WASHINGTON, December 20. /TASS/. The United States has questioned a statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin who said Moscow was not interested in taking anyone over.

"I think a statement like that has to be treated at the height of irony," Spokesperson for the US Department of State Ned Price said at a briefing on Monday as he claimed that Russia was seeking right now "to violently absorb" its "other peaceful next-door neighbor." According to the US diplomat, these statements he said Washington had heard since the earliest days of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine ran counter to Moscow’s actions. "We have seen the [Belarusian President Alexander] Lukashenko regime essentially cede its sovereignty, cede its independence to Russia. We saw Russian forces mass inside what should have been sovereign Belarusian territory. <…> I think the track record speaks much louder than anything these two leaders can say," Price said, referring to Monday’s talks between Putin and Lukashenko.

Putin told a news conference following his meeting with Lukashenko in Minsk on Monday that "Russia is not interested in taking anyone over. There is simply no point in it.".