Lavrov: West Prepared To Starve the World for Its Rules-Based Order, but a New Architecture Is Emerging

April 30—In a broad-ranging interview with Xinhua published today, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov charged that with the insane sanctions regime it has imposed on Russia, the West is “ready to jeopardize the energy and food security of entire regions of the globe to satisfy its geopolitical ambitions.” There is no other explanation for the unrestrained anti-Russian sanctions which the West imposed at the very start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine on Feb. 24, Lavrov said. Moreover, he added, Western ruling circles “aren’t even embarrassed” by the fact that their sanctions are already hurting ordinary people in their own countries, producing declining economic trends in the U.S. and the EU. (https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1811525/)

Lavrov expressed confidence that Russia will weather the domestic turbulence caused by sanctions and will be able to stabilize its economy through a number of measures. But, he emphasized, because Russia is also a responsible player on the international market, it continues to “scrupulously fulfill its obligations under international contracts on export deliveries of agricultural products, fertilizers, energy carriers and other critical products. We are deeply concerned about a possible food crisis provoked by the anti-Russian sanctions,” he said, and every effort is being made to ensure deliveries of essential goods, such as food, to Asian, African, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries to ensure their socioeconomic development. (emphasis added)

Addressing Xinhua’s question as to whether there is a new Cold War, Lavrov pointed to the “persistent desire” by Washington and its satellites “to impose a U.S.-centric model of the world order to replace the UN-centric architecture and international law formed after World War II, with their own rules-based order.” This is nothing new, he explained, pointing to NATO aggression against Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq, “attempts to destroy Syria,” as well as the unleashing of color revolutions as seen in the 2014 coup in Ukraine. It is the case that any nation that attempts to pursue an independent course in their domestic or foreign policy is “crudely suppressed.” And it’s not just Russia. Look at how “bloc thinking” is being imposed in the Asia-Pacific region, with the U.S.’s “pronounced anti-China tendency.” The U.S. also tries to dictate how Latin American nations should live.

Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, Lavrov explained, should therefore also be seen as contributing “to the process of freeing the world from the West’s neocolonial oppression heavily mixed with racism and a complex of exceptionalism.” The collective West’s efforts to oppose the “natural course of history and solve its problems at the expense of others are doomed.” Why? Because there is a multipolar world, consisting of several decision-making centers. Asian, African and Latin American countries are quickly developing. “Everyone is getting real freedom of choice, including when it comes to choosing their development models and participation in integration projects.” So, “the faster the West accepts the new geopolitical situation, the better it will be for the West itself and for the entire international community.”