MOSCOW, December 7. /TASS/. The United States is trying to persuade Russia's closest allies not to support Moscow in the situation of Western sanctions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the Primakov Readings forum on Wednesday.

"We see how [the West] tries to throw our reliable partners off the right course. The Americans are shamelessly going around the world, many of you have probably come across this, saying literally the following: ‘Russia lost, don't take the losing side, we will win (not Ukraine, Americans), and don't worry, we know that you suffer some damage from these sanctions, <...> we will compensate you more than everything’. They say this, I know it for a fact, including to our closest allies, without hesitation," he said.

The top diplomat noted that there were a number of countries on whom this had "some psychological impact" and who might succumb to Washington. "That's their choice. But in the long term, even in the medium term, this choice will be a loser for economic development, their own sovereignty," he stressed.

The Russian foreign minister recalled that US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman had persuaded New Delhi to join the sanctions. "And at a press conference she said: ‘Yes, we had this conversation, and we have to explain to India what is in its interest’. That's how [the US] treats its great power partners, let alone the smaller countries," Lavrov summarized.