Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Wednesday of being responsible for the conflict in Ukraine and the European Union (EU) of having started a “geopolitical confrontation” with Russia.
Putin was speaking in Moscow at a ceremony where he received letters of accreditation from 17 new foreign ambassadors to Russia, including the US’s career diplomat Lynne M. Tracy, EU Ambassador Roland Galharague of France, and the one from Denmark, Jacob Henningsen.
“Relations between Russia and the United States, on which the security and stability of the world depend, are unfortunately going through a deep crisis,” Putin stressed during the ceremony held in the Kremlin.
“I cannot stop saying that the support of the United States (…) for the coup in Kiev in 2014 led, in the end, to the current crisis in Ukraine,” the Russian president declared in reference to the revolution. 2014, also known as the Dignity Revolution, which began with intense demonstrations in Kiev’s Maidan Square against the pro-Moscow government of then-President Viktor Yanukovych, and led to his deposition.
Putin added: “We have always stood for the establishment of Russian-American relations based exclusively on the principles of justice, respect for each other’s sovereignty and interests, and non-interference in internal affairs. We will be guided by them in the future.” future”.
Shortly afterwards, upon receiving the letters of accreditation from the new EU ambassador to Moscow, Roland Galharague, Putin also criticized Brussels’ behaviour.
“The European Union has started a geopolitical confrontation with Russia,” Putin accused in his speech in the Kremlin, considering that Russian relations with the European community bloc, which has provided fundamental support to Ukraine, “have deteriorated greatly in recent last years”.
Such statements illustrate the current diplomatic crisis between Russia and Western countries over the war in Ukraine, which Russian troops invaded on February 24 last year and which continues, more than a year later, with an impossible to determine number of victims and which increases day by day. .
Although not severed, diplomatic relations between Moscow and the West have deteriorated like never before since the end of the Cold War.
The presentation of the credentials of the new US ambassador also comes a week after the arrest in Russia of the US journalist Evan Gershkovich, accused of “espionage” rejected by the White House.
Lynne Tracy, a Russian-speaking career diplomat who has worked in Russia and several other former Soviet republics, was officially appointed last September by US President Joe Biden to this highly sensitive position, replacing John Sullivan, who was appointed by the former US head of state. , Donald Trump, and who left office last summer for family reasons.
In fact, the diplomat assumed her new duties several weeks ago.
In late January this year, when he went to the Russian Foreign Ministry to present a copy of his accreditation letters, he was met by protesters chanting anti-American slogans.
The new US ambassador inherits particularly complicated files, beginning with the war in Ukraine and the fate of American citizens imprisoned in Russia.
At the ceremony to present the credentials of the new ambassadors, Putin also took the opportunity to urge Denmark to support the Russian proposal to create an international commission to independently investigate the “sabotage” of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, which were rendered unusable last year. . due to an explosion in some of its pipelines in the Baltic Sea.
“We hope, Mr. Ambassador, that the Danish side will support our proposals to establish an independent international commission to investigate all the circumstances of what happened,” Putin told the head of the diplomatic delegation in Copenhagen, Jacob Henningsen.
Last September there were explosions in the exclusive economic zones of Sweden and Denmark that damaged the pipes of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, built by Russia to transport its gas to Germany.
Both countries consider it a deliberate act, but Russia used stronger terms, calling the explosions “sabotage” and a “terrorist act.”
The Kremlin insisted that the investigation must be “transparent and inclusive”, demanding that Russia also participate in it, not just Sweden, Denmark and Germany.
Source: TSF
