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Russian ambassador notes decline of US-centered world order

The roots of the current conflict are not in Ukraine, says Anatoly Antonov

NEW YORK, June 18. /TASS/. The current crisis did not originate in Ukraine, it was brought about by the decline of the US-centered world order, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov wrote in his article for Newsweek.

"The situation in Ukraine is critically tense. More and more countries are getting involved into the cycle of events in Eastern Europe. Negative consequences of the crisis of European security in various manifestations are rapidly spreading around the world," the Russian embassy quoted Antonov as saying.

"The global nature of what is happening shows that the roots of the current conflict are not in Ukraine. This is the decline of the American-centric world order. To be more precise the collapse of the U.S. attempts to sustain hegemonic role and proclaim itself as a "guiding star" for all countries," the ambassador wrote.

According to the Russian diplomat, the US ruling class has miscalculated when it ignored Russia as a vital factor in the global system.

"Forerunner of the crisis is the neglect of the U.S. and their allies of the national interests of the Russian Federation. Lack of foresight in such approach was evident from the very beginning," the Russian embassy quoted Antonov as saying.

"Euphoric after the collapse of the Soviet Union, local elites convinced themselves that they won the Cold War. Some pundits even talked about "the end of history," which was supposed to evolve into liberal democracy. With such distorted perception of reality, the American ruling class made a series of grave miscalculations. They boil down to one thing: ignoring the role of our country as a backbone factor of the world order," he wrote.

In his words, "in the early 1990-s, Russia was weakened and at a crossroads." "This was not the first time in our history, but with every crisis, our state grew stronger and the nation became mobilized, he continued. "It is enough to look at the world map to understand our country cannot be ignored. Yet the U.S. authorities decided to dispute this obvious fact and started to aggressively impose 'democratic' values on us, even though those ideals are often alien to Russians. They began to interfere in Russia’s domestic policy and pose national security threats to us, coming closer and closer to our borders".