If the United States continues to put pressure on Russia, it could move to a policy of “active containment” of Washington, the Russian Foreign Ministry warned. Similar statements have been made more than once by the United States and NATO. As the Kremlin noted, since the end of World War II, Moscow and Washington have been balancing between containment and direct confrontation.
“We will not abandon the constructive agenda in relations with the United States, regardless of their sanctions. But we cannot implement this agenda alone. If the US policy remains the same, if it maintains this pressure and pressure as a key element, it means that our side will pursue a policy of active containment of the United States in all directions,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told RIA Novosti.
As the Deputy Minister noted, this policy will include countering sanctions and US attempts to influence internal processes in Russia.
According to him, under such circumstances, the Russian side will convey to the world community the idea of a multipolar world and the existence of an alternative to the American diktat, the policy of consolidating “sound forces” in the international community to counter US foreign policy and information aggression.
Google News!Ryabkov drew attention to the fact that the “American narrative” had long since lost not only elements of correspondence to reality, but also signs of common sense.
“I don’t remember any more vicious and out of touch assessments and perceptions than those promoted by the American propaganda machine through government-controlled media,” the deputy minister said, calling this a reflection of fundamental hostility towards Russia. He assured that Moscow will oppose this.
On the same day, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced the need for NATO to conduct a dialogue with Russia and at the same time restrain it.
“Dialogue with Russia should be based on force. Therefore, we have a two-way approach. We need containment and defense, but also dialogue. Even if we do not believe in improved relations with Moscow, we must be able to manage this complicated relationship, ”Stoltenberg said in an interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
According to him, it is necessary to minimize the risks. He called the dialogue with Russia important, despite all the discrepancies.
Stoltenberg also reiterated that Russia is pursuing an “increasingly aggressive” policy. “We should not be naive about Russia’s intentions,” he stressed. At the same time, the secretary general of the alliance did not specify what exactly he means by these intentions.
On the eve, the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov, during the opening ceremony of the second stage of the “Library of the Military Historian” at the headquarters of the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO), said that after World War II, Washington’s attitude towards Moscow was always between containment and direct confrontation. According to him, Russia still feels this ideology on itself.
He commented on a copy of a telegram from US diplomat George Frost Kennan, which was sent from Moscow to Washington in 1946, which was handed over to the library. In it, Kennan called for a tough policy towards the Soviet Union. As Peskov noted, along with the 1946 Fulton speech of the British ex-Prime Minister Winston Churchill, this telegram became the foundation for the American worldview and the US satellites in relation to the USSR and Russia.
“This is not an attitude of friendship and partnership, to our regret. This is an attitude, at best for us, of containment, <…> and, at worst, of direct confrontation. And no matter what happened, no matter what reboots and overloads took place, no matter what periods of romanticism were in our relationship, this ideology of Kennan and Churchill dominated the attitude that we felt and continue to feel on ourselves, ”Peskov noted.
The Kremlin spokesman, speaking about the world leadership of the United States, stressed that in some areas it is obvious, in particular, in the economic one.
At the same time, Peskov called leadership in deciding the fate of the peoples of other countries and in changing political regimes an attempt to claim hegemony, since in this regard “leadership has already shown its failure.”
