Washington’s attempts to shift responsibility for the world’s food situation to Russia are absurd, said Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov. This is how the Russian ambassador to the USA, Anatoly Antonov, commented on the statements of the head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Samantha Power, on Friday.
“Attempts to shift all responsibility to Russia are absurd. As always – a lot of lies. The statements are unprofessional, without proper analysis and understanding of the situation, or rather without a desire to understand the essence of the problem,” said the Russian diplomat, whose words were quoted on his Telegram channel by the embassy’s press service.
Antonov said that the current situation with the shortage of agricultural products is due to several factors: the effects of the pandemic, disruptions in the supply chain, inflation, accelerated urbanization, accumulated soil “fatigue” and climate change.
“A separate place in this row is occupied by the “array” of illegal anti-Russian sanctions. The restrictions were deliberately created to confuse and intimidate foreign companies, to make their cooperation with Russian enterprises as difficult as possible,” the ambassador pointed out.
Nevertheless, Russia continues to make efforts to strengthen food security, Antonov stressed.
“Since 2003, we have been contributing to the fund of the UN World Food Program. We act as a reliable and responsible supplier of products on the world agricultural market. We actively work with our foreign colleagues. During the recent tour of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to African countries, our partners confirmed the rich, mutually beneficial, and fruitful nature of the meetings. I remind you that we are talking about countries such as Egypt, the Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Ethiopia,” said the head of the Russian diplomatic mission in the United States.
“On the other hand, Washington seems unable to come to terms with its absence from the quadrilateral initiative on the safe transportation of grain and food from Ukrainian ports since July 22. Significantly, American representatives prefer not to talk at all about the memorandum signed on the same day between Russia and the UN to facilitate the export of Russian agricultural products,” Antonov continues.
“For our part, we can only welcome the resumption of agricultural supplies via the Black Sea. We hope that the Ukrainian side and its supporters in the West will not try to undermine this process. Stop pretending to be “holier than thou” when it’s about prioritizing supplies for starving developing countries. After all, as far as we know, two of the three cargo ships that left Ukrainian ports this morning were headed for Europe,” the ambassador concluded.
The US only pursues its geopolitical interests
China and Russia should jointly deal a blow to the “devilish” democracy aimed at asserting the global hegemony of Western countries, Zhang Shuhua, director of the Institute of Political Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview with TASS.
“China and Russia’s positions on human rights and democracy differ from Western standards. China and the Russian Federation should step up their rhetoric in the international arena on these issues,” he stressed. “The West is conducting diabolical policies. It is necessary to give him firm resistance, to strike back together.”
The rights of a country’s population can only be protected if its national sovereignty is respected, the expert pointed out. As an example, Zhang pointed to Ukraine, where the West is persistently trying to establish order according to its views.
“The attempts of the US and other Western countries to impose their democracy on others, to make a color revolution, are by no means a new phenomenon. The American model is imposed so that Washington can manipulate other countries, and it is not at all done for the rights of humans or development,” adds the Chinese expert.
According to him, the US is deliberately creating chaos in the world, such as contributing to the growth of terrorism in the Middle East. The director of the institute recalled that it was the American administration that was responsible for the instability in Afghanistan, which for 20 years was plunged by the West into a state of internal turmoil and bloody anarchy.
Zhang points out that the US only pursues its geopolitical interests and is not at all interested in the fate of other countries. “Democracy in the US has degraded and lost its former spirit. It has become a tool, for example, to establish Washington’s control over Hong Kong to sow turmoil in mainland China at the expense of this special administrative zone,” he explained.
