Russia is concerned over foreign nations' attempts to use the COVID-19 pandemic as an instrument for settling geopolitical scores, including for putting forward accusations against Moscow and Beijing, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th May, 2020) Russia is concerned over foreign nations' attempts to use the COVID-19 pandemic as an instrument for settling geopolitical scores, including for putting forward accusations against Moscow and Beijing, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Thursday.
"We have special concerns about attempts to use the topic of coronavirus as a pretext to neglect international law, to grab tactical benefits, to settle scores with geopolitical rivals and disliked governments," Ryabkov said at en event of the Valdai Discussion Club.
The deputy foreign minister expressed regret over the fact that the common threat did not result in softening geopolitical differences, but, on the contrary, exacerbated the ideological and informational confrontation.
"It is surprising how facing a common threat some countries, instead of searching for common solutions, are trying to find the "guilty" ones. In our view, the fact that the North Atlantic camp has lost its political, economic and humanitarian leadership leads to a strong temptation to solve its problems at the expense of an external enemy," Ryabkov said.
He pointed, with regret, to Western nations' attempts to present Russian medical aid to certain countries as a tool to gain political weight.
"An attempt to present Russia's and Chinese medical assistance as an attempt to use humanitarian aid in order to strengthen geopolitical influence is another display of Russophobia and Sinophobia, actively cultivated recently in certain western states. We are hearing hastily rewritten accusations of hybrid operations, of spreading fake news about coronavirus," Ryabkov said.
Ryabkov's statement comes against the background of both Western media claims of Russia's misreporting of the COVID-19 death toll accusations Russia has firmly refuted, and of Washington's recently introduced legislation authorizing President Donald Trump to put sanctions on China over its alleged failure to cooperate on COVID-19.
