.
“The idea is being held that NATO, as the vanguard of the community of democracies, should replace the UN in matters of world politics, at least subordinate this policy to itself, and the management of the global economy should be taken to the Group of Seven, where the extras needed by the West at one time or another will be graciously invited,” Lavrov said.
Russia’s place in the future world order
The demonopolization of the world economy may occur in the near future, and at the moment, the place of Russia, “and everyone else in the future architecture of the world order” is being determined. Further rapprochement with like-minded people of the Russian Federation outside the “golden billion” is an inevitable process, “and it is of a mutual nature,” the diplomat assures.
Lavrov noted that Russian-Chinese relations are currently the best in their entire history, a particularly privileged partnership is developing with India, a strategic partnership is being built with Algeria and Egypt. He also noted that relations with the countries of the Persian Gulf, as well as with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America are reaching a new level.
Ru-Main, 16.05.2022
Source: TASS
