MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/. The role of the dollar in the global community is weakening, because people’s trust in the greenback is plummeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with RBC TV.

"News articles have already appeared in the Western press, including German ones <...> that many are already thinking: "Do we need to trade widely in dollars?" Saudi Arabia already wants to trade in yuan, not in dollars. This process cannot be stopped, <...> the role of the dollar will fall, trust in dollar has been steadily plunging," the Russian top diplomat predicted.

Lavrov stressed that the United States is solving "momentary opportunistic, albeit important geopolitical tasks" but in the long-term they are "sawing the branch, they’re sitting on."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in Ukraine, stressing that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories. Western countries responded to the actions of the Russian authorities by slapping sanctions on physical and legal entities. After that a number of foreign companies announced the suspension of their activities in Russia.