MOSCOW, January 18. /TASS/. The United States lacks the strength to contain Russia and China, so the West has decided to rally together to meet this goal, Russia’s top diplomat Sergey Larvov said on Wednesday.

Addressing a press conference on the results of Russian diplomacy in 2022, he said, "In its pursuit of dominance, largely in order to contain Russia and China, the United States does not have the resources, so they have taken the course they are now on - rallying all of their Western allies to to help them meet this goal." This, Lavrov said, is further evidence that they have come to realize that they are running out of firepower to counteract the objective historical trend toward global multipolarity, which is in full swing.

The United States "has enslaved Europe, forcing it to serve the goals of its dominance, and similar policies are being used toward Japan," Lavrov said. According to him, the US will likely try to involve New Zealand and Canada in these alliances.

"They have approached South Korea, too. <…> Of course, we and the Chinese can see how, in pursuit of this dual goal of containing Moscow and Beijing, the West has worked to disrupt our relations, and how attempts are being made to defeat us and later persuade Russia to be a partner of the West," Lavrov emphasized. He slammed the irrelevant scenarios being developed by some analysts under which the West would then kindly lift its sanctions, while Russia would, at the very least, not interfere, or, ideally, help it contain China.

Speaking about China, Lavrov said the East Asian economy was much more deeply integrated in current globalization processes. "Its economy is infinitely larger, and its foreign exchange reserves are immeasurably greater, too. Overcoming its dependence on the West is much harder for China than for Russia," the Russian foreign minister added.