MOSCOW, December 27. /TASS/. Moscow won’t stoop to demeaning itself and ask the West to remove its illegitimate unilateral sanctions, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

"We have never asked anyone to lift sanctions against us," Lavrov stressed. "We will not go with our hat in hand to anyone," the top diplomat vowed.

Russia has never asked the United States not to consider it as an enemy, the diplomatic chief noted. The position of Moscow was always that Russia and the United States "have no compelling reasons" to be enemies, Lavrov said. "We will neither pursue them nor have we done so. We do not request that these laws [recognizing Russia as the enemy and applying sanctions] be repealed," he added.

The "anti-Russian mayhem" that is running rampant in the West right now is a kind of unifying factor for Western nations, the top diplomat said. Russia should "just forget about it" and focus on the domestic production of everything needed, Lavrov noted. "We are already self-sufficient as far as food is concerned," he added.