Russia’s Lavrov: West Trying to Drive a Wedge Between Moscow, Beijing

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a joint press conference with his Nicaraguan counterpart following their talks in Moscow on March 30, 2023. (AFP)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a joint press conference with his Nicaraguan counterpart following their talks in Moscow on March 30, 2023. (AFP)
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Russia’s Lavrov: West Trying to Drive a Wedge Between Moscow, Beijing

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a joint press conference with his Nicaraguan counterpart following their talks in Moscow on March 30, 2023. (AFP)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a joint press conference with his Nicaraguan counterpart following their talks in Moscow on March 30, 2023. (AFP)

The West is trying to drive a wedge between Russia and China by talking about their unequal relations and Moscow's dependence on Beijing, Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview published on Tuesday.

Lavrov, speaking to the Argumenty i Fakty news website, also said the European Union's hostile stand towards Moscow means it had "lost" Russia. And Moscow intended to deal with Europe in a tough manner if necessary, he said.

Lavrov said 10 hours of talks last month between Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping had propelled the "strategic partnership" between Moscow and Beijing beyond "an exclusively bilateral context".

Putin and Xi professed friendship and pledged closer ties, including in the military sphere, during their March 20-21 summit, as Russia struggles to make battlefield gains in what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine. The West and Ukraine have condemned the invasion as an imperialistic land grab.

"Naturally we have a sense of comradeship and readiness to stand shoulder to shoulder in defense of each other's fundamental interests," he told Argumenty i Fakty.

China and Russia signed a "no limits" partnership accord in early 2022, just weeks before Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine. Beijing has refrained from criticizing Putin's decision and has touted a peace plan for Ukraine.

Lavrov said suggestions of an unequal relationship between Moscow and Beijing "have been exaggerated generally by unfriendly countries" for a long time.

"We see this as an attempt to cast a shadow on our successes, to drive a wedge into the friendship between Moscow and Beijing," Lavrov told the website.

Lavrov said the EU's poor relations with Moscow was a matter of its own making because of EU support for Ukraine in supplying the "criminal regime" in Kyiv with weapons and instructors.

"The European Union has lost Russia. But it is its own fault. It is the EU member countries and EU leaders who openly declare it is necessary to inflict, as they call it, a strategic defeat on Russia," Lavrov told the website.

"In reply to hostile steps, we will act in a tough manner if necessary, based on Russia's national interests and the principles of reciprocity accepted in diplomatic practice."



Trump, Harris Clash in Fiery Presidential Debate 

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (R) shakes hands with former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (AFP)
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (R) shakes hands with former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (AFP)
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Trump, Harris Clash in Fiery Presidential Debate 

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (R) shakes hands with former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (AFP)
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (R) shakes hands with former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (AFP)

Kamala Harris savaged Donald Trump as "extreme" and the friend of dictators, while the Republican branded her a "Marxist" in a bitter televised debate Tuesday that poured fuel on an already explosive US presidential election.

On hot-button issues ranging from abortion and race to the fate of US democracy, the two held their first -- and possibly only -- debate ahead of the November 5 election, with each hoping for a breakthrough in an agonizingly close race.

Trump, who only a few weeks ago had believed himself to be cruising to victory, reacted to pressure from Harris by raising his voice and resorting to the kinds of colorful invective and often meandering insults that he uses at his rallies.

Harris, 59, responded by looking on in amusement, then clearly got under his skin, declaring that she represents a fresh start after the "mess" of the Trump presidency -- and saying: "We're not going back."

The ABC News debate began when the Democratic vice president unexpectedly approached the Republican former president to shake his hand, before they took to their lecterns in the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Then the niceties ended.

Within minutes, 78-year-old Trump called her a "Marxist" and also falsely claimed that she and President Joe Biden had allowed "millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums."

Harris pointed out that Trump is a convicted felon, called him "extreme" and said it is "a tragedy" that throughout his career he had used "race to divide the American people."

One of their most jarring exchanges was on Trump's unprecedented refusal to accept losing to Biden in the 2020 election, before trying to overturn the result.

In front of the audience expected to run into the tens of millions of voters, Trump doubled down, insisting there is "so much proof" that he really won.

Harris turned to Trump and said that his own former security officials in the White House have called him a "disgrace."

"World leaders are laughing at Donald Trump," she said.

Trump would "give up" Ukraine to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, "a dictator who would eat you for lunch," she charged. "Dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again."

Another intense exchange was on abortion.

Trump insisted that while having pushed for the end of the federal right to abortion, he wanted individual states to make their own policy.

Harris said he was telling a "bunch of lies" and called his policies "insulting to the women of America."

- Harris mocks Trump rallies -

The last presidential debate in June doomed Biden's reelection campaign, after he delivered a catastrophic performance against Trump. Harris took over as nominee amid Democratic fears that Biden was too old and infirm to defeat the scandal-plagued Republican.

Harris has earned a reputation in past debates and while serving as a US senator for ice-cold put-downs and tough questions.

Her five days of intensive preparation appeared to pay off against Trump, perhaps the most brutal public speaker in American politics.

Trump has long defied political gravity by seeming invulnerable to usual attacks.

He has been convicted of falsifying business records to cover up an affair with an adult film star, found liable for sexual abuse, and faces trial on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election.

But Harris clearly needled him on one of his favorite, if less serious topics -- his trademark rallies.

Attendees, she said, prompting an angry retort, were leaving early out of "exhaustion and boredom."

At another moment where Trump appeared to be losing his cool, he talked at length about a debunked conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants have been eating local people's pets in Ohio.

"They're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats," he said before being corrected by the ABC News moderator that the authorities in the town of Springfield have said this did not happen.

With only 56 days left before the election, the intense spotlight was a rare opportunity for both candidates to shift the balance in what polls show is an almost evenly split contest.

And the debate was a key chance for Harris to introduce herself to more voters after only jumping into the race less than eight weeks ago, when 81-year-old Biden abruptly quit.