MOSCOW, November 11. /TASS/. The United States is escalating the situation in the Middle East to serve its energy interests and get a lever of pressure on India and China, Russian presidential aide Nikolay Patrushev said in an interview with the Kommersant daily.

"Another escalation is looming in the Middle East and other strategically important regions with the Americans’ connivance. The American Navy’s presence in the Gulf and its so-called actions to ensure safe navigation, including strikes on the Houthis, are only a smoke screen to hide plans to whip up tensions in the region," said Patrushev, who is also Russia’s Maritime Board chairman.

According to the Kremlin aide, this way the United States is seeking to exert pressure on China and India, which are interested in fuel shipments, and also "to create conditions for the redivision of the energy market."

After the West’s grip on global power began to slip, Washington has been seeking to stir up the energy market, including by means of destabilizing sea shipments, he noted.

"But the Americans seem to have forgotten history. A tanker war already happened in the Gulf in the 1980s, nearly wrecking the entire global insurance sector and entailing a global energy crisis. The [US President Ronald] Reagan administration had to spend a lot to avert it. And it is difficult to say whether the current US administration, with its astronomical public debt, will be able to cope with a new crisis," Patrushev warned.

He recalled that England once proclaimed itself the Mistress of the Sea but the burden proved to be unbearable. The country "simply overestimated its strength and in the long run went broke, losing its naval might, which accelerated the collapse of the British Empire," he noted.

"Just look at the once mighty British Navy. The British Navy is understaffed by nearly a third. It is not prestigious to serve there. Signs of declining naval power are seen now in the United States. They have a huge fleet on paper, but, in fact, what they have is low morale, chronic personnel shortages, a lack of repair capacities and workers at shipbuilding enterprises," he noted.