The world is living in new geopolitical reality, with attempts by the United States and its allies to prop up the West’s dominant position in world affairs faltering, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said.
"In itself, the war unleashed against us is a geopolitical war…[The West seeks to] remove competitors. This is how we view the situation," Lavrov said Friday at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in an exclusive interview with RT Arabic.
"The denouement of this situation can only be achieved by bearing in mind that this is a geopolitical conflict, an attempt by the West, facing the agony of the epoch in which it dominated, to try to maintain its hegemonic position. This attempt has failed, we understand this very well," Lavrov said.
"The globalization of the West – under the leadership of the United States which was imposed on everyone using instruments which Washington and its closest allies continue to control...has already ended. And now the awareness of the need for the regionalization of development processes predominates. The processes which are now developing – developing especially rapidly in the context of the West’s reaction to our special military operation, when we accepted the challenge thrown before us, these processes unequivocally indicate that self-reliance and independence from any institutions connected to the West is becoming a major trend," Lavrov said.
West Lost Russia
Russia's approaches to cooperation with the West "changed a long time ago," and changed dramatically, according to the Russian top diplomat, with Moscow no longer depending on the West’s promises and agreements, which were presented to the Russian side as a chance to develop a constructive partnership.
In some areas, relations between Russia and the West haven't just worsened, but been suspended entirely, Lavrov said. "And I don’t know when this will all change. At the current historical stage, the West has lost Russia. I have no doubts about this. The sooner we get rid of the remaining illusions, the better for our own development," he stressed.
The foreign minister recalled remarks made by Vladimir Putin this week in a meeting with Russian war correspondents, in which the Russian president recalled the years Moscow had spent after the end of the Cold War trying to enter the Western "family of so-called civilized people," and offering "everything" – from joint missile defenses to possible Russian membership in NATO, only to be rebuked.
"The president very clearly outlined his assessment of the current situation. He showed, using numerous examples, how Russia, for many years after the Soviet Union had ceased to exist, sought to establish good, partnerly, strategic and in some areas even allied relations with the West. And all of this turned to dust, because the West was not ready for interaction based on equality. The West saw in us only a territory that needed to be developed and exploited, in some sense, in a colonial manner," Lavrov said.
The foreign minister said Moscow now has the “full understanding of the need to rely solely on ourselves, and to develop relations only with those countries which are ready for equality-based and mutually beneficial cooperation. Without leaders and followers, as we are now seeing in the West, where the Anglo-Saxons have simply lined up the rest of the collective West, to put it simply, and is using the situation they created in Ukraine – a war against the Russian Federation, to remove their competitors.”
Western 'Disrespect' for World Nations
The US and UK leaders of the Western bloc view Russia as a threat, just as they view China as a threat, but are simultaneously removing their allies in continental Europe as competitors, Lavrov noted –pointing to the dramatic downturn being faced by countries like Germany after the shutdown of economic ties with Russia.
Efforts by the West to bully the world into submission to condemn Russia are not only unsustainable, but signal tremendous "disrespect" to non-Western nations, according to Lavrov.
“But the fact that practically not a single state from the global majority, or as we say now, from the Global South, has joined the sanctions, shows that these attempts at pressure are not producing any results,” the foreign minister summed up.