Russia may downgrade diplomatic relations with the US
(Baonghean.vn) - Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on November 9 that Washington's actions could force Moscow to downgrade diplomatic relations or even sever ties.
“We are really experiencing a serious crisis in relations, the likes of which we have never seen before. We need to carefully adjust and verify the steps we will take to prevent further escalation. Our leadership encourages the State Department and other federal government agencies to act in this way, that is what we are instructed to do. However, we have seen the Americans taking a series of irresponsible and escalatory steps in relation to Ukraine, and not only there,” the senior Russian diplomat stressed in an interview with RTVI.
"That is why, if I look at Washington's current pattern of behavior from this angle, I do not rule out anything. The level (of diplomatic relations) could be downgraded and the severance of diplomatic relations could also happen," he added.
However, Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov affirmed that Russia has no plans to initiate the severance of diplomatic relations with the US. “We believe that diplomatic relations are a component of international issues that need to be taken care of, because otherwise we will lose all that remains of civilized channels for sending messages to each other,” Mr. Ryabkov said.
In this regard, he pointed out that November 16 will mark 90 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the United States. "Our relations have gone through various stages, even a period of alliance and brotherhood in the fight against the common enemy, Hitler's Germany. Then there was the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the period of détente. We have seen a lot," the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister noted.
The senior diplomat also pointed out that Russia will always respond to any challenges and provocations from the US. Mr. Ryabkov emphasized: “I think the Americans now know us and watch how we firmly and consistently defend our interests in all areas.”
On the same day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the US spends more than $200 million an hour to pay off the national debt, so it will soon run out of paper to print money. He was commenting on his US counterpart John Kirby's statement that the US had spent 96% of the money allocated to Ukraine since the beginning of 2022, when the long-standing tensions with neighboring Russia turned into armed conflict. When a reporter suggested that Washington could print money indefinitely unless the printing presses broke down, Peskov pointed out that there would simply be no paper left.
The US national debt now stands at about $33.6 trillion, after breaching the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling in January. Interest payments on the national debt will total $475 billion in fiscal year 2022, according to data released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) earlier this year. That's about $1.3 billion a day and about $54.2 million an hour. The CBO warned that the federal government's borrowing costs have risen rapidly over the past year due to a series of interest rate hikes and will continue to rise. The report added that over the next 30 years, servicing the national debt will become the largest expense in the federal budget, far exceeding health care and social security costs./.