MOSCOW, January 31. /TASS/. The West is using the US dollar as a weapon that is already being wielded or could potentially be used for political purposes, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a session in Moscow of the first meeting of the BRICS sherpas and sous-sherpas, the names given to senior officials in charge of organizing major summit meetings.

"The dollar is, which is already obvious to everyone in my opinion, either [the West’s] functioning or potential weapon [of choice] for resolving political issues," the top Russian diplomat said.

He stressed that the US dollar and dollar-denominated grants issued by international financial institutions are being actively used "as instruments of coercion." "Unilateral sanctions undermine established industrial supply chains that are convenient and effective, and undermine the prospects of their development, above all, in Asian, African and Latin American countries," Lavrov noted. "And instead of broad humanitarian cooperation [among nations], the [West’s] so-called ‘cancel culture’ is being imposed [as punishment for non-compliance with arbitrary Western ‘rules’]," he added.