MOSCOW, May 17. /TASS/. French President Emmanuel Macron feels like a US vassal but cannot do anything about it, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Tsargrad TV, published on the Foreign Ministry’s website on Wednesday.

Earlier, the French leader alleged that Russia had suffered a geopolitical defeat in Ukraine, and is starting to become dependent on China.

"Macron must be feeling helpless because, for years, he has been <...> talking about the European Union’s strategic autonomy. He feels like a vassal of the United States and he’s uncomfortable with that. Kudos to him for that, but he won’t be able to do anything about it," Lavrov pointed out.

He noted that the fact that Russia has been expanding its relations with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, India and China since 2001 did not mean that Moscow has "turned away" from the West. "It was the West that turned away, having forced its interests [on everyone else]. When our relations with Western countries went downhill, the relative weight of our Eastern-oriented policy objectively grew. Especially since, regardless of its proportion [in Moscow’s foreign relations in general], the overall scope of our relationship with China is at a record high level," the top diplomat said. However, in Lavrov’s words, it took Russia a long time to develop its cooperative relationship with China.

He also said that Russia had always been a Euro-Pacific power and that Moscow had always been ready to cooperate "with all those who were prepared to do so based on mutual respect and benefits." "When the West was ready for equal cooperation, there seemed to be bright prospects for the creation of a common economic, humanitarian and security space stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific," the Russian foreign minister emphasized.

"I believe that, for our part, we need to continue pursuing our declared policy. We are open to cooperation with everyone," Lavrov concluded.