UNITED NATIONS, January 23. /TASS/. Russia is well acquainted with the various pressure tactics that representatives of the United States, Great Britain and certain other European countries resort to in order to corral other nations’ votes in support of anti-Russian resolutions at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told CBS News in an interview.
"It is not important for us who was voting what way, because all these votes, I know how the Americans and the Brits and some Europeans are getting those votes," Lavrov said, commenting on the issue. "I have many friends in New York and when these resolutions were voted [on], I asked (participants in UNGA meetings - TASS), 'Why did [you] vote this way?' And they told me, you know, being a bit ashamed, 'You understand that I have worked here for 10 years, [and] my kids are in Stanford [University] and before the vote they (US and British representatives - TASS) came to me and said, 'Don’t forget about that your kids are studying there and <…> that your bank account is at such-and-such bank,'" the top diplomat explained.
When asked by the CBS interviewer to clarify whether he meant that "most of these countries [at the UNGA] were pressured by the United States" to vote for anti-Russian resolutions, Lavrov stated unambiguously: "Not most, all of them."