Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Western countries of waging a “total war” against Russia, its people and its culture, reports TASS.
“The West has declared a total war on us, declared a total war on the entire Russian world, no one is hiding this now. It comes to the point of absurdity: to the abolition of the culture of Russia and everything connected with our country. Under the ban of the classics: Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin. Figures of national culture and art, who today represent our culture, are being persecuted,” he said.
“You can say that this situation will last for a long time,” the Russian minister said at a time when Western powers stepped up sanctions against Moscow after its invasion of Ukraine.
“We must be prepared for the fact that it revealed the true attitude of the West to those beautiful slogans that were put forward 30 years ago, after the end of the Cold War, about universal values … We now see what the price of these phrases is,” he concluded.
“The US and its satellites are doubling, tripling, and quadrupling their efforts to counter Russia, using a variety of means, from unilateral economic sanctions to deeply lies-based propaganda broadcast by the world media.” Lavrov lamented, referring to “unprecedented Russophobia.”
He spoke out against the so-called “cancellation culture”, arguing that the West had banned Russian classics. Many Western cultural institutions have ceased cooperation with Russian state institutions or imposed bans on the activities of artists who support the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Former chapter Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation stated that the West would feel the consequences of a hybrid war against Russia. “It is difficult to predict how long this will all last, but it is clear that the consequences will be felt by everyone without exception,” he threatened.
According to Lavrov, Russia did everything possible to avoid a collision, but “the challenge has already been thrown.” He was also surprised by the “absolutely cavernous, Russophobic outburst.”
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