Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Washington’s “sanctioning savagery knows no bounds” in reference to the recent seizure by the United States of a presidential plane owned by Venezuela.
“Once again, total disregard for international legal norms has been demonstrated and, invoking the ‘right of the strongest’, another signal has been sent that the United States, in its opinion, can dispose of the sovereign property of another State,” the senior diplomat commented on Tuesday, quoted in the Telegram channel from the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Zakharova described the US government’s action as a “robbery,” noting that this is not the first aircraft that Washington has seized from the South American country. “Earlier this year, a Venezuelan transport plane was confiscated and held at the behest of the US in Argentina,” she explained, referring to the Emtrasur plane that the White House confiscated and dismantled earlier this year at a Miami airport.
“But the current seizure is carried out with a special imperial arrogance and a pretension to moralizing. It is a demonstration for everyone: no one and nothing – be it business assets, bank reserves, real estate or means of transport – is safe from the plunder of sanctions,” he argued.
“Global Monroe Doctrine”
In this regard, he denounced that the United States is trying to impose a “global Monroe Doctrine” with the support of the “collective West” based on the violation of international laws to impose a “new world order.”
“Washington is acting in the style of Bill Sykes, a vicious and ruthless criminal from Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist, a classic of 19th-century English literature (we hope that those in the White House have read or at least heard of this author). It is extremely important for us that this character’s way of thinking does not prevail in world affairs,” Zakharova stressed.
The Russian diplomat finally expressed Russia’s support for its “Bolivarian friends” in their “legitimate demands to recover what was stolen from the Venezuelan State.”
“We also support them in their determination to continue to firmly defend their independence and sovereignty,” he said.
