Lavrov Korosi
© RIA Novosti/MFA RussiaRussian FM Sergey Lavrov • UNGA Chair Csaba Korosi
New York • September 21, 2022
The main cause of the worsening situation in the world is the "persistent desire of the West led by the United States to ensure its global dominance," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday in an exclusive interview with Newsweek. This endeavor is "impossible for obvious reasons," Lavrov added.

"Those whom we believed to be trustworthy economic partners have chosen illegitimate sanctions and a unilateral break-off of business ties," Lavrov told the magazine, referring to the US and EU.

Lavrov, who is in New York this week for the 77th UN General Assembly, also discussed the impact of the Western embargo on the Russian economy - and their own. The sanctions appear to be a double-edged sword:
"Increasing prices and decreasing incomes are seen in many European countries, as well as energy shortages and threats of social upheaval. The routine benefits of civilization become the privilege of the rich. This is the price that ordinary citizens pay for the anti-Russian policy of the ruling elites."
Lavrov told Newsweek:
"Affordable Russian energy had enabled EU industry to compete with American companies, but it looks like this will not be the case anymore, and it has not been our choice. If people in the West want to act to the detriment of their own interests, we cannot keep them from doing that.

"After the West wrecked what took decades to build practically overnight, I do not think that in the foreseeable future they will be able to restore their credibility as business counterparts."

"Russia will continue working with those partners who are ready for equal, mutually beneficial cooperation, who have not been affected by anti-Russian hysteria. And they constitute the vast majority of the international community."
Lavrov said Moscow's relationship with China, for example, is
"characterized by deep mutual trust" and maintaining that strategic partnership is "an absolute foreign policy priority. Washington and its 'satellites' are still living in the day before yesterday, thinking in terms of unipolarity. They cannot accept the fact that the modern world is no longer West-centered. And it will never be again."