(MENAFN- Live Mint) Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov slammed the West in a recent interview, saying that "all agreements that the West 'sponsored' [with regard to Ukraine] did not prevent it from turning Ukraine into an "anti-Russia".

In an interview celebrating filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov, Lavrov emphasised that Russia's commitment to national interests and the protection of ethnic Russians in Crimea, Donbass, and Novorossiya came at a cost.

US sanctions on Russia

Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs shared Lavrov's interview on X as the US announced sanctions on Russia's biggest oil producers, the Trump administration's strongest bid so far to pressure President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.

The Treasury Department blacklisted state-run oil giant Rosneft PJSC and Lukoil PJSC because of“Russia's lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine,” according to a statement Wednesday. It said the move will degrade Russia's ability to raise revenue for its war machine.

'Ðid not want to be friends with West'

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said,“When it became clear that we would uphold our dignity based on our national interests and did not want to be“friends” with the West at the expense of forgetting about the Russian people in Crimea, Donbass, and Novorossiya (after many years of honest attempts to do so), all the agreements that the West“sponsored” in this regard (including with us) -- seeking respect for the rights of these people -- did not prevent it from driving a hard bargain turning Ukraine into an anti-Russia, a kind of a land-based aircraft carrier for creating constant threats to the Russian Federation.”

“You know what happened next: a coup that flew in the face of the agreements to strengthen national accord, and the Minsk agreements, which no one was going to act upon followed by our attempts to convince our Western“partners” to sign security guarantees for Ukraine and themselves, as well as for the Russian Federation in order to make things unambiguously clear for everyone,” Sergey Lavrov said.

Recalling Russia's launch of its“military operation” against Ukraine, Sergey Lavrov said,“When we were forced to launch a special military operation, it turned out that the West had taken advantage of our foreign relations to hinder our development.”

“They said, 'Here are some basic technologies for you,' and you give us petroleum, gas, titanium, and aluminium, and we'll provide you with everything else. It turned out we were dependent on them,” he said.

'Never trusted the West'

Sergey Lavrov said that from now on and forever,“we should have never trusted the West. History taught us this starting with the Tsarist times, then during the Soviet era. Especially in the final years of the Soviet Union, the West put out lots of“lures” for us.”

“In areas that are critical to survival of the state (security, technology, and food), we must be self-sufficient or seek partners that are not infected with the Western 'disease' of living at the expense of others and coercing everyone into obeying them,” he said.

Russia pins hope on BRICS and SCO partnerships

Lavrov urged trust in partners like BRICS and SCO, linking diplomacy with filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov cultural advocacy.

He said,“We have such partners in the SCO and BRICS. Mikhalkov also promotes the topic of new global alliances in his Besogon programme and covers every topic that resonates with me as an individual, a diplomat, and a foreign minister.”

Speaking on Russia's approach to international cultural collaboration, Lavrov reaffirmed, "We are ready and willing to cooperate with anyone who will do so on the basis of equality and mutual respect, not through diktat," linking his diplomatic vision with cultural diplomacy within frameworks such as BRICS and the SCO.

Concluding the interview, Lavrov tied together Russia's global strategy and Mikhalkov's artistic philosophy

"A new world is in the process of being created against all odds. This is an entire era in and of itself. Besogon promotes the understanding that creating a just world overnight is not a realistic approach. This is an era that takes sustained effort, a battle in every sense of the word to ensure that the world exists in a form agreed upon in the UN Charter,” he said.

(With inputs from agencies)

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