“WE consider it as provocative, full of false and groundless accusations and black propaganda against Russia.”
The Russian Embassy in the Philippines on Thursday hit back at colleagues from 19 diplomatic missions in Manila who openly supported Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
The Russian Embassy said Moscow should not be faulted for the economic crisis being felt around the world after Russian troops invaded Ukraine.
The Embassy was reacting to the accusation by the 19 ambassadors and charge d’affaires, led by the United States and European Union, that the consequences of Russia’s “illegal war” are being felt around the world, including the Philippines, with increases in prices of fuel, food, fertilizer and other essential commodities. It said poverty incidence in the Philippines was made worse, while it is still reeling from the economic shock brought by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We would like to remind our colleagues that the global energy and food crisis was caused primarily by macroeconomic mistakes and Western sanctions, which became the main trend in European politics even before the start of Russia’s special military operation to protect the Russian-speaking population of Donbass,” the Russian Embassy said in a statement posted at its Facebook account.
The Embassy shifted blame to western countries for the energy crisis. It said the west imposed an “abrupt” transition to green energy “instead of a well-thought-out smooth energy transition.” A number of European countries are also making “blatant politicization” of energy cooperation, the Russian Embassy claimed.
Aside from the US and EU, ambassadors and charge d’affaires from Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom also signed the joint statement showing solidarity with Ukraine on its Independence Day.
The Russian Embassy also echoed Kremlin’s position that the war in Ukraine is justifiable and legal, citing Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.
Article 51 states that the UN recognizes the inherent right of individuals or states for self defense “if an armed attack occurs.” Russian President Vladimir Putin had justified the invasion of Ukraine as “protecting” Russian people in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine from threats of genocide.
The Russian Embassy said accusations that Russia’s military action “undermines international rules-based system” is an “obvious attempt to carry out the substitution of concepts.”
“We have long been observing the desire of Western countries with manic concern to destroy international law and instead establish a world order based on some rules.… It implies the dictatorship of one group of countries over the other, in this case the collective West led by Washington over the rest of the world,” it added.
The Embassy also took exception to the statement of 18 countries and the EU regional bloc that they are supporting Ukraine’s fight for its “democratic future.”
Such declaration shows the West’s “hypocrisy” in imposing its “uniform” and “western standards of democracy,” said the Embassy.
“It would be interesting to hear more from the ‘advocates’ of international law who joined the above-mentioned statement about their ‘non-interference’ in the internal affairs of such states as Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, which were bombed ‘in the name of democracy.’
“Ukraine is now unfortunately on a par with these long-suffering countries and before our eyes is turning into a Nazi terrorist state with the active assistance of Washington and European countries,” the Embassy said.