MINSK, 18 May (BelTA) – The sanctions of the United States and the collective West as a whole are nothing new, and the only question is whether a state subjected to them has enough willpower to respond to such challenges, official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova told the On Point online project on BelTA's YouTube channel.
“We [Russia and Belarus] are not the only countries that have been on the receiving end of sanctions,” said Maria Zakharova.
She recalled that Cuba has been under the U.S. sanctions for many decades. “And look how the attitude of the United States to Cuba changes depending on the political situation, which is important for them at some point in history,” Maria Zakharova said.
Another striking example is Venezuela where an unelected head of state was actually appointed in addition to imposing sanctions. “An unelected leader was appointed a pseudo-head of state, they thought it was appropriate to communicate with him and to receive him in the White House. I'm talking about Guaidó. At the same time, they didn't want to have anything to do with the real, elected leader of Venezuela, Maduro. This is a well-practiced trick of the USA. Just look at how fast Washington opened its eyes to reality all of a sudden: a delegation from Washington was urgently sent to Venezuela when the energy problem confronted the Western world,” Maria Zakharova said.
According to the official representative of the Russian foreign ministry, China is one of the most illustrative examples of the countries that were targeted by sanctions in recent history. There was an attempt to stir up the Chinese society from the outside using the internal situation. “The Tiananmen Square events. The collective West encouraged and supported these destructive processes. Yet, China defended its right to sovereignty, independence and its own development path despite the sanctions, and restrictive measures, and so on. The history has showed that the decisions taken in Beijing at that time were absolutely right and they paved the way for China's current economic growth and strengthened the country's international standing,” Maria Zakharova said.
“They were very hard on China. Therefore, we should not think that we are going through something new. Unfortunately, this has already been done before. The only question is whether each state and people have enough willpower and spirit, patience to overcome all this. And, of course, dignity,” she added.
