Democracy being degraded as US seeks global hegemony by any means – Russia on Trump sanctions

Published time: 6 Apr, 2018 19:20Edited time: 6 Apr, 2018 21:47

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FILE PHOTO © Yuri Gripas / Reuters

US democracy is being degraded as Washington is using all means to maintain its global hegemony, even those measures that harm the American people, Moscow has said, reacting to the new round of anti-Russian sanctions.

“The American democracy is clearly being degraded. [Its only] desire is to ensure by all means that US global hegemony remains, including pressuring countries that conduct an independent line and speak [with] their own voice, unlike Washington’s NATO allies,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

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Moscow said the new US restrictions will be faced with “a firm response,” urging Washington to “swiftly give up on the illusion that one can communicate with [Russia] using the language of sanctions.”

“Politicians in Washington have reached such a level of absurdity that they are trying to target our companies that have long maintained business ties with the US and have thousands of jobs depending on them. In other words, they strike ordinary Americans, their own voters, and destroy economic cooperation in a self-defeating manner,” the statement reads.

The Foreign Ministry pointed out that US authorities were rapidly “renouncing what they themselves used to hail as fundamental ‘American values.’”

The seizure of Russian diplomatic facilities in the US has demonstrated that “the right to private property, once sacred for Americans, has become an empty phrase,” the ministry said. “Washington actually has enlisted itself among the enemies of free trade and fair competition” by using sanctions to achieve its goals in foreign markets, it added.

The crackdown on broadcaster RT was a “graphic example of the desire to silence a source of alternative information, to restrict freedom of speech,” while the “medieval” torture of inmates in Guantanamo and US secret prisons around the globe has proven Washington’s disregard for human rights, the statement read.

READ MORE: US sanctions target Russian people - Embassy in Washington

Earlier on Friday, the US Treasury announced more anti-Russian sanctions, with 24 high-profile businessmen and politicians, as well as 14 companies being added to the existing blacklist. According to Washington, Moscow is to be punished for “a range of malign activity around the globe,” including its reunification with Crimea, involvement in the Ukrainian conflict, support of President Bashar Assad in Syria, as well as “attempting to subvert Western democracies, and malicious cyber activities.”

Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, the head of the National Guard Service (Rosgvardiya) Viktor Zolotov and Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs Konstantin Kosachev were among those sanctioned by the US. Restrictions were introduced against aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska and his companies Basic Element, En+ Group, Rusal and Russian Machines. Russian defense corporation, Rosoboronexport, was also added to the blacklist.

Placing individuals and companies on the sanctions list means the US government can freeze all their property within its jurisdiction. Any US persons are prohibited from doing any business with them.