NEW YORK, December 18. /TASS/. American authorities are still guided by Cold War logic in their policy toward Russia, Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said in an article published in the American magazine Newsweek.
"Washington seems to need to constantly assert itself through competition with Russia. It looks as if the 'ghost' of the Soviet Union is still haunting the corridors of power in the American capital, and the ‘Сold War' has not ended at all," he wrote.
In the context of the conflict in Ukraine, the diplomat noted that it was much easier for Washington to consolidate society inside the US and in the Western camp as a whole around the image of a "foreign enemy that undermines the values of the democratic world". "At the same time, one can always shift the blame for its own problems and miscalculations onto the Russian Federation and use Russia to justify its unprecedented military spending," Antonov added and suggested that "under the pretext of the developments in Ukraine, the administration is ruining mutually beneficial ties between Russia and Europe, making the latter fully dependent on Washington."
The envoy noted that for decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US deliberately worked "to create an anti-Russian foothold on the Ukrainian territory" through governmental and non-governmental means. According to the diplomat, it "encouraged hostility towards everything Russian."
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a special military operation in Ukraine following a request for assistance from the leaders of the Donbass republics. After that, the US, the EU, the UK, as well as a number of other countries imposed sanctions against Russian individuals and legal entities. In addition, Western countries began to supply arms and military equipment to Kiev worth billions of dollars at this stage.