Anti-Russian Sanctions Planned Long Ago, Unlikely to Be Lifted: Lavrov

• 05.30.2022, 09:52
•  EEU,  America,  World

© Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service/TASS

The West planned its anti-Russian sanctions long ago and is unlikely to lift them, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with France’s TF1 television channel on Sunday, TASS reports. 

"You said both sided are expelling diplomats. We have never expelled anyone. These sanctions, which are more like a hysteria (I would rather say an agony) were initiated by the West. The speed they were imposed with and their scope prove that they were not invented ‘overnight.’ They were planned quite a long ago. And these sanctions are unlikely to be lifted," he said.

"At least the United States is saying, not publicly, but in contacts with its allies, that when the whole thing is over the sanctions will stay in place," Lavrov noted, adding that they are not about Ukraine, which is used as an instrument, "a bargaining chip," but about containing Russia.

"It [Russia] is not letting the West to build a unipolar world Washington has proclaimed with Europe’s obedient consent. What will be Europe’s geopolitical benefit from it? I don’t know. Political analysts now say that from the point of view of future perspectives Europe will be the biggest looser."