MOSCOW, May 18. /TASS/. Politicians in Western states should take stock of the price their economies will pay for anti-Russian sanctions during the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told an online lecture for students of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.
"We don’t recognize US sanctions and we largely don’t pay heed to them. They are no less detrimental to the economies of the United States and the European Union countries, which imposed restrictions under Washington’s pressure, than to us," Ryabkov said.
Western politicians should mull over whether it is worth worsening business situation in their countries and depriving people of jobs amid the economic crisis, which is obviously inevitable, the senior diplomat said.
According to Ryabkov, although the US is at the epicenter of the pandemic, some politicians there are still focused on the anti-Russian policy. "Even in such conditions, they are thinking how to accuse Russia and invent new sanctions against us instead of how to help their own citizens. This echoes the Cold War thinking and certainly this is the result of the current domestic political struggle and election campaign."
The senior diplomat noted that the fact that Russian-US relations have fallen hostage to internal political rivalry in the United States is a familiar phenomenon. "As the next presidential election in the US due on November 3 is approaching, the new outbursts of anti-Russian manifestations cannot be ruled out. The Americans are unlikely to benefit from this behavior of their politicians. I want to emphasize that we have never asked and are not requesting to lift sanctions against Russia," he noted, recalling that today some 314 Russians individuals and 496 Russian legal entities have been targeted by US restrictions.
US-China rift
Even when the coronavirus pandemic in the world is over, US-Chinese political tensions will remain high, Sergei Raybkov believes.
"I do not think that even when the COVID-19 subsides and the world situation begins to return to normal we will see an easing of political rifts between the United States and China. Regrettably, the US counterparts must have developed the delusion that in the current circumstances, in the current period in history they have laid their hands on extra resources and that certain opportunities have opened up for trying to address certain geopolitical tasks on the terms they find the best," Ryabkov said.
The senior Russian diplomat stressed that the pandemic had brought about a serious escalation of tensions in US-Chinese relations and accelerated the processes that had been observed before it.
"As we can see, the United States has stepped up all-out pressure on China. There is not a single high or top priority issue on the international agenda not complemented <...> by political or psychological pressure on China from our US counterparts," Ryabkov said.
He underscored that China never missed a chance to retaliate and demonstrate a new level of harshness in its rhetoric. Clashes between the two countries take place on various international platforms, including the World Health Organization.
Ryabkov pointed out that the plans for using the coronavirus situation for undermining Russia’s and China’s positions on the international scene were futile. "We have no covert agenda with China. We have no intention to contrast our cooperation to anybody or anything, but we see this dialogue as a major resource for gaining a firmer foothold and enhancing security in various dimensions," he said. "If the United States really hopes to take advantage of the pandemic to harm China’s and Russia’s positions in the world, I hope its calculations are wrong.
In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China.
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 4,815,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 316,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 1,863,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.