Western officials mulling additional sanctions over Russia’s hostilities toward Ukraine are reinforcing anti-Russian bigotry, according to Moscow’s top diplomat.
“[T]he Russophobic connotations there are obvious,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. “We will patiently defend our position, wait until our partners realize that such policy is a dead end.”
The G-7 summit, featuring diplomats from the seven leading industrialized democracies, rebuked Russia for undermining “the rules-based international system” through an array of aggressive actions. The formal communique from the G-7 focused on “interference in countries’ democratic systems” as well Russia’s annexation of Crimea and destabilization of eastern Ukraine — the conflict that prompted Russia’s expulsion from the bloc, previously known as the G-8, in 2014.
Western diplomats meeting in Toronto threatened to impose additional sanctions on Russia if President Vladimir Putin’s government doesn’t cut support for the Russian-led separatist fighters in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
“Given Russia’s responsibility in the conflict, we urge Russia to stabilize the security situation in the Donbas without delay,” the top diplomats of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States said in a communique. “We recall that the duration of Donbas-related economic sanctions is clearly linked to Russia’s complete and irreversible implementation of the Minsk Agreements. These sanctions can be rolled back only if Russia truly fulfills its commitments, but we also stand ready to take further restrictive measures should Russia’s actions so require.”
While denouncing the results of the meeting, Russian diplomats also tried to downplay the significance of the G-7.
“I will make a bold statement saying that in the absence of the G-8, the G-7 is increasingly irrelevant,” said Vladimir Chizhov, Russia’s envoy to the European Union. “So even if the G-7 today decides to re-instate the G-8 and re-invite Russia, we’ll think twice about whether to join.”
