Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticized the West in a recent interview, saying that “all the agreements the West ‘sponsored’ (with respect to Ukraine) did not prevent it from turning Ukraine into ‘anti-Russia’.”
In an interview that celebrated filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov, Lavrov stressed that Russia’s commitment to national interests and the protection of ethnic Russians in Crimea, Donbass and Novorossiya came at a cost.
US sanctions against Russia
The Russian Foreign Ministry shared Lavrov’s interview on X as the US announced sanctions against Russia’s biggest oil producers, the Trump administration’s strongest bid yet to pressure President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.
The Finance Ministry blacklisted state oil giants Rosneft PJSC and Lukoil PJSC due to Russia’s “lack of serious commitment to the peace process to end the war in Ukraine,” it said in a statement on Wednesday. She said the move would reduce Russia’s ability to generate revenue for its war machine.
“I Don’t Wanna Be Friends With West”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: “When it became clear that we will preserve our dignity based on our national interests and do not want to be “friends” with the West at the expense of forgetting about the Russian people in Crimea, Donbass and Novorossiya (after many years of honest attempts to do this), all the agreements that the West (including these people “sponsored” with us in this regard) – sought respect for our rights. not to prevent it from making a hard bargain and turning Ukraine into an anti-Russia, a kind of land-based aircraft carrier that creates constant threats to the Russian Federation.
“You know what happened next: the coup, which went in the face of agreements to strengthen national unity, and the Minsk agreements, on which no one was going to act, followed by our attempts to convince our Western “partners” to sign security guarantees for Ukraine and for themselves, as well as for the Russian Federation, so that things are clearly clear for everyone,” Sergey Lavrov said.
Recalling Russia’s launch of its “military operation” against Ukraine, Sergei Lavrov said: “When we were forced to launch a special military operation, it turned out that the West used our foreign relations to hinder our development.
“They said, ‘Here’s some basic technology for you,’ and you give us oil, gas, titanium and aluminum, and we’ll give you everything else. It turns out we’re dependent on them,” he said.
“He never trusted the West”
Sergei Lavrov said that from now on and forever, “we should never have trusted the West. History taught us this, starting with Tsarist times, then during the Soviet era. Especially in the last years of the Soviet Union, the West prepared a lot of ‘bait’ for us.”
“In areas critical to the survival of the state (security, technology and food), we must be self-sufficient or seek partners who are not infected with the Western ‘disease’ of living at the expense of others and forcing everyone to listen to them,” he said.
Russia is pinning its hopes on the BRICS and SCO partnership
Lavrov called for confidence in partners such as BRICS and the SCO, combining diplomacy with filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov and cultural advocacy.
He said: “We have such partners in the SCO and BRICS. Michalkov also promotes the topic of new global alliances in his Besogon program and covers every topic that resonates with me as an individual, diplomat and foreign minister.”
Speaking about Russia’s approach to international cultural cooperation, Lavrov reaffirmed: “We are ready and willing to cooperate with anyone who does so on the basis of equality and mutual respect, not through diktat,” linking his diplomatic vision to cultural diplomacy in frameworks such as BRICS and the SCO.
At the end of the interview, Lavrov connected Russia’s global strategy and Michalkov’s artistic philosophy
“Against all odds, a new world is being created. This is an era in itself. Besogon promotes the understanding that creating a just world overnight is not a realistic approach. This is an era that requires sustained effort, a struggle in every sense of the word, to ensure that the world exists in the form agreed upon in the UN Charter,” he said.
(With input from agencies)
